5 Most Shockingly Stupid Anti-Drinking Ads

Won't they ever learn?  Kid's just laugh at these Public Service Announcements (PSAs).  My generation thought the anti-LSD PSA with the talking hotdog was ridiculous and I'm sure today's generation are laughing just as hard at the following:

From the April 1, 2010 issue of The Week:

5 most shocking anti-drinking ads

Shame-inducing alcohol PSAs only make American college students drink more, says a new study.  Good thing they're not watching these (far more brutal) international PSAs.

Anti-drinking ads aimed at college students often backfire, reveals a recent Northwestern Kellogg School of Management study. Ads that link drinking to "shame and guilt" may actually provoke viewers to imbibe more, say the researchers, who suggest that "positioning PSAs in less heavy-handed environments, such as a sitcom, could reduce resistance." Good thing Americans are not seeing these PSAs from overseas, where anti-drinking ads are routinely much harsher . Here, five of the most shocking: 

1. "Tequila Slammer"
With its shaky, Blair Witch Project-like camerawork, this 2010 ad — part of the £25,000 Cocktales government program aimed at youth in Derbyshire, UK — is a clear attempt to make the PSA "go viral." As so often in this genre, a fun night turns tragic. But this time, it's shot from the POV of a camera-wielding observer who himself seems far from sober:

2. The "anti-baby-swinging" ad
The producers of this controversial 2008 PSA from New Zealand "evilly sensationalized" it, alleges one blogger, by coopting its child-abuse theme from a viral video. A spokesperson for the New Zealand Alcohol Advocacy Council said it asked focus groups of parents whether the ad should be screened in prime time: "The uniform response was yes."



3. The key-wielding Canadian killer
This PSA, produced by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) takes a more metaphorical approach to highlighting the dangers of drink driving, and shows it's not just binge-drinking kids who get DUIs:

4. "Shame"The fact that this classic spot — produced by the Irish government in 2000 and originally shown in cinemas — begins with the soothing sounds of Fleetwood Mac and dreamlike slow-motion shots arguably makes its "hard-hitting and uncompromising" conclusion even more shame-inducing:

5. "Never"
The inevitable crash comes early in this 2007 PSA, produced by Australia's Transport Accident Commission, but the ad depends less on shock tactics and more on skillful emotional manipulation. It's the fall-out that stays with you, a cross-cut look at the impact a deadly crash can have on survivors — concluding with typically Australian bluntness:

Here's the anti-LSD PSA with the talking hotdog that I mentioned.   We saw it in 7th grade and were roundly scolded for laughing at it.  It's hilarious.  And it was extremely effective...at making everyone want to try LSD.

The Amethyst House of Mystery

State-mandated rehab for DUI offenders is a huge business.  These very profitable nonprofits lobby for, and receive huge amounts of taxpayer funding. They are virtually unregulated and unrestrained, and it's all perfectly legal.  In fact, it's condoned, all in the name of saving the poor victims of the "disease" called alcoholism.  These are the gateways to the coerced recovery industry--an industry that is largely blind to science and which makes billions of dollars a year, lining the pockets of mostly uneducated "experts such as "Licensed/certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors" (LADCs or CADCs) whose only required formal training for certification is a GED/High School diploma, 270 hours of classes or "training", and supervised "experience" (which can include filing and record keeping).

I'll post about these LADCs later, but I found them to be hardcore AA true believers:  all former alcoholics and fundamentalist Christians who believe alcoholism is a disease.  All DUI offenders suffer from this disease and the only cure is finding god (their god, the Christian one), praying, and following the twelve steps.  They are anti-intellectual, anti-science, intolerant and threatened by skepticism.  They drip with condescension, righteousness, stupidity, and anger.  They finally have some power (by the state and courts) and they validate their beliefs by breaking you and converting you to their religion (AA).  It is important for them to do this because their beliefs are all that they have.  They bottomed-out as drunks and drug-abusers, lost everything (including their dignity and self-respect), and rebuilt their entire psyches on the beliefs espoused by Christian Fundamentalism and A.A.  They are dangerous.

I'm sure a lot of people reading this think I have an axe to grind.  I do.  Not about being punished for my DUI.  I fully realize the danger I caused to society and understand I need to be either punished and/or rehabilitated.  The axe that I want to grind is being forced into a system of people like I describe in the paragraph above. 

Anyway, I diverge.  Let me tell you about the mysterious and very profitable New Hampshire court-mandated rehab industry:

One of the largest of these rehab corporations, Amethyst Foundation, Inc., happens to be the one I went to, here in the "live free or die" state.  All of this was a huge eye-opener to me, and it took a huge amount of digging to learn about it.  I suspect Amethyst Foundtion, Inc., and others corporations like it, are all making a great effort to keep a low profile.  (I can only imagine digging up the dirt on the larger topic of privatized correctional facilities, where drug rehab and AA are also deeply entrenched.)

So, I received the standard 1st offense D.U.I. sentence in New Hampshire:  a six month Administrative License Suspension and a nine month Criminal Court License Suspension, to run concurrently.  My nine month Criminal Court License Suspension was to be reduced to a three month suspension on the condition that I complete an Intoxicated Driver Intervention Program (IDIP) at a facility closest to my residence.

That sounded good to me.  I knew I wasn't an alcoholic.  The night of my DUI was the first time I had more than 2-3 drinks in the last six years.  I've gone weeks without any alcohol at all and didn't give a second thought of it.  Surely, I'd just quietly complete the IDIP program, and get my driving privileges back in six months.  I knew of friends that had gone through similar programs in other states and who had no problems.

According to Administrative Rule He-A 704 (based on Statutory Authority:  RSA 265-A:39), I had to take the IDIP classes at the facility closest to my residence or place of work.  The classes cost $460 and were held two nights a week for six weeks.  The facility was "Amethyst House" in Epping, NH.

I tried to learn more about Amethyst House.  All I could find on-line was a single stripped down website for Amethyst Foundation, Inc.  An address, contact info, description of the IDIP program, forms and photos were there.  What was strange was that there was no directory or any names listed.  I tried calling the phone number multiple times throughout the day, but always got a busy signal.  At 5:01 PM sharp no one picked up the phone.

Judging from the photographs on its website, the place looked like a dump:

I decided to do some investigating.

The Hoover's Business Directory listed Amethyst Foundation, Inc., and the name of two executives, Director Bob Kelley and Ellen Parker.  Apparently Amethyst has locations throughout the state; Salem, Portsmouth, Hanover, Claremont, and Epping.  Its Certificate of Revival of Incorporation, naming the Board of Directors and Officers, and place of business (Epping, NH) may be found here.

According to public financial records available at this site, Amethyst Foundation, Inc., of Epping, NH (Employee Identification Number 020363792), is a 509(a)(2) charitable organization whose activities include rehabilitating alcoholics, drug abusers, compulsive gamblers, etc...  It was ruled a 509(a)(2) nonprofit organization by the IRS in 04/1987.  For the tax year of 2006, they held $778,642 in assets and had an income of $1,134,922.  Organizations performing similar types of work, on average, held only $311,304 in assets and had incomes of $610,576.  According to this site, there are only 42 other 509(a)(2) organizations performing similar activities in the country.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is one, and is ranked as having the highest income for this tax period, at a whopping $41,775,641.  Amethyst Foundation, Inc., is ranked as the fifth at $1,134,922.

Amethyst Foundation, Inc.'s income for the fiscal year 2010 was $1,134,922, as indicated by their IRS Form 900.  On this form, the organization's stated mission was: 

"To disseminate information concerning the effects on human beings of ingesting ethyl alcohol and other drugs; to assist individuals in assessing their own personal relationships with alcohol; to identify those individuals with drinking problems and involve them in a[n] alcohol awareness school--the organization operates a court and state mandated school for driving while under the influence of alcohol."

A search of the public records indicates that the state of New Hampshire contracts with Amethyst Foundation, Inc., for significant amounts of money.  For the period from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011, Amethyst Foundation, Inc., along with two other 509(a)(2) organizations, Serenity Place and Tri-County Community Action Program, shared $751,400 in tax payer money in the form of sole source contracts (one contract for $455,000 and one for $296,400).  Amethyst Foundation, Inc., has a registered lobbyist with the New Hampshire Legislature, Edward DuPont.  He's doing a very good job.  For one year, Amethyst Foundation, Inc., shared nearly one million dollars in sole source contract money--money provided by New Hampshire residents.

And because of Amethyst Foundation, Inc.'s IRS 509(a)(2) status, all of this income is tax free!  

I thought my IDIP program was expensive until I saw the prices for others offered by Amethyst Foundation:

Phase II (for 2nd Offenders), a seven day residential program......$1,550.00 
.....of which Amethyst keeps $1,300.00.

WIDIP ("Weekend Intoxicated Driver Intervention Program").........$585.00 
.....of which Amethyst keeps $485.00.

MOP ("Multiple Offender Program")...........................................$1,550.00
.....of which Amethyst keeps $1,300.00.

Of the $460 fee for the IDIP class, Amethyst keeps $410.

The state of New Hampshire gets the crumbs as administrative fees.

Amethyst Foundation does a big business, as I was later to find out.  The classes filled up quickly.  A lot of the "customers" were from out of state.  In fact, a LADC told me many are celebrities.  I was told Amethyst Foundation was the only residential facility in New England.

So, we have a nice, very profitable, "non profit" corporation that pays no taxes and receives a huge amount of taxpayer funds.  How much they charge is determined, not by the market, but by the New Hampshire legislature.  They do a huge business and, with ever stricter DUI laws, will never lack for customers.  What a sweet deal.

Former MADD President Arrested For D.U.I.--Oh, The Irony!

From the Gainesville Sun:

Former president of MADD arrested on DUI charge

By Cindy Swirko
Staff writer

Published: Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 11:58 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 11:58 a.m.

A former president of the defunct local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving was arrested recently by the Gainesville Police Department on a DUI charge.

Debra Oberlin, 48, was arrested after she had difficulty on a field sobriety test. She registered a .234 and .239 on breath alcohol tests. Florida's legal limit for driving is .08.

Oberlin, a Realtor, had no comment when contacted Thursday by The Sun.

On Feb. 18 at 1:10 a.m., an officer spotted Oberlin driving erratically on Northwest 19th Street, swerving and crossing lanes, an arrest report states. Oberlin was pulled over in the 3600 block of Northwest 39th Avenue.

The officer wrote that Oberlin smelled of alcohol and had watery, bloodshot and dilated eyes. The report states that Oberlin told the officer she had four beers.

Gainesville's MADD chapter existed for several years in the 1990s before closing in 1996 because of lack of financial support. Oberlin was the chapter president for three years.

Oops!  What confuses me is why she lied and told the officer she had four beers.  That's more than enough to be over the legal limit (it takes only two).  And it certainly wasn't enough for the whopping .239 she blew.  I thought the president of MADD would be a little more knowledgeable about D.U.I. laws.  I hope she appreciates the strict punishment she'll get as a direct result of MADD's lobbying efforts.

My experience with the New Hampshire workers who run the Impaired Driver Intervention Programs (IDIP) suggest that they are mostly self-loathing, hateful, former alcoholic AA true-believers and religious fundamentalists whose mission it is to get you to admit that you are an alcoholic and get you to AA to find God and sobriety.  They are of low intelligence, gullible, rigid and inflexible thinkers, who are afraid of change.  They've been give some power by the state and want to flex it by bending you to their will and making you suffer as much as possible.

MADD, like AA, is a religious fundamentalist anti-alcohol movement.  The Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League spearheaded the constitutional prohibition effort. Groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) assume that mantle today.  They are a neo-prohibitionist organization founded on self-righteous anger and grief.  MADD wants to eliminate alcohol consumption entirely.  The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. "It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she says. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."  MADD is now the most powerful anti-alcohol lobbying group in the country. 

There are many good sites that accurately describe MADD and which include citations to record.  One is Dr. David Hanson's "Mother's Against Drunk Driving:  A Crash Course in MADD."  I've also posted some in the margin on the right.  (In general, don't trust Wikipedia for information on powerful groups like MADD or AA.  Their multitudes are no doubt constantly editing the pages, putting forth what they want you to read.  Only trust pages that cite to reliable sources for their information.)

Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions about the typical MADD member, but I doubt it.  When I look at Oberlin's mug shot, I see the same self-loathing, hateful, self-righteous, stupid stare I saw in all the people involved in New Hampshire's IDIP program.  It has been frightening and infuriating to be at the mercy of people like this.  Don't let it happen to you.  If it already has, read on and arm yourself for the battle ahead!