Trump: ‘Really Tough, Really Big, Really Great Advertising’ Will Teach Kids to Not Take Drugs

He Probably Thinks He Came Up With the Idea

President Donald Trump, who spent a good portion of his campaign promising Americans he would help end the opioid crisis which killed 64,000 people last year, also promised in July he would spend “a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.”

He lied.

Trump on Thursday announced he is declaring the opioid crisis a “public health emergency,” not a national emergency, which means he will not be investing any additional federal funds to help solve the crisis. And unlike a national emergency, a public health emergency is officially just 13 weeks, unless renewed.

But Trump doesn’t think the crisis is actually that big to begin with.

Despite reading off some important statistics in his Thursday afternoon announcement on the drug crisis, Trump also told America the problem is “really easy” to solve.

“One of the things our administration will be doing is a massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to want to take drugs in the first place because they will see the devastation and the ruination it causes to people and people’s lives,” Trump told his audience Thursday. 

The president, revealing just how poorly he understands the crisis, says it will be “really easy not to take” drugs.

“The fact is, if we can teach young people — and people, generally — not to start, it’s really, really easy not to take them. And I think that’s going to end up being our most important thing. Really tough, really big, really great advertising, so we get to people before they start, so they don’t have to go through the problems of what people are going through,” Trump added.

Like that’s never been tried before?

New York magazine’s Ed Kilgore offered this response:

Hey, Mr. President, I have an idea for a “really big, really great” ad slogan: JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS.

And here’s another one. Imagine someone holding an egg and saying: “This is your brain.” And then a pan, with the person saying: “This is drugs.” And here’s the cool part for kids: The egg is broken and poured into the pan. It sizzles. And the person says: “This is your brain on drugs.”

That’s all I’ve got for free.

Kilgore’s right.

Here’s one of the “This is your brain on drugs” ads from the 1980’s:

Here’s the “This is your brain on drugs” ad from 2016:

Clearly, three decades later, that really tough, really big, really great advertising didn’t solve the problem. 

Axios, which first reported Trump’s advertising remarks, notes “some estimate more than $9.3 billion is needed” to solve the opioid crisis.

Donald Trump just invested not a penny.

One last note: Earlier today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech telling Americans addiction “starts with marijuana,” which his false. He also came up with his own solution, telling Americans to “just say no” to drugs.

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