Stoner sloth’ anti-drug campaign gets reality check as medical experts walk away

National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre distances itself from
widely mocked NSW government ads which depict marijuana users as sloths

Calla Wahlquist
Sunday 20 December 2015 04.27 GMT

A leading drug research centre has distanced itself from the NSW government’s bizarre “stoner sloth” campaign, which attempts to warn teenagers against the dangers of sustained marijuana use by depicting them as disturbingly oversized versions of the South American mammal.

In a pyrrhic victory for the NSW government, the stoner sloth campaign has gone viral but the anti-drug message appears to have lost out to the internet’s dual love of mocking failed ad campaigns, and sloths.

The campaign was initially linked to the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPI), which has responded with a statement saying their involvement was limited to providing an initial basic analysis of other anti-cannabis campaigns, and some general recommendations.

“In this case, those general recommendations were things like being aware that teenagers are intelligent and have access to a lot of information, so campaign approaches should respect them and give them credit by avoiding hyperbole,” the statement said.

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