(Photo of Ammy Schooley in an antidrug commercial)

Making drugs UNCOOL
By Andrew Wineke, Herald Writer

(photo of the ad's conclusion, "4 out of 5 teens don't smoke pot")

Ammy Schooley is an average kid.
At least, she plays one on TV. The 16yearold Cascade High
School juniortobe is among a group of Washington teens featured in a
new nationwide antimarijuana commercial.
The TV spot, produced by Seattle ad firm Herring/Newman for
the Partnership for a DrugFree America, is a departure from the old
message: "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any
questions?"
Instead, the new commercials feature local teens talking about
what the "average kid" does and doesn't do. The spots end with the
tagline "4 out of 5 teens don't smoke pot."
"If you think everyone else is getting high, you're going to want

to get high," says Sally Marshall, the deputy director for creative
development for the Partnership for a DrugFree America. Research by
her group shows that most teens overstate how many of their peers are
smoking marijuana.
While researching the commercial in Puget Soundarea
schools, Herring/Newman found the same impression among local
teens.
"The big thing that came out of that was that the kids that
didn't
smoke kind of felt uncool about it and felt a little bit shy about
standing
up and saying, 'I don't do that,'" says Cameron Wicker, a spokeswoman
for Herring/Newman.
The commercials try to skewer that misconception.
"If you get high, you're in the minority, not the majority,"
Marshall
says.
Cascade's Ammy Schooley thinks the message gets across.
"I like it because it doesn't say 'Don't do drugs.' It just tells
the
facts," she says.
The Partnership for a DrugFree America began targeting
marijuana three years ago, Marshall says. In 1992, marijuana use first
began to climb among eighthgraders and it continues to climb among
teens.
The old way to turn kids off of drugs, by showing their damaging
effects doesn't work well with marijuana, Marshall says. By focusing the
ads instead on peer pressure and behavior, the group hopes to change
the trend.
"They really do have this feeling that the sky is going to fall
down if they don't try," Marshall says, "With marijuana it's very
difficult to
show kids effects that are credible. Once you change their attitudes, you

change their behavior.
The Herring/Newman commercial is one of a series featuring
the antipot message. the Washington state chapter of Partnership for a
DrugFree America hopes to release the new commercials locally in
August. Television stations run the commercials whenever they have
time available for public service announcements.
Ammy, who studies acting at the Young Performers Studio in
Seattle, did her part in just one day last July. The director had each of

the teens read through the whole commercial several times and then
picked out which teen would appear saying each line in the finished ad.
"They took us and had us sit down and had us move and sit
down and move and sit down and move and sit down again, and they
gave us burgers and soggy french fries and then had us read our lines,"
Ammy says.
"they had me say every line at least four times."
Ammy, who sports blue lipstick and dark brown hair in the
commercial, says the opening line: "The average kid doesn't get straight
A's."
She didn't get paid for the commercial, aside from the burger
and fries, but says she enjoyed the chance to get on camera and tell
other teens the truth about marijuana use.
"I'm hoping it will make a difference."