"Ten Little Indians" drug abuse PSA from 1972

This drug-abuse PSA from 1972 fascinated me as a kid. It's much better than any contemporary PSA about drug abuse.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://twitter.com/JayEfEm james marshall

-sings-
and if weed was legal and these indians had land
addiction wouldnt be a problem and they could fuck The Man
yes there are too many chiefs and not enough indians
the white mans policy was put them in prison
look_alive

Well, my my! What a festive little ditty about death and destruction!

(clap) (clap) (clap) (clap)
billstewart

One died of hepatitis. Because needles were illegal. Because that was supposed to “help” addicts by making it harder for them to abuse drugs. Regardless of how you feel about legalizing drugs in general, the drug paraphernalia laws have caused far more harm than good, and it’s time to end them.
http://twitter.com/joeybladb joe k.

As a Native American, I am deeply insulted that there were very few actual Indians depicted in that PSA.
Alejandro_the_Great

Wow. Bob Barker looked the same in 1972 and 1992, maybe even 2002.
Frank Diekman

So the theme is no matter what you do, somehow drugs will kill you.
- http://twitter.com/trempls tré
  
  “Hmmm… I’ve smoked weed and it hasn’t killed me… I wonder what else they were lying about.” – everyone who’s ever been exposed to drug war propaganda.
Woody Smith

Forty years ago I told my best friend I intended to commit suicide. He nodded…and insisted I try LSD first. I was afraid to. He said, “You idiot, are you afraid you’ll go crazy and kill yourself?”

By the time I’d come down, I was no longer suicidal. And have never been so even momentarily since, despite having experienced all the classic traumas, from the death of loved ones to professional ruin to catastrophic illness.Or, putting it another way, the song lies.
knockwurst

I started getting high in high school. Many of the kids who I smoked weed with back then went on to have normal lives. But others, like me, had a really hard time with drugs and of that crowd, I’m the only one who eventually got clean. The others died, and died miserably. I do not support the war on drugs, but I don’t support drugs either.

It’s not just anti-drug hysteria that makes people want to steer kids away from drugs. There are a lot of people whose lives are destroyed by addiction.
Gendun

I believe “Native American” is the preferred nomenclature.
http://walkingwithshimmer.wordpress.com/ Werther deGoethe

The original ditty/poem didn’t use the word “indians.” They used a much more offensive (to our modern ears) term. Look it up yourself.
dominic fitzsimmons

The British equivalent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA
Mark_Frauenfelder

I liked it because it reminded me of something Scorsese or the Maysles Brothers would have done.
QuiGonBong

That was almost as entertaining as Reefer Madness.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Since this takes 65 minutes less to get to the same place, I’m going with this being more entertaining.