SteamedPenguin

Archie doesn't just want you to have a good time, he wants you to partay:

Archie Comics PSA 02: I don't need drugs...

Aside from making sure that the next generation doesn't do drugs Archie also wants to motivate them to better things in life. Archie taunts poor children dependent on subsidized lunches, with images of free time, money for pizza, dancing and streamers. This is for their own good though, by showing them the good life and deepening the disenchantment with their current life these children will aspire to a better life and work hard for it, thereby ending the cycle of poverty.

I don't want to be the wet washcloth, so I am really hesitant to point this out: if Archie cared so much about these kids futures he'd kick some money into vocational programs, basic health care, and housing programs.

Here is another Archie Comics milk carton PSA.

Archie Comics PSA 01: I don't need drugs... to just feel great!

I love the irony in this comic. Considering that the Pine Ridge Reservation has one of the lowest life expectancies in the USA and that the teen suicide rate is four times the national average, having a message saying, "I don't need drugs... to just feel great," seems misplaced. Shit, if I were a teenager having to look at Archie's coked-out mug telling me not to do drugs I'd off myself too.

My girlfriend was going through some old papers she had when she came across some anti-drug PSA's printed on milk-cartons.

Archie Comics PSA 00: I don't need drugs...

I thought they were from the Minneapolis area but she says she got them on the Pine Ridge Reservation, near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As best as she can guess she got the milk cartons at, what was then, Oglala Community High School. It is likely they came from milk that was part of subsidized school meals.

I won't pretend to know how the subsidized school lunch programs works but I'll make some guesses.

Archie Comics runs these PSA's on milk cartons and for the money they pay they get tax breaks. The dairy also gets tax breaks by giving away the milk at discounts or for free. The children who get the milk get milk of course, and some shitty PSA.

This is obviously money well-spent. Two corporations get tax breaks, making the federal government lose money. The federal government subsidizes this program, losing more money. Lastly, poor kids get milk wrapped in some feel-good sentimentality. In case anyone thinks that I am against subsidized school lunches let me make myself clear. I want every class, from Kindergarten to grade 12, to get at least one nutritious meal a day. This ought to be food of the highest quality, prepared to the best standards and of a wide variety. I want school meals to force a change in how we define cafeteria food.

I want these things and I know they won't happen by giving companies and the federal government a cheap out by allowing them to get by on sloppy and cheap PSA's on the back of milk cartons.