The Partnership for a Drug-free America
Television – Decoder - Breaking down teen culture, substance abuse, and parenting

Hard Pressed

Jan 4, 2008 by Sarit Catz | Categories Celebrities, Culture, Drugs, Gossip, Pop Culture, Role Models, Television

This morning, while I was running around with the regular morning routine - you know it:  making breakfast, asking kids to come down to breakfast, packing lunches, repeatedly asking kids to come down to breakfast already, loading backpacks, yelling at kids to come down to breakfast-I’m-not-making-this-for-fun-you-know - I turned on the news to find out what happened in the Iowa caucuses.

Well, with her usual impeccable timing, my daughter Freckles decides to walk into the kitchen while the news is covering the other big story of the day… Britney Spears being taken to the hospital, apparently under the influence of something, after getting into a fight with her ex.  To my horror, Freckles saw the chyron which read Britney’s something-or-other, and she immediately said, “Britney?  Britney Spears?”  Despite the fact that Freckles is only 10, owns no Britney Spears music, videos or posters, and wasn’t old enough to tune into pop culture when Britney was actually a pop star, she knows who Britney Spears is and all about her.

It’s amazing how in-tune kids are to this stuff.

How do you fight it?  And you can forget about trying to counter the fact that Britney’s 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn is pregnant - that kid’s a Nickelodeon star, there’s no way to keep that one quiet.  How did this looney family hijack our culture?  Why is the press giving this so much coverage?

And here is the saddest part of all (and I copied this from an AP article):  “Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, would not disclose any information about her daughter’s condition. ‘Just say prayers,’ she told the celebrity news show Access Hollywood by phone Friday.”  Do you get this?  The mother is on the phone with Access Hollywood!! 

Did you know Lynne Spears was supposed to be writing a book about parenting?  A book about parenting!  Fortunately, the book’s publication was postponed indefinitely.  Unfortunately, so was her parenting.

Britney Press

This picture from Getty Images shows photographers surrounding Britney Spears’ car at one of her court appearances.  This drek (do you guys know what drek is?) gets more attention than important stuff like…  whether or not Jay Leno used scab writers.

  • Posted by: Sarit Catz | 0 Comment(s)
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CBS Features 3-Part Series on Rx Abuse

Nov 28, 2007 by Joe Keenan | Categories Advice, Drugs, Prescription Medicine/Rx Drugs, Teenagers, Television

CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is featuring a 3-part series on prescription drug abuse. The first segment aired on Monday, November 26th. The Partnership’s President and CEO Steve Pasierb talked with Katie to offer our perspective on the issue.

Here is more information about the series from CBS.WEEK NOVEMBER 19 - GENERATION RX - Teen abuse of prescription drugs has TRIPLED in the past ten years. We go inside this epidemic for an intimate look at the users, dealers and people trying to fight it.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, PART 1
THE NEW CAMPUS HIGH - We meet a college kid abusing ADHD drugs to stay focused and to compete. We visit a town that lost several kids, including the Police Chief’s own son. Katie Couric reports.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, PART 2
CAN MARK BE SAVED? We go to rehab with a 23-year-old addict, whose habit cost his parents everything they’d worked for. It killed his best friend. His video diary takes us on his journey to clean up. Katie Couric reports.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, PART 3
THE DEALER AND THE DOCTOR: An attractive young drug dealer shows us how he worked the strip of pain clinics so prevalent in Florida. He tells us all about his partnership with a doctor. The dealer may LOOK like a movie star, but operated like a stone cold drug lord.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, PART 4
NEW TREATMENT: DR. Sanjay Gupta: A medication that promises to make treatment for prescription drug abuse easier, more private. Suboxone controls cravings like methadone – but has none of the stigma because addicts can get it from their doctors, rather than methadone clinic. The hope is that Suboxone will do for drug addiction what SSRI’s like Prozac did for depression, convince primary care physicians that addiction is a chronic brain disease, not a character flaw.

Here is the CBS channel on Youtube.

  • Posted by: Joe Keenan | 7 Comment(s)
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Commercial Break

Oct 15, 2007 by Sarit Catz | Categories Age Appropriate Advice, Drugs, General, Pop Culture, Television

I don’t know what Sundays are like at your house, but at my house there’s a lot of football watching. This past Sunday was no different. After I brought my daughter Freckles home from cheerleading (believe me, it’s absurd that I’m the squad’s coach), I made sure to catch some of the Patriots-Cowboys game with my husband and my son, Tank. Tank is 7½. (More…)

  • Posted by: Sarit Catz | 2 Comment(s)
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Reality Check

Oct 10, 2007 by Sarit Catz | Categories Alcohol, Celebrities, Culture, DUI, General, Newspapers, Pop Culture, Television

Did you see the article in the New York Times about how reality shows are getting “too real?”

A&E’s “Intervention” let someone drive drunk and I remember years ago MTV’s “Real World” let someone get so drunk she had alcohol poisoning. Producers and networks, or more specifically their lawyers, say they have no responsibility to step in to stop a crime. I’m sure that’s true. And I’m not saying they have even a moral obligation. That’s on them. They have a job to do and that’s to make compelling TV. Whatever.

Here’s my problem: we are watching this stuff. Not me, personally and obviously not you either, but we as a general public. (More…)

  • Posted by: Sarit Catz | 3 Comment(s)
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