Ad Council and NHTSA Tackle Myths Fuelling Cannabis-Impaired Driving

The Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have launched a new wave of public service advertising taking aim at one of the most menacing misconceptions around cannabis use. That is, the belief that consumption makes people ‘safer’ or ‘more focused’ behind the wheel.

The latest chapter of the ‘Drug-Impaired Driving Prevention' campaign is a sharpened effort to reach men ages 18-34, who are most likely to drive high. The creative platform, ‘Tell That to Them’, developed pro bono by agency Standard Practice and produced by Spark & Riot, pushes back on the familiar self-talk some drivers use to justify operating a vehicle after marijuana use.

The central spot brings together the casual claims and pseudo-logic shared widely among younger male drivers – that amount to justifications – before abruptly undercutting them with the real-world consequences of delayed reaction times and impaired judgement. It ends on the campaign’s anchor message, ‘If you feel different, you drive different’.