

How the F.B.I. Made 'Winners Don't Use Drugs' the Arcade Motto of the '90s - dottrap
https://www.inverse.com/article/5193-how-the-f-b-i-made-winners-don-t-use-drugs-the-arcade-motto-of-the-90s

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koz1000
I was at Williams Pinball around this time and we had the "SAY NO TO DRUGS" as
part of the built-in attract mode loop.

[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/423338433692506875/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/423338433692506875/)

We all hated it...but it was gently explained to us by our marketing staff
that we were dependent on staying in good terms with Hollywood because we
wanted to be able to license movie themes for upcoming games. We were also
told that the FBI could have seriously messed with that relationship if they
wanted to, to the point of shutting us out. Of course we had to please the
AMOA/AAMA and all the other industry groups as well that were receiving
pressure...

So in it stayed...for releases to the USA. The home versions and export
versions had it removed.

~~~
jpmattia
> _I was at Williams Pinball_

Maybe way OT, but was that gig as fun as it sounds?

~~~
koz1000
I won't lie, it was a blast. It was also an insane amount of work. Years went
by like a blur.

Some of what went on over there is documented in Greg Maletic's film _Tilt:
The Battle to Save Pinball_. Josh Tsui (from the Mortal Kombat team) just
completed a Kickstarter to make a similar documentary about what the guys
downstairs in video were doing back then as well.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshuatsui/insert-
coin-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshuatsui/insert-coin-inside-
midways-90s-revolution)

------
louithethrid
That loser/winner dichtomy is one of the reasons for that titanic drug problem
in the first place. If you fail and are allready frail, and society has
decided to put you in the loser-box, drugs might be the only thing to make
life seem bearable. The idea, that you could just step from the race-track,
and be happy - without giving a thought on who is high/low in status -
independent and with worth outside of the ratrace, doesent even exist in that
animalistic (eat or be eaten) mindset.

~~~
x5n1
Winners do drugs just like losers do drugs. Winners usually have a lot of
money and come from affluence so they don't usually get in trouble for their
drug use while losers do. A certain portion of the population does drugs, it
cuts socio-economic lines. The reasoning might be different, but people from
all walks of life do drugs.

~~~
reagency
Plenty of winners have lost their winner status via destructive drug abuse. It
is practically a cliche in hr entertainment industry.

~~~
celticninja
Thats because you usually only hear about the burnouts. "Moviestar does drugs
and has an early night" doesnt sell papers or pageviews.

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baldeagle
Slightly off topic - I remember a anti-drug commercial that features a thin
brunette girl scrubbing the gout of the tile on her bathroom floor with a
toothbrush while the jingle went "oooo, meth, oooo, meth - I don't sleep and I
don't eat, but I've got the cleanest house on the street, oooo, meth".

Now I never really wanted to try drugs, but that seemed more like a pro-meth
ad than an anti-meth ad.

~~~
baldeagle
Sweet you tube searching goodness, someone finally posted it. Other people
also commented how awesome the song was, especially if you were watching it on
a little TV at the distance of a classroom away. Check it out.

[https://youtu.be/fY1Pl1zGowc](https://youtu.be/fY1Pl1zGowc)

~~~
DrStalker
That's not a parody? I've seen it before and I assumed it was a parody, not an
actual anti-drug ad.

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everyone
I remember seeing those screens as a kid and being confused. Seems like quite
a departure from the game I was just playing. I wasnt even considering using
drugs, will they somehow improve my game performance? and thats why not using
them playing games is more honourable? Hmmm, I must investigate these 'drugs',
Thanks FBI warning message!

*ps I reckon we got the US versions of various games here in Ireland so the warning from the 'FBI' was doubly incongruous.

~~~
derefr
On that tangent: _is_ there such a thing as a "dexterity-and-reflex-enhancing
drug"? I don't think amphetamines do that, nor any nootropic I'm even vaguely
aware of. "Focus" or "alertness" is one thing, but actually suddenly being
better at competitive twitch games is quite another. Maybe an anxiolytic,
actually—theanine?—if you wanted to prevent "yips." But otherwise...

~~~
daheza
The Electronic Sports League (ESL) has recently decided to start testing for
drugs during its tournaments. [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/after-
adderall-scandal-espo...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/after-adderall-
scandal-esports-company-will-police-performance-enhancing-drugs) They will be
using this list to test players [http://list.wada-ama.org/](http://list.wada-
ama.org/)

~~~
derefr
The implications of testing for anabolic steroids for previously non-gender-
segregated competition is worrying. Previously, a transitioning transgendered
person could openly compete in an eSports tournament; steroid use was just
irrelevant to what eSports measure.

~~~
actuallyalys
I'm kind of surprised there isn't an exception for medically necessary use of
substances on the list (at least, that I can find). Obviously, medically
necessary drugs can still give you a advantage, but taking a substance your
body would typically produce seems a reasonable exception. For example, trans
men don't produce significant amounts of testosterone, so they need to take it
both to transition and to be competitive.

That exception wouldn't technically cover trans women because we often take
spironolactone to totally eliminate testosterone rather than because it's
missing. Apparently, it's banned because it's used by athletes to hide their
past usage of forbidden steroids.

~~~
comex
There is such an exception. Straight from the horse's mouth:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/3gmog8/esl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/3gmog8/esl_announces_details_of_the_antidoping_policy/)

~~~
actuallyalys
Thanks for posting that! I should have mentioned in my previous comment that a
medical exemption doesn't completely solve the problem — some trans people
have issues getting hormones through a doctor and buy it without a
prescription.

Still, it's much better than nothing.

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AndrewStephens
A scene repeated countless* times during the 80s and 90s:

"Hey man, wanna do these drugs I have here?"

"Nah, William S. Sessions says not to"

"Who?"

"You know, William S Sessions! Director of the F.B.I."

"Oh right. Guess we mustn't then"

* In this case, countless means zero.

~~~
victor22
You actually have a great point. FBI was more focused on self-promotion then
on actually fighting drugs. 90% of the screen is dedicated to the FBI logo,
which kids just don't care about. But, as an advertiser, the majority of
marketing campaigns directed to kids fail to properly communicate with them
and are just a waste of money.

~~~
simplicio
Eh, I think the prominence of the FBI logo is to scare people with the legal
consequences of drug use, rather than promote the Bureau. Same reason the
words "FBI" or the FBI logo is the most prominent thing in anti-piracy
warnings on DVDs.

~~~
victor22
While I agree it _could_ be due to this reason, it still was a bad call in my
opinion, because a scare tactic is totally disconnected with their
motivational slogan below the logo.

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aaronbrethorst
This is my favorite anti-drug PSA of all time:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8FLbwjyTo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8FLbwjyTo8)

"I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey!"

~~~
ckw
I love Michelangelo's response.

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superchink
Those screens gave me an instant hit of nostalgia. Sort of a fluff piece, but
an interesting blip in history. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
astrodust
Like the absurd pre-roll crap they'd put on VHS movies about $250,000 fines
and such.

How many lives were wasted watching that stupid, completely pointless screen?

"Thank you for purchasing our product! Now please endure this message about
not stealing."

~~~
dkersten
I stopped watching DVD's because of the unskippable anti-piracy notices. The
last DVD I ever watched had an obnoxiously long one for whatever reason and I
remember feeling pretty annoyed at being forced to sit through that crap for a
legally purchased (or rented - I don't remember) DVD.

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powera
So was it an anti-counterfeiting measure masquerading as an anti-drug message,
or an anti-drug message that worked as an anti-counterfeiting measure?

~~~
function_seven
And how did it prevent counterfeiting? Wouldn't the counterfeiter just throw
that screen in their version as well?

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simplicio
The tagline is a little sensationalistic. The FBI Office of Public Affairs
isn't part of the intelligence community.

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snarfy
I recall the first game to arrive at the arcade with that screen was a game
called NARC by Williams.

~~~
plonh
That game was incredible. My arcade had it configured to give 7 lives per
quarter, until one day it changed down to 3. You could arrest people
nonviolently, except for the ones who fired guns at you and the PCP junkies.
The civil forfeiture aspect was sketchy in retrospect though. As was the
incentives for destroying the drug labs you discovered.

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bbrian
I edited (vandalised?) Wikipedia to add "Michael Phelps" to the "See also"
section of the "Winners Don't Use Drugs" page.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winners_Don%27t_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winners_Don%27t_Use_Drugs&oldid=268636385)

