An influx of public service announcements (PSAs) appeared across school, brought to us by the Let’s Face It organization in partnership with the Rockwood School District.

Let’s Face It has its goals set on creating a smoke-free environment for all St. Louis area residents. While I admire the effort of keeping harmful drugs out of Rockwood Schools, I have a problem with the PSAs plastered around the school.

These posters are easily identifiable. They are hung up in high areas to prevent as much visual obstruction as possible, usually depicting lit cigarettes and clouds of smoke juxtaposed with images of death and violence, such as skulls and guns.

The first PSA I remember seeing depicted a lit cigarette and a smoking gun with the message “They’re both the same.”

The PSA told me that shooting myself is exactly the same as smoking. If I were to follow this string of logic, I could go to my local convenience store and buy a 20-pack of revolvers for $7. The content of this ad is wholly manipulative and misleading among the others scattered around the school. This is, by definition, propaganda.

This is my problem with scare campaigns such as the one I previously mentioned. They focus more time on telling kids that they’re going to die than actually reaching out and helping those who need help. There are possibly dozens of other ways to carry out this campaign, packaging it with a different message.

There is an English seatbelt ad from 2010. It shows a father sitting in a chair with his wife and daughter to his right. The happy father assumes a motion for driving, gripping his hands around an imaginary steering wheel while pressing down on an acceleration pedal.

His disposition fades as his expression implies an inevitable crash. The mother and daughter spring into action hugging him around his waist and chest, forming a seatbelt as the father acts out the impact, thrusting forward but not moving. This is implying that his life was saved by the seatbelt. This PSA example of how taking a different approach can make an effective impression.

I like this advertisement so much because it doesn’t threaten you with your own mortality; it focuses more on the people you would leave behind in the event of your untimely death.

It’s quite ingenious, really. There is probably someone in your life that you wouldn’t you want to leave behind if you died. These people can be your significant other, a sibling, your parents, anyone.

If I never wore a seatbelt and saw this PSA, you bet that I would be wearing one every time I stepped into my car. A campaign like this is immensely more effective than any scare campaign I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t try to manipulate or misinform you, but it makes an actual case to persuade the viewer to start wearing seatbelts.

Another notable issue with the smoking campaign is the lack of effort in encouraging students, who are already smoking, to quit. Very few of these posters have a number you could call or a website you could visit if you needed help quitting smoking (1-800-QUIT-NOW and smokefree.gov, just in case). If this campaign is dedicated to creating a smoke-free learning environment, they aren’t doing a very good job.

Then again, I may be missing the point entirely. There is a possibility that these posters are directed at students who are thinking about using drugs, persuading them to not even try it.

It makes sense, keeping drugs out of school by persuading students thinking about using drugs to not try them at all.

If this point were true, the campaign would imply that this school is not willing to help the students that need it by not making a helpful source available. Instead of trying to scare students into being drug-free, Let’s Face It and Rockwood should rethink how they make their PSAs.

Drug use is a problem in every school district, and it’s up to the district to take necessary measures to reduce the impact of drugs in its schools.

If you ask me to sign something that says the district should take more measures in reducing harmful drugs in schools, I’ll sign it. Put it to a vote, I’ll vote for it, but what I won’t do is accept what these PSAs are saying.