Dear Frank

02/04/08

Dear Frank,

Let me begin by saying that I am a fan of the style of your advertising campaigns as they seem to cut straight to the heart of the matter, and will perhaps get through to your target audience.

However, I was just wondering why you think it's ok to pick on cannabis users with your current advertising campaign? Coke-heads are the worst people out there, but I don't think I have ever seen any anti-coke ads run by you. Is that because you are afraid of the backlash that would occur from the media if you did take a stand, as most of the media are coke fans?

Coke ruins lives and peoples health, costs loads of money and the effects are to make you an arrogant asshole and then after prolonged use, paranoid. Cannabis makes you lose some of your ambition, and perhaps become paranoid (to a much lesser extent than coke) and that's about it. The reports of it causing schizophrenia are unsubstantiated to say the least (read Bad Science).

I think it is appalling that a service that is supposed to be helping young people away from drugs is simply following the political fad to continuously reclassify cannabis (so as to make a show that the Government is doing something about drugs) rather than taking a stand against a drug that is equally, if not more prevalent than cannabis, and yet seemingly considered acceptable by most adults.

Your organization is in a particularly strong position to make a difference to peoples opinion of coke, but instead you appear to be taking the easier route of attacking a less dangerous, yet more visible drug.

Yours disappointed,
Swan

03/04/08

Hi Swan.

Thank you for your e-mail.

FRANK is a new drugs campaign, which aims to give information and help
to anyone who is affected by or wants to know about drugs. This is not a
debating arena. Your comments have been noted.

You may wish to search for free local help via the following link :
http://www.talktofrank.com/multimap.aspx?id=278

If you want to know any more, or would like to talk to one of our
advisors about this, call 0800 77 66 00 and tell them you've been asked
to ring for more information. Alternatively, you can get more
information at www.talktofrank.com

Hope to talk to you again soon.

FRANK

20/05/08

Cocaine at centre of government's Frank anti-drugs drive

LONDON - The government is to focus on showing 15- to 18-year-olds the ugly consequences behind the glamour of cocaine, the price of which is at an all-time low, in the next phase of its Frank drugs awareness campaign.

The £1m cross-media campaign will be announced today by drugs minister Vernon Coaker as part of a new crackdown on cocaine, which the government claims is the only drug that has risen in use since 1998.

The price of cocaine in the UK has fallen to an all time low and can be bought for as little as £30 a gram, making it easily available to young people and students.

The campaign will use a range of media including online advertising, as well as leaflets aimed at young people and drugs workers.

Today's announcement will be made at a summit being attended by the Columbian vice-president Francisco Santos Calderon, in an attempt to highlight cocaine's impact on the people of his country.

The UK government has joined the Columbian government's "Shared responsibility" campaign, which focuses on the global consequences of cocaine use.

Tomorrow, Coaker, Calderon and former Blur bassist Alex James, will attend a Trafalgar Square exhibition illustrating the environmental and social destruction caused by the drug.

The Frank campaign began five year ago this Friday. The digital account is currently with Profero and the advertising account is with Mother.