A Nike spokeswoman told the newspaper that the company doesn’t condone the use of banned or illegal substances.The mayor is insufficiently hip, apparently. Doesn't cotton to ambiguity.
“These T-shirts are part of an action sports campaign, featuring marquee athletes using commonly used and accepted expressions for performance at the highest level of their sport, be it surfing, skateboarding or BMX"...
June 21, 2011
"They are promoting drug use... This is the wrong message for Nike to send."
The Mayor of Boston — Thomas Menino — doesn't like the T-shirts in the window at Niketown.
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40 comments:
Dirtpile!
Menino just made Nike even more hip.
(That said, what a completely lame piece of PR bullshitting. How about "teenagers are suckers for this shit.")
Being a typical liberal (as well as a stammering moron), Menino sees something he doesn't like and immediately concludes that it must be banned. Dope indeed.
Naww, because no sane person would see any connection between Nike pushing pills and pill bottles on t-shirts and pro-ball players and bicyclists using performance enhancing drugs - i.e. doping.
Dude, your job is fix the potholes. Now stop goofing off and get to work, or punch out.
It's all about selling shoes. Just do it...
Of course there's a "connection". But having a "connection" to something unsavory doesn't make a t-shirt bannable. Rap, rock and other music all "contribute to" drug use, unsafe sex, violence, etc. with their messages. Shall we ban all music but Classical to protect little Johnny and Susie?
It's a thought.
HYSTERICAL!!!
While in the military (1992( I had to get a flyer approved by the base commander for an alternative night I wanted to DJ. One of the quips I put on there was;
"At Least Three Times More Dope Than The Leading Brand"
The base commander almost didn't let that slide. I had to explain to him exact what it meant three or four times.
"These T-shirts are part of an action sports campaign, featuring marquee athletes using commonly used illegal drugs."
FIFY Nike
Nike and the NFL are horrible influences on the black community. They promote athletics at the expense of education and rampant drug and prostitute abuse - all in the name of sickening profits.
Not to mention the riots that accompany most major sporting events.
On the other hand, it is Tom Menino.
He also said they should use the money for drug rehab. Hint, hint, hint... If he was not a politician it would be called extortion.
Lincolntf: But having a "connection" to something unsavory doesn't make a t-shirt bannable.
Menino wrote a letter to complain about a stupid publicity stun. He never said he wanted the t-shirt banned.
Nike's stupidity rivals Benneton's of some years back.
I "know" Menino and remember all his other neighborhood improvement sideshows. They're his "thing". He wants the ban, but will settle for a few press mentions and some foldable political tribute.
BANNED IN BOSTON!
What Henry said.
Granted, Nike should be sued or something, but this is what Lefties like Menino deserve, in a way.
They wanted a drug-sodden, amoral, totally materialistic society and Nike is just coming through.
Did you know that Portland, Oregon got its name because the two pioneers who founded it flipped a coin:
Mr. Pettygrove, hailing from Maine, wished to name the town for his favorite old home town of Portland, while General Lovejoy, coming from Massachusetts, desired to honor Boston with the name. And not being able to settle the matter with any good reason, it was proposed to decide the difference by tossing a copper; and so, on the production of an old-fashioned copper cent . . . the cent was tossed up three times and came down "tails up" twice for Portland, and once "heads up" for dear old Boston. And that is the day Portland got its appropriate name
I suspect Boston is just pissed off that it did not get naming rights.
Of course, Nike is not based in Portland, Oregon, but in Beaverton, but whatev...
Agreed, the mayor's outrage feels fixed.
I would say, though, Nike's explanation is risible.
Plus they're behind the curve. I've seen skirts on etsy with cracked-open pills with hearts spilling out. Doubtless for the cute white girls who want to advertise their recreational tastes.
Inner-city black kids are so behind.
"I would hope Nike would set the same bar," the mayor said in his letter.
Sounds like the mayor is promoting alcohol abuse.
Typical reverse psych. going on here. Negative press is also good press. Guess how many kids are going to buy that shirt because it's now been hyped as being bad.
You will never see a Menino dick tweet...ever.
My favorite Nike t-shirt is "Mine is bigger than yours." I bought it for my boyfriend.
Kelly
Good lord. Menino usually brings the weapons-grade stupidity to everything he touches, but this is a low point even for him. Hey, Mumbles, I can assure you there are plenty more "offensive" things crowding the windows on Newbury Street than some silly Nike shirts that "promote drug use."
Bagoh20's got it right, Mr Urban Mechanic. Get your ass back to filling potholes, you mook.
wv - "pedispin." What Menino did when he whirled around in outrage.
Mumbles is just following in the august footsteps of his moronic predecessors. I still remember Ray Flynn banning (or trying to ban) squirt guns in Boston.
Buckley famously would rather be ruled by the first names from a Boston phone book, but really, he should have chosen a different city.
Newsflash: People us drugs. Always have, always will. Deal with it or not, but banning it has not helped the problems of abuse and addiction very much, have they?
Trey
They need a Nike tee shirt promoting baby aspirin for senior citizens.
Boston shop windows
Letter from Charles Addams to James Thurber
"I have gotten a lot of letters about my work, most of them from criminals and subhumans, who want to sell ideas. I can rarely use them as they're in the worst possible taste, but sometimes funny in a grotesque sort of way...A man from Boston sent a picture of a local shoe store, a very old one, with shoes for the club-footed, for shortened legs, etc.; underneath the window in gold-leaf on black it said, 'Shoes for the entire family.'"
(The Years with Ross, p.254)
I understand the Mayor's point: making drug use hip is a bad message. We do take for granted that drugs are available everywhere for risk taking, self medicating people. But portraying drug use as hip instead of as self destructive can swing over some well adjusted teens into giving it a try. Meth use flips genes that never go back...there is no treatment for that sure death sentence addiction. Maybe heroin can be treated at great trouble and expense, but crack and meth are deadly experiments.
"commonly used and accepted expressions" derived from the drug culture. Any skateboraders, surfers or BMX riders smoke dope or get high? Naw. Anything for a buck.
I wouldn't buy my daughter an All American Rejects t-shirt at Hot Topix because she's not a reject. (I did buy her a Bob Marley one though. NOT!) Blink 182's OK. Hello, Kitty is still popular in her high school crowd.
Doesn't cotton to ambiguity.
Probably doesn't polyester to it either.
"DOPE"
I think the tee shirt should become a substitute for the graduation day robes. It's what our schools do to kids, no?
The mayor of boston looks like a fat political slop. His tee shirt, which Nike should give him for free: Would read: "TYPICAL"
"Newsflash: People us drugs. Always have, always will. Deal with it or not, but banning it has not helped the problems of abuse and addiction very much, have they?"
Two points:
1. The mayor is not talking about banning drugs. He's saying that those t-shirts are promoting drugs, which I believe is true even if that is not what NIKE means to do, but I can also see the argument on the other side.
2. Whether banning drugs has helped the problems of abuse and addiction is unknown since we haven't un-banned them to find out. Maybe abuse and addiction to drugs would disapear if they were made legal. Maybe levels would stay the same. Or maybe they would increase. We don't know. I'm betting it's the last one though.
Expressions on tee-shirts don't cause dope addiction.
Mayors into banning commercial products probably cause the opposite effect. And, now these tee-shirts will sell like hot cakes.
Overlooking how dumb a teenager would look in a shirt that so loudly proclaims "DOPE."
PUTZ. Nike should make a special shirt, not just marked PUTZ, but saying it's a special olympics prize winnah!
"Expressions on tee-shirts don't cause dope addiction."
So you don't believe that popularizing drug use via sports connections (even if not intended by NIKE)to impressionable youth has any effect drug use by those youth?
So you don't believe that popularizing drug use via sports connections (even if not intended by NIKE)to impressionable youth has any effect drug use by those youth?
Another drug warrior. DARE to be different!
"Another drug warrior. DARE to be different!"
Actually, I'm quite torn on the legalization of drugs. I see both upsides and downsides.
That said, I think it's naive to think that glamorizing drugs does not lead to increased drug use among youth. Whether that use leads to addiction depends on the drugs used of course.
TWM, you are correct on both counts. I was associating off topic mostly, but will claim that getting his panties in a wad over the use of "dope" in this fashion is at least tangential to my post.
As to whether legalizing all drugs would increase their use, I am of two minds. Part of me thinks it certainly would as some people do not smoke crack or use meth because it is illegal. Now I am not interested in either of those substances, as the consequences of their use is frightening enough to me!
On the other hand, the illegal status of drugs makes them more appealing to the rebelious, which includes many teens, and it drives up the costs which makes selling them much more appealing in terms of selling a product.
I currently think that legalizing drugs would result in a short term escalation of most drug use with a reduction after a few years. When you know what a junkie looks and lives like, and legalization would lead to more junkies in the short term, you don't want to be like them. So harmful drug use would actually reduce I think, after a short spike.
The social cost of the short spike frightens me. What are your thoughts? And thanks for disagreeing with me so well and in such a friendly fashion! Well done!
Trey
"So you don't believe that popularizing drug use via sports connections (even if not intended by NIKE)to impressionable youth has any effect drug use by those youth?"
That is a tough question. I think the glamorization has already been done through music. It seems that Nike is just trying to use that to sell more of their product. I think the ad is in bad taste. But I do not think that the Nike ad is nearly as much influence as popular music that sings the praises of drug use. And then there is all the money that some people make off it. That feeds into our consumer culture.
Trey
Addiction is a funny thing. I used a lot of drugs in college, including some that are classified as addictive, and the only one I had trouble quitting was cigarettes. Man those were a bear!
Now, I smoke cigars when I can, but not every day, and while I enjoy them when I smoke them, I never miss them when I do not. With cigarettes, I would jones when I did not have one. I fear cigarettes, because they had me.
There is good research that the route of administration and how quickly and potently the drug reaches the brain have an effect on addiction. So that makes some sense of my personal experience.
Then there are people like my wife who could smoke a cigarette or three when we would go out and NEVER want one otherwise. That is a stone cold mystery to me!
Trey
"I currently think that legalizing drugs would result in a short term escalation of most drug use with a reduction after a few years. When you know what a junkie looks and lives like, and legalization would lead to more junkies in the short term, you don't want to be like them. So harmful drug use would actually reduce I think, after a short spike.
The social cost of the short spike frightens me. What are your thoughts? And thanks for disagreeing with me so well and in such a friendly fashion! Well done!"
With the qualifier that I know little to nothing about what actually causes addiction (that is, why someone becomes addicted and someone else may not), I can't see how legalizing anything but marijuana would result in anything but an increase of abuse and addicts. I base this on my understanding of the addictive qualities of meth, crack-cocaine, and heroin alone. Legalizing those drugs would seem to me to only be opening the nation to a dramatic increase in addicts. One I don't see lessening with time even if people see the results of what it does to those addicts (after all, there are movies, and TV dramas and reality TV shows that show that all the time).
And even if you are correct in that a "learning curve" would allow people to see the damage done to these first victims of legalization and therefore not follow in their footsteps, I don't think the social cost would be short term. Long term costs for treatment would be over decades not years. And how do we even begin to measure the productivity and creativity our nation would miss with this lost generation? The best analogy I can come up with is war. A generation of talent, energy, and productivity lost forever.
I smoked pot in HS and college. And I was somewhat of an underachiever. Whether one caused the other or vice versa I don't know. I do know I had no trouble stopping, but I have several friends - two now deceased - who did not stop and moved on to harder drugs.
I guess I should sum-up and say that while I do believe legalizing drugs would lower drug-related violence and clear out our way-to-crowded jails, I am not at all convinced it would not replace that social cost with the dramatically increased social cost of addiction on a grander scale.
And thank you for your compliment on my original response. I do always try to debate in a civil manner. Its not easy sometimes, but frankly it's a lot more fun.
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