It has been revealed the NSW government spent $350,000 on the unintentionally hilarious Stoner Sloth advertising campaign.
The campaign, intended to reduce teenage cannabis use, featured large groaning sloths as teenagers who had been smoking cannabis.
Not only was the campaign widely lampooned and mocked, it also inadvertently gave free advertising for an online marijuana seller that goes by the same name.
A freedom of information (FOI) request from Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi revealed the campaign to have been an expensive failure, costing the Department of Premier and Cabinet $351,790 and took 265 staff hours to put together.
This included more than $36,300 for the advertising agency behind the campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi.
More than $59,800 went to production company 8com while another $28,000 was spent on casting and paying the actors in the advertisement.
The government spent $115,100 on research and evaluation and another $99,990 went to media agency Universal McCann.
Dr Faruqi said in a statement the government could have spent the money on "a far more useful and sensible campaign or initiative relating to drugs".
"The money and time allocated could have resourced a pill-testing trial, which we really need in NSW and is guaranteed to reduce harm from drugs," she said.
“Allowing pill-testing at music festivals would also educate people about the potential risks of taking drugs and provide them with more information about what they might be putting into their bodies.
She said in light of the amount of money spent on the advertisement, the government needed to prove how effective the campaign had been.
“Given the large amount of public money spent on the Stoner Sloth campaign, we want the government to release a full evaluation and provide people with some information about what they have learned from this experiment," Dr Faruqi said.
"Overwhelmingly, though, the ‘campaign’ was really revealing of the government’s outdated and narrow approach to drug use. We need to have a sensible conversation that acknowledges the shortcomings of the law-and-order approach and opts for a policy agenda based on harm reduction, decriminalisation, and medical evidence."
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