A double exclamation title for these two nuggets from Ravenswood’s Universe who rightly predicted years ago that anti-Smoking campaigns would in fact cause teens to smoke and now it’s official. Of course you don’t need psychic powers for that one, those ads filled with rejects from Old Navy commercials would make any self-respecting cool kid head for the nearest pack of Djarum. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor at UGA, found that many anti-smoking ad campaigns have the opposite effect on teenagers, backfiring because they actually encourage the rebellious nature of youth.

“They don’t want to hear what they should do or not do,” Paek said. Instead, she said, ads should focus on convincing teens their friends are heeding the anti-smoking warning because peer pressure has the most direct effect.

Paek and co-author Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined surveys from 1,700 middle school students about their exposure to anti-smoking ads and their intention to smoke. The study will be published in the August issue of the journal “Communication Research.”

The study is the latest in a string of research showing that anti-smoking campaigns often have ad little to no impact on teens. In 2002, a study commissioned by an anti-smoking foundation found tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris’ youth anti-smoking campaign was making students more likely to smoke.

Teens don’t care what adults think? Who Knew?

Also at Ravenwood’s is the anatomy of a hoax. The Violence Poverty Center, a gun grabbing group of shiftless hippies, released this report claiming that Florida ranks second in the country for drive by shootings. The problem is that their study looked at a six month period in 2006 (July to December I believe) and worse yet compiled their evidence by having “researchers” Google the term Drive by shooting! They Googeled their research! From their report:

From July 1, 2006, through December 31, 2006, the Violence Policy Center
(VPC) used the Google News search engine to collect every reported news article that contained the term “drive by.” From these results, the VPC removed all results not related to a drive-by shooting incident (for example, extraneous results included news reports of football games detailing a “drive by” one team against another, etc.).Recognizing the limitations of the survey tools used, and taking into account prior studies looking at the number of drive-by shootings in specific jurisdictions, it is likely that the number of shootings is dramatically underreported.

Wow. That’s good science. I’m glad organizations like the VPC are getting the necessary funding to make this sort of intensive research possible. It makes me feel safe.