South Dakota Meth

When we began work to help the State of South Dakota address their meth crisis, we all agreed on one thing – there had already been plenty of work directed at scaring young people to not try meth. It can be argued whether that type of work is ever effective or not, but it was a fact that part of the conversation had already happened.

Looking at just how bad the numbers were in South Dakota, we realized the net wider needed to be cast wider. It was necessary to wake up entire communities. Whether you like this campaign or not, and in these days of the Twitterverse, I am all too aware of the thousands of people who hated this work, there is no debating whether it worked. Within hours of launching, it hit a billion impressions. It was trending. It was on buzzfeed. It was lampooned on SNL, The Tonight Show and virtually every major news outlet in the country. But of course, its moment in the viral spotlight is not the true measure of its success.

Within three months twice as many South Dakotans entered treatment than during the entire three years prior. There was a campaign running those three years.

Tribal leaders and law enforcement made it clear they believed it played a vital role in bringing the problem into the open and generating much needed discussions within the community.

“Some will suggest it was a bad idea, some will say it’s sheer brilliance. In 24 hours, that campaign has raised awareness of meth more than we’ve been able to do in the last several years.”
- Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom to Sioux Falls, Associated Press

Walt Burns – CW/CD

Debbie Christensen – AD/CD

Jeff Tressider – ECD

Andy Anderson – photographer