Take drugs, get AIDS, and die!

The federal government kicked off a campaign today aimed at scaring young people out of doing drugs by telling them that if they do, they could get AIDS.

Exemplifying the youth-oriented bent is a TV commercial featuring student actresses and actors from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a public high school here.

In the commercial, a girl tells a friend via text messages that a mutual friend has contracted HIV from unprotected sex following a night of smoking marijuana.

The text messages read: "She got high; She got stupid; and now she has HIV."

You can watch the alarmist ad here.

The campaign leans heavily on student input, and organizers say they will be successful only to the extent that young people listen to their message.

But it looks like it's not going all that well so far.

Ellington students at the press conference, some of whom were in the commercial, said the NIDA campaign wouldn't necessarily keep them from drinking or doing drugs.

Surprise! Who'd have thought that young people don't trust the government's scare tactics?