Six Flags Great Adventure will stop selling pacifiers souveniers, critics say it encourages drug use

Jeff said:

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I wore fat flourescent shoe laces and had a neck stopwatch (like Flavor Flav ) in 8th grade

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Glad to know I wasn't the only one.. Did you also wear the combat boots and urban warefare camo pants like the rest of the S1W ???

*hides his head in shame*

JesterMN said: "the door to censorship can start small..."

"But we're only going after the BAD people...you don't wanna side with THEM, do you? Besides, it's in our national interest to protect people from things we don't want them to see"...this message brought to you by the Citizens for Sen. Joe McCarthy...;)

Freedoms are so hard to win and so easily given up...

edit: forgot to add a winky....don't want anyone to get caught in the sar-chasm...
*** This post was edited by rollergator 1/16/2004 12:32:17 PM ***

I have to admit, I admire the kids' passion and their attempt to be proactive. I am glad that they actually wanted to do something that they (apparently) believe in. But I am still dumbfounded as to *why* they picked this cause. Sorry, but I dont believe it. I did not, do not, and will not cop to a pacifier being considered, first and foremost, drug peri.

And pacifiers being "cool" by teens/adults was started about the time when these kids themselves were in need of pacifiers. Dont believe me? Go rent "Boyz in the Hood" and watch how many times you see 'Dooky' with a nipple shoved in his mouth. It was dumb, it was stupid, but I dont recall it being associated with X.

But what do I know? I'm a bottle of Geritol away from being an Old Fart as far as kids today are concerned.

lata, jeremy

--whos mother once suggested putting rubber nipples on 40oz beer bottles since they were both considered "k3wl" in the early '90s

After reading the article it sounds like Ms. Carrea, the counselor who spearheaded this whole campaign, is really the only one who exclusively associates the use of pacifiers and hardcore Ex use. Some of the quotes in the article struck me as interesting. “Ms. Carrea said she always gave Great Adventure the benefit of the doubt because she said a lot of people don't know what things are considered drug paraphernalia. ‘I know a lot of the kids didn't know that a lighted pacifier was considered drug paraphernalia,’ Ms. Carrea said. ‘Most of them didn't know what it symbolized.’" In addition, one of the students said, "I was unaware of what it meant at the time, but I was really surprised that they (Great Adventure) didn't know it was considered drug paraphernalia." This quote and others made it sound like the kids were repeating what thier teacher told them. So, if the students didn’t associate the pacifier with drug use and no one at Six Flags Great Adventure associated them with drug use, why is Ms. Carrea’s opinion the only one heard? I also found it how out of touch she was with the entire dance scene that she was quoted on almost as an expert. I hate to tell her, but the stereotypical underground rave scene was at its zenith in the mid-90’s. This isn’t PC, its just stupidity.

The pacifier, like many things in our popular culture, was once associated with the drug culture. As Jester said it has been assimilated (and no, not by the BORG :) by the mass culture into just another eye-catching crappy souvenir. The fair industry, which is usually ahead of parks by about one or two years when it comes to souvenir and novelty items, has been selling these things for several years, along with many other “trinkety” items like blinking earrings, pens, pins and anything else they could attach a light to. As someone who had the companies that make these items (such as Rhode Island Novelty and Northeast import on the “blinky” things and OmniGlow for glow sticks) as clients and sold them to the amusement industry I can say that the majority of in-park sales reflect the bulk of most sales at parks & fairs as a whole- they were to families. I can’t wait to find out what kind of cause this counselor comes up with next. Maybe she can work with the fat kids to help sue McDonalds for force-feeding them Quarter Pounders.

Adam*** This post was edited by LONNOL 1/16/2004 12:38:31 PM ****** This post was edited by LONNOL 1/16/2004 12:43:22 PM ***

I cannot believe I read this. It's not even April 1st.... I wouldn't call my drug knowledge very vast, but I never would have thought of a pacifier. Ever.

You have to like how political correctness is slowly killing everything in this country. You can't say most things anymore without being PC. Apparently, you can't sell souvenirs from an amusement park and be PC too. Go figure.

You know what though, GAdv, likely did the *right* thing from a business perspective. I dont fault them at all. I'm sure they looked at this "crazy group" (my term :)) and figured, meh, we can sell some other overpriced piece of lighted plastic crap in place of the pacifiers. We *really* dont want to sit around and argue with these folks. Why waste our time.

Sure *honey*, we'll take them off the shelves. Better now? Good! How about some ice cream?

lata, jeremy

--who thinks they should remove the "Ice Cream Man" from parks and streets because of the connection to crack/cocaine.

...and all this time I thought it was a tribute to Maggie Simpson.

Is it just me or are there an increasing number of concerns that school children are addressing these days? Here we have kids writing a company because some people use it for drugs. In southwest Ohio, where I live, we have kids attending township counsel meetings demanding a traffic light at an intersection. Are these kids concerned their parents have to wait longer at the stop sign? I know they sure as heck aren't driving.

It just seems odd these large groups of kids, usually led by some "school counselor", are attacking these so called issues, when they aren't even allowed to vote. Seems like the "counselor" may be trying to use kids cause "Who can say no to a kid?"

Just my rant.

Combat boots were (and are) for disenchanted suburban social outcasts. I was living in da hood at the time.

And Matt... give me a break. Glow sticks have been fun at parties for years long before it became fashionable in rave culture. In fact, anyone who has really explored that culture knows that prior to ecstasy becoming the drug du jour, purist rave culture was about not using. When clubs caught on to the popularity of dance music and techno, they started having "rave nights" and marketed them to the masses. It's the masses that were used to going to meat-market pop dance clubs that reinforced the drug use.

The pacifier thing is no less a trend than boys with loose pants and their ass crack hanging out.
*** This post was edited by Jeff 1/16/2004 1:09:37 PM ***

I love how one of the stundents that commented how she pictured Great Adventure a family-oriented amusement park. If I had kids I wouldn't allow them at Great Adventure until at least the age of 15 or so.

As a teenager I went to a lot of raves and house parties in Houston, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Oklahoma City, and Kansas City. Acid, Ecstacy, as well as pacifiers, were everywhere then amongst the "scene". This was the early to mid 90's.

Well I survived, obviously. I think if the same thing happened in my neck of the woods at that time it just would have motivated us to rebel in other ways, and further laugh at the authorities that be.

It makes me absolutly sick that an adult "professional" would spend their valuable time and energy on a Mcarthyistic (don't know if it's a word, you know what i mean)letter-writing campaign such as this. Teach kids to think for themselves, and not *&^% up their lives with drugs. I think pacifiers, and safe places to hang out such as any SF, are the least of our worries for this new generation.

Can't help but thinking again of that post from SFGAdv a few years back about dope smoking in the Nitro que, with the caption, "Gettin' high to fly!"

I haven't been a punk kid for many years now, but I still knew about the pacifier/ecstasy thing. It's been covered in a lot of news magazines, documentaries, etc. (see how old this article is?) I'm sure that any park selling pacifiers knew exactly what they were doing in capitalizing on a drug-related fad. The pacifiers are definitely more of an accessory than they are paraphernalia, but a well-regarded amusement park probably shouldn't be walking that fine line anyway.

That isn't to suggest that SFGAdv would soon resort to selling tiny golden spoon necklaces... but it's probably an area an amusement park should steer clear of in general. Leave the exploitation to clubs who force you to buy $3 bottled water to cash in on your X-inspired dehydration.

Does anyone ELSE think that Ms. Carrea is really Sheila Broflovski using a pseudonym?

Personally, I blame Canada! ;)

The more foolish side of me used to be in the club scene and I used x on more than a few occasions. One thing you notice on x is that your mouth is well...anxious. Chewing gum, flipping something around in your mouth, kissing, and chewing or letting your tongue play with a pacifier are well...enjoyable and somewhat necessary to a degree. Your mouth feels like your body does when it doesn't have an outlet for caffiene. It wants to move and anything in it helps with that (except food, you're nowhere near hungry on x). If you don't have something in your mouth you wind up grinding your teeth to death and clenching your jaw. See this article:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/03.23.00/ecstasy1-0012.html

The SF pacifier would have been just another pacifier if it weren't for one thing, the light on it; and that relates to another effect of using x - hallucinating. Glow sticks, flashing lights, lasers, any of those are huge in the club scene cause when you roll (being on x) lights are well....really freakin' cool. A good light show throws you into another world - why do you think clubs go so far out on lights? So, if you're gonna have a pacifier in your mouth and it's a Big Bird one vs. one with a cool flashing light on it, guess which one the average x user's gonna pick?

This is from the website of a company that sells them:

"We're not sure "pacifier" is the best name for this great new item, as the bright flashing light sequences won't put anyone to sleep. Great entertainment for children and child minded adults! Assorted case colors of clear, pink, purple, and blue. Batteries included. *Not for children under 12."

Interesting that it's great entertainment for children but it's not for them.

Don't know if it's coincedence or what, but when it says it won't put anyone to sleep it's interesting to note that one pill can keep you up for 8-15 hours.

Zingo: I've read that raves became very much associated with ecstasy particularly in Texas, which is weird to me because it doesn't exactly strike me as a hot bed for the music.

The scene in Detroit, on the other hand, is where I get this purist thing from. When I was working in radio there was another jock who was heavily into it, and even scored a few gigs in the motor city. He felt very strongly that the whole notion of the culture he knew was corrupted by fashion and commericalism.

And let's face it... this is the last step of that exploitation. Whatever original meaning it may have had, it's bigger than that now.

And to suggest that the park intentionally was capitalizing on the trendynes of designer drub abuse is absurd. Not even Six Flags is that stupid.

Hey, I've used soda cans for smoking in desperation...boy those were the days. Anyway, X is too expensive anyway, it's really all about pretty colors. ;)

And Jeff, the Drug/No drug thing was going on at the same time. You had two groups coexisting at least in SF. Everyone got along fine. I thought the pacifier thing had come and gone during a single summer. Guess it came back.

Either way, if it was such a bigt deal, why did they sell them in the first place? The only reason they got rid of them was because someone complained.

Edited due to flashback-induced errors. Speaking of which, do you think they'll rename it due to the connotations?*** This post was edited by janfrederick 1/16/2004 3:24:20 PM ***

Janfredrick, I have also used soda cans as well. I have also used toilet paper tube rolls and potatoes with homemade foil screen. I really do not think that SF sold them just because they thought it would appeal to X users. Oh great, now I'll never be able to buy soda in cans any more or toilet paper (insert sarchasm here).

Beastfreak, I think you nailed it pretty good. Seems to me some children are "concerned" about issues that they probably no nothing about.

Nice one, rollergator. You may be on to something. It's a Broflovsky conspiracy.

Well, if they were really concerned about the welfare of young'uns, they'd ban the selling of soda like they did in the Philly school system.

lata, jeremy

the secret word is sarcasm

whenever anyone says the secret word SCREAM REAL LOUD

(I miss Pee Wee's Playhouse)

As long as we're on the topic of banning drug-encouraging things...lets discuss alcohol. That's a drug, too, is it not? How about the fact that my chicago-suburban area high schools have had to ban waterbottles because kids are bringing 32+ oz of vodka in gatorade bottles and drinking themselves sick in classes...one such instance that comes to mind is the kid that overdrank and got violently ill in DRIVER'S EDUCATION. That is frightening.

Does this mean the SFGAm should stop selling ice mountain because kids are going on the coasters plastered? No.

Does this mean Parents should start thinking twice about what they're letting their kids do? Yes.