In my last post, I noted the bizarre “Every 15 Minutes” campaign, in which high school students are tricked into thinking that some of their fellow classmates died in an alcohol-related car crash. Today Reason posted a link to a Weekly Standard article by Katherine Mangu-Ward describing the macabre program.

This spring at El Camino High School in Ocean-side, California, the program took a new tack. The tragicomical Grim Reaper was tossed out, and the accident victims simply failed to turn up at their homerooms one Monday morning. Police officers showed up in 20 classrooms, placed red roses on missing students’ chairs, and announced the deaths of a popular athlete and other Big Men (and women) on campus. The student body wasn’t clued in to the fact that their “dead” classmates were really just holed up in a seminar room, trying out beer-goggling simulations and writing letters to their parents full of fake self-flagellation for fake drinking and driving. Many students got understandably upset.

P.S. It should be noted that MADD is not officially offiliated with the program, although as Mangu-Ward points out, “MADD members frequently participate, offering testimonials and other conventional finger-wagging support services.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 12:15 by CJ Ciaramella and is filed under Booze. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.