How many of you know his address by heart and can sing it to the tune we heard as students in the 90s?
Write Scruff
McGruff
Chicago Illinois
Six oh six five twooooooo
I wrote him when I was in grade school, and in return I received a packet of merch and a letter. I thought it was very cool and I think about that package with happiness. Of course, not every kid in my class thought that Scruff was hip. Many of them rolled their eyes or exhaled loudly whenever we were watching one of his videos in class. These were often the troubled students, the students that were most likely doing drugs themselves, and the ones living in broken homes. As an adult it makes me think that there were very clearly noticeable warning signs that something was wrong with them.
Despite lacking universal appeal, his lessons always stuck with me. I never once did an illegal drug, and although I drank heavily in college and in young adulthood, I haven’t been a regular drinker in years, and it’s been a month since my last drink. I hope to quit for good.
What’s interesting now is that even though I took Scruff’s lessons to heart about saying no to drugs, I didn’t learn exactly who I would have to be saying no to. When push came to shove, it wasn’t a sketchy criminal in an alleyway, but a US President, a well-dressed pharmaceutical executive, and his minion in a white lab coat.
The pushers may look very different than the ones portrayed in the 90s, but the lessons learned and the tactics used remain the same. The peer pressure that they employed was overwhelming, and it was essential to learn to live with being unpopular, marginalized, excluded, shunned, sanctioned, and even persecuted. I’m glad that at a young age, I learned that these would be possibilities, and at a young age, I made the decision to accept them.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I think that when I told the Federal Government that under no circumstances would I take their pharmaceutical poison, I spoke with the voice of a gruff bloodhound in a trench coat.
Just say no.
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