This Is Your Brain on Drugs
“This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”
1987 PSA from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America: an egg ('this is drugs') fried in a pan ('this is your brain on drugs'). One of the most recognized and parodied PSAs in the US.
- Years
- 1987
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Drugs
- Asks people to
- Never start
- Strategy
- Fear appealMetaphor
- Channel
- PrintTV
- Audience
- General publicYouth
Evidence
NoneUnknown
No outcome evaluation found yet. High recall and cultural reach; widely parodied.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Partnership for a Drug-Free America NGO, creator
Credits (who made it)
- Keye/Donna/Pearlstein (Los Angeles) Creative, 1987 source
- Larre Johnson (copywriter, Keye/Donna/Pearlstein) Individual source
- Scot Fletcher (art director, Keye/Donna/Pearlstein) Individual source
Related campaigns
Sources
- This Is Your Brain on Drugs (overview) reference
Research notes
Included as the 'fame is not effect' case. Search for any evaluation of Partnership campaigns of this era; check the 1998 remake with Rachael Leigh Cook. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Keye/Donna/Pearlstein, Larre Johnson, Scot Fletcher (Seattle Times, 22 Feb 1990: copywriter Larre Johnson and art director Scot Fletcher 'who work at the Los Angeles ad agency Keye/Donna/Pearlstein and for the volunteer group called Partnership for a Drug-Free America' created the frying-egg spot; Mental Floss, 18 May 2017, interviews creative director Paul Keye and says the spot 'premiered in 1987'). Corrected 2026-10-22: agency source changed from Mental Floss to the contemporaneous Seattle Times piece; added Johnson and Fletcher. Year conflict: the 1990 Seattle Times piece says the spot 'first aired last March', which would mean March 1989, while Mental Floss and most retrospectives say 1987. startYear and the agency's year are left at 1987 pending a dated 1987 primary or trade source.
Record cases/this-is-your-brain-on-drugs.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign