Graphic Meth Ads and their Similarities to Human Trafficking

The Montana Meth Project is a philanthropic organization working to prevent meth use in Montana by focusing on risks and consequences of methamphetamine. During its six years of operations, it has seen an inspiring decrease in meth use statewide. Public awareness has been catalyzed by the Meth Project’s intense advertising campaign, including short TV spots, radio announcements, internet presence, and print ads.

The print ads took the cause to the streets with a graphic advertising campaign appearing on billboards and in printed high school newspapers across the state of Montana. Many of these ads illustrate the drastic, dangerous, heart-wrenching effects of meth on its users and their families. Some ads particularly highlight the severe connection between drug use and various types of exploitation. The pictures allude to certain scenarios with images and key words, and many of these depict situations related to human trafficking.

We appreciate and admire the work Montana Meth Project is doing to end the scourge of recreational meth use, and in the following blog we will analyze these advertisements to explore some of the links between meth consequences and types of human trafficking as well as trafficking warning signs and risk factors.

Warning: The following ads and the full ad series contain graphic images and may be unsettling or disturbing. Please be advised.

Ad 1: “My girlfriend would do anything for me. So I made her sell her body.”

Intimate partner sex trafficking is a type of human trafficking about which there is little definitive research. As illuminated before, it does happen and is closely related to intimate partner violence. Human trafficking by intimate partners or family members often occurs via coercive emotional and psychological manipulation. Such traffickers prey on their victims’ emotional attachment, love, or dependence and impel their intimate partners to engage in commercial sex or forced labor. Check out this story from one of our survivors who was trafficked by her intimate partner for a period of years.

This Montana Meth Project television spot demonstrates the same phenomenon: a boyfriend selling his girlfriend for sex, an instance of intimate partner sex trafficking. Another TV ad speaks to a similar theme: a teen girl putting her sister into a commercial sex situation. As this proves, traffickers can be anyone–male or female, US citizens or foreign nationals, any age, and even loved ones or family members.

Ad 2: “Before meth I had a daughter. Now I have a prostitute.”

According to federal law any minor who engages in commercial sex is a victim of sex trafficking. Underage or child prostitution is an extreme and unfortunately common form of sex trafficking in the United States. In general, for U.S. citizen youth this takes the form of street-level, pimp-controlled prostitution of minors.

Ad 3: “No one thinks they’ll spend a romantic evening here. Meth will change that.”

Romance and prison are a confusing and unexpected combination, but are commonly linked for victims of sex trafficking. Because victims are often arrested and charged for prostitution or indecent exposure and related crimes due to their visibility on the street, they are at risk for jail time. Many victims of trafficking have been groomed by their pimps or traffickers. Pimps promise a better life and feign love and affection in order to maintain a tether to their victims. Sometimes trafficking victims would rather go to jail than oust their pimp. This cruel form of psychological and emotional manipulation and abuse resonates with this ad—romance in a prison cell.

Ad 4: “Before meth I had a sister. Now I have a runaway.”

U.S. citizen runaways and homeless youth are extremely vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking. Cut off from support networks, these young people are often tricked by the promise of a better life, a steady income, some form of work, a roof to put over their head, and the allure of stability.

Thanks for reading, and keep following the North Star Blog! Look out for A Follow Up: Ads and PSAs in the Human Trafficking Abolition Community.