Winners Don't Use Drugs (Remember These?)

estebanrey

estebanrey

estebanrey

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If you grew up in the late 80s or early 90s and frequented the arcades you probably will, this seemingly odd (to a UK kid) warning from the FBI that appeared on almost every arcade game cabinet....

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As a 10 year old kid I never really understood this message. Being the innocent youngster I was at time I thought it was an anti-steroid message; Ben Johnson had been famously disqualified for using drugs at the 1988 Olympics and that's all I knew about 'drugs', and as they said winners don't use them and he'd been disqualified so it was an easy link for a young kid to make.

Secondly, based on the above, I didn't know what the FBI had to do with anti-doping. Again being young and naive I thought the FBI and CIA were the same thing and they were like an American Secret Service unit.

I'd forgotten about the warning for years so I decided to research it and it's pretty interesting how they got there; and shocking as to why the FBI felt the need to make it a legal requirement (yes you heard that right, it was illegal to import an arcade game into the US without the warning).

Winners Don’t Use Drugs
In 1989 the first initiative was set up, as part of the FBI’s “Just Say No” campaign, which was designed to stop children and young people from taking part in drug, alcohol, recreational sex, violence, and other fun things that grown ups do. The “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” motto and campaign was established by William S. Sessions, the director of the FBI between 1987 and 1993. A law was passed, in agreement between the FBI and the American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) which decreed that all arcade games imported into the US carried this warning. It was mainly used in arcade games, though appeared in a number of pinball games. The image could be seen in the attract mode of arcade games everywhere from 1989 until 2000, effectively the death of the amusement arcade era.

William S. Sessions, the guy who’s picture appears to the right of this text, actually is a bit of a legend in Japan. If games got shipped to the US from Japan and back again, the Japanese and their great grasp of Engrish usually thought it said “Williams Sessions”, after the famous pinball manufacturer.

Recycle It, Don’t Trash It!
In 1992, the USEPA (United States Enivornmental Protection Agency) started it’s “War on Pollution” effort, an overall tackle on everything and anything to do with pollution. A number of subsidary campaigns were launched (the “Energy Star” being the most famous, the logo is seen on PC bootups to this day), and one of them was called “Trashing it is completely uncool”. A law was passed in 1992 – in agreeance between the USEPA and the AAMA stating that any arcade game imported into the US would have to have a screen which advertises this campaign. This campaign lasted from 1992 until 2000.

The chap who’s name appeared – William K. Reilly, the Administrator of the USEPA – still had his name on the screen long after he left the USEPA in 1992 (Unlike William S. Sessions). And his official portrait is to the right.


Why In The UK?
You may be asking “I live in the UK, why the bloody hell did I see them?”. Well, it was a time saving measure. Often, with the release of games, instead of recieving games from Japan converted into English, we recieved games from the US, already converted to English. Hence why they often had American spelling, and also why they had these screens.


Worrying Picture
I found it a worrying generalisation when I started my research for this piece. Basically, the FBI and the USEPA thought that arcade hounds were druggies and people who didn’t recycle, two of the most evil types of people there are – fact. I wonder how many people actually saw them and stopped taking drugs, or started recycling.

Did you?

http://www.retrogarden.co.uk/features/winners-dont-use-drugs/
Click to expand...

:eek:
 
Last edited:
RomanNose said:
One of the interesting thing America does is restrict GPS software such that it can't be used above 60k ft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom
It's pretty hilarious that they have done this, I can't imagine any point where someone is able to make a missile apart from modifying the gps software.
Click to expand...

Plus there are other methods of navigation missiles use that don't rely on GPS, like star sighting and inertial navigation.
 
Yeah I remember seeing those messages on arcade machines in South Africa during my youth. Always seemed rather odd that we were being warned by the FBI there.
 
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