Laudanum of opium tincture prevails today only because opium tincture was sold prior to the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act of 1938. Its "grandfathered" status protects opium tincture from being required to undergo strict FDA drug reviews and subsequent approval processes. However, the FDA closely monitors the labeling of opium tincture. Bottles of opium tincture are required by the FDA to bear a bright red "POISON" label given the potency of the drug and the potential for overdose (see discussion about confusion with Paregoric below). Despite opium tincture being an "unapproved drug" as discussed above, a search of FDA's website
Partnership for Drug-Free Kids these stories at times in its commercials. For example, a 28-year-old former drug user met for lunch with the Partnership's Doria Steedman, and at one point "pulled out her [false] teeth" to show the ravages of the drug use; this idea was used in a subsequent commercial. At the same time, different drugs were coming in and out of vogue, sometimes introduced by films such as "Trainspotting". In 1994, an independent assessment from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine suggested that the anti-drug campaign was having a measurable "deterrence effect" on American adolescents: Research efforts suggested that a key metric