New PETA Billboard Asks Vermillion Residents to Just Say 'No!' to Pot (Roast)

Mayoral Candidate's Arrest on Drug Charges Prompts Warning to Meat-Eaters Not to Let Their Health Go Up in Smoke

For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2010

Contact:
Michael Lyubinsky  757-622-7382

Vermillion, S.D. -- PETA is currently negotiating with Vermillion-area outdoor advertisers to run a billboard that shows a photo of a cow next to the words "Say 'No!' to Pot (Roast). Don't Be a Meathead. Kick the Habit! Go Vegan!" The billboard comes in the wake of Vermillion mayoral candidate Nick Severson's arrest on charges of marijuana possession and ingestion and as South Dakota residents prepare to vote on a ballot item this fall to legalize medicinal marijuana. PETA's point? That while the jury may still be out on the potential harmful effects of marijuana, meat and dairy products are known to be bad for human health.

"Meat-eaters are doing a lot more harm to their health than someone who smokes the occasional joint," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "Chickens, fish, pigs, and cows who are raised on today's factory farms are fed growth-promoting drugs by the bucketful, and those drugs--along with artery-clogging fats and cholesterol--are passed along to consumers who eat meat and dairy products."

Meat and dairy products are often loaded with drugs and chemicals, including pesticide residues, hormones, and antibiotics. The consumption of meat and other animal-derived products has been linked to heart disease, strokes, obesity, diabetes, and cancer--not to mention other hazards, such as E. coli, salmonella, and listeria infection.

In today's industrialized meat and dairy industries, chickens and turkeys have their throats cut while they're still conscious, piglets have their tails and testicles cut off without being given any painkillers, fish suffocate or are cut open while they're still alive on the decks of fishing boats, and calves are taken away from their mothers within hours of birth.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.