Winners Don't Use Drugs is an anti-drug slogan that was included on all arcade games imported into North America for 11 years from 1989 to 2000. The slogan appears on a screen that is shown during a game's attract mode.
The messages are credited to FBI Director William S. Sessions, whose name appears alongside the slogan. Sessions reached a deal with American Amusement Machine Association president Robert Fay through which 20 arcade manufacturers agreed to include the slogan in their games. The slogan made its official debut on January 10, 1989, when three major games that included the slogan were shown to the press. A similar campaign called Recycle It, Don't Trash It! was launched several years afterward. Although Sessions's tenure with the FBI ended several years later, the slogan continued to be included in newer arcade games. It has since become a symbol of arcade gaming in the 1990s.
The slogan has been parodied various times, such as in the Xbox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network title Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, saying "Winners Don't Eat Meat."
Famous quotes containing the words winners and/or drugs:
“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“To possess your soul in patience, with all the skin and some of the flesh burnt off your face and hands, is a job for a boy compared with the pains of a man who has lived pretty long in the exhilarating world that drugs or strong waters seem to create and is trying to live now in the first bald desolation created by knocking them off.”
—C.E. (Charles Edward)