Pubdate: Tue, 18 Dec 2001
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Vanessa E. Jones, Globe Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

HIGH SOCIETY

In Magazines And Movies, On The Radio And On Tv, It Seems That Everybody 
Must Get Stoned

Sniff. Sniff. Smell that? It's the pungent odor of marijuana wafting in the 
air as the music, television, and film industries inhale a lungful of pot 
culture:

On the cover of High Times magazine, Aaron Lewis, lead singer of the rock 
group Staind, proudly clutches a bong and a handful of weed. Afroman had a 
novelty hit song this year, ''Because I Got High,'' which had nothing to do 
with altitude.

On ABC's ''Once and Again,'' the eldest son passes a joint to his teenage 
stepsister, while on NBC's ''The West Wing,'' the surgeon general floats 
the idea of decriminalizing marijuana.

Cannabis also gets a starring role in two winter films. The recently 
released comedy, ''The Wash,'' pairs producer, rapper, and now actor Dr. 
Dre with one of hip-hop's most notorious smokers, Snoop Dogg. On Friday, 
rappers Redman and Method Man puff their way into theaters with ''How 
High,'' in which the pair smoke magical pot that gives them the smarts to 
get into Harvard University.

''People are not proud to say they do coke, but marijuana - it's been a 
trend for years,'' Redman says. ''It's a movie star in its own self.''

Blame the revival on a generation of baby boomers working in film and 
television today who came of age during the pot smoking era of the 1960s 
and 1970s. Add to that teens and 20-somethings who are creating what the 
Department of Justice ominously calls ''the New Marijuana Epidemic'' by 
making ganja their drug of choice. Combine these two generations with an 
ongoing public push to legalize marijuana and suddenly, it seems like we've 
jumped into a time machine and gotten off in the 1970s, the heyday of 
Cheech & Chong.

All of which is enough to make organizations such as the White House Office 
of National Drug Control Policy want to spoil pop culture's high. We are, 
after all, still in the midst of a war on drugs.

''We have decided as a society, or at least as a legal system, that there 
isn't anything called responsible drug use,'' says Donald F. Roberts, a 
communications professor at Stanford University who has worked on studies 
examining drug, alcohol, and cigarette usage in music, television, and film 
for the National Drug Control Policy. ''That being the case, one would hope 
you would portray it in ways that make people not attracted to it.''

The darker side of marijuana use is clearly delineated in the news. A conga 
line of celebrities has been arrested for marijuana possession this year, 
including Aaron Sorkin, creator of ''The West Wing,'' Snoop Dogg, and 
former Dallas Cowboys lineman Nate Newton, who was caught twice in the last 
two months. And the LA Clippers' Lamar Odom was suspended for five games 
for smoking it.

That hasn't stopped the nation from embracing its bongs, blunts, and 
joints. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 10 million 
people use marijuana and 69 million people over the age of 12 have smoked 
it at least once. The drug trails only alcohol and cigarettes in popularity.

So it's hardly noted that the lead singer of the rock band Nickelback wears 
a marijuana leaf T-shirt onstage and calls for the legalization of the 
drug. Or that a spate of high-quality films - ''Eyes Wide Shut,'' 
''American Beauty,'' and ''Wonder Boys'' - feature characters smoking weed 
as casually as they'd light up a cigarette or drink a glass of wine. It's a 
subtle shift from the past, when, according to Steven Hager, editor in 
chief of High Times, pot users were depicted as destructive people with 
dead-end lives.

''I don't think marijuana is treated as badly,'' says Mark-Boris St. 
Mourice, managing editor of the year-old Heads magazine, which, in another 
indication of marijuana's increasingly popularity, is battling with High 
Times and Cannabis Culture for dominance in the pot publications genre.

''It's more levelheaded,'' continues St. Mourice, who likens the drug's 
more casual treatment to how homosexual lifestyles have increasingly gained 
acceptance in pop culture. Take Tommy Chong's recurring role as the stoner 
owner of a photo lab on television's ''That '70s Show.''

''He isn't denigrated; he's just another one of the characters,'' says St. 
Mourice. ''The young characters are smoking pot on a regular basis on that 
show. That's a big deal, too. Yet they still happily go on with life and 
don't end up cutting their mom's head off with an ax.''

''Once and Again,'' which focuses on the second marriage of two parents who 
both have children, kicked off its season with the eldest child, 
18-year-old Eli, being arrested for pot possession. A recent episode 
started with him getting fired from his job for arriving late one too many 
times, possibly because of his ongoing drug use. It ended with Eli 
introducing his 16-year-old stepsister, Grace, to pot - at her behest.

''We're showing a fully dimensional, complex person who has a lot of great 
qualities who's smoking pot a lot - maybe to his detriment - and it really 
isn't spelled out,'' says Winnie Holzman, an executive producer for the 
show. The story line developed out of the experiences of Holzman and her 
co-executive producers, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, the pair 
behind the angst-ridden dramas ''thirtysomething'' and ''My So-Called Life.''

''In our generation it was very common to smoke pot,'' says Holzman, who's 
in her 40s. ''It's an issue now because we're all raising teenagers.''

On the other hand, we still live in an era where television and movies, 
such as the teen flick, ''Dude, Where's My Car?'' and last year's ''Saving 
Grace,'' use goofily doped-up characters for laughs.

''One of the problems with illicit drug use is that it gets portrayed 
sometimes seriously and responsibly in the sense that, 'Gee, this guy used 
marijuana and it did reduce his reaction time driving the car - and that 
cost the kid his life,' says Roberts, ''but the next film is a comedy. ... 
There's not much consistency there.'' And anyone who's raised a child, he 
adds, knows how important consistency is in affecting behavior.

''How High'' plays pot for laughs, using as a jumping-off point Method Man 
and Redman, whose first single together, also called ''How High,'' was a 
paean to smoking. Hip-hop artists have never hesitated to throw in 
references to Buddha, blunts, and joints to their lyrics. Snoop Dogg 
recently completed his Puff, Puff Pass tour, named after the etiquette 
followed by weed smokers: two puffs, then pass it on.

When the script writers began building ''How High'' around Redman and 
Method Man, the duo had two requests. The action had to take place on a 
college campus and ''we wanted to be smoking a hell of a lot of weed,'' 
says Redman, who's also known as Funk Doctor Spot, or Doc for short.

''People in hip-hop know we smoke,'' he explains. ''How we going to do a 
movie and not have a tremendous amount of weed? It wouldn't have been right.''

And indeed, many scenes show the characters shrouded in billows of smoke. 
The filmmakers brush off any suggestions that the film, which is rated R, 
encourages drug use among the teens who will inevitably sneak into theaters 
to see their musical heroes.

''I don't think the film at all says, 'Go out and do drugs and you'll do 
well,''' says Pamela Abdy, executive producer of ''How High.''

Adds Redman, ''I'm not promoting it to a younger crowd. But if you've got 
to hear it from us not to smoke weed and your parents are not telling you, 
there's something wrong.'' Redman and Method Man waged their own informal 
antidrug campaign by abstaining from smoking as they shot the film.

''You got to step it up,'' explains Method Man, ''because if everyone's on 
the same page and you're not, it shows. It's embarrassing, really.''

As he talks, a lighter clicks. He takes a drag that echoes over the 
telephone line. A cigarette, perhaps? No, he replies, weed.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens