Pubdate: Fri, 07 Feb 2003
Source: The State News (MI Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The State News via U-WIRE
Contact:  http://www.statenews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1246
Author: A.P. Kryza
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)

COMMERCIALS UNREALISTIC, FALSE

We all know the smell. That skunky smell that looms in the basement of many 
a party. That dank scent that reminds you of the bathroom of a stadium 
during a Phish concert. The piney odor that wafts off of the bus driver's 
jacket. Do you recognize that smell? It's the smell of death. It's the 
smell of murderers and criminals. It is the smell of America's most 
dangerous drug, and it's ever-present, looming over us waiting to turn even 
the most congenial person into a rapist and a murderer. It is the smell of 
marijuana.

Or so a recent government-sponsored ad campaign would have you think. 
Anyone who has watched television recently might recognize the ads. One 
depicted two kids smoking and rooting through one of their father's desk. 
They find a gun and kid A accidentally shoots kid B. Or how about the one 
where a teenage boy and girl smoke joint after joint until the girl passes 
out, leaving the boy the perfect opportunity to rape the girl.

Alarming, isn't it?

The problem with this particular propaganda campaign is this; have the 
writers of these ads ever actually seen a kid get stoned?

Sure, they depict the kids as being dreamily dazed and bullshitting each 
other, but the end results are ridiculous. I've never encountered pot that 
has the same effects as crack, but I guess maybe I'm just sheltered.

Personally, I've never seen a person pass out from smoking pot, and I've 
seen a lot of people pass out in my day.

Even if I did, I'm not sure that, having smoked enough ganja to make his 
girlfriend lose consciousness, a guy could be in the right frame of mind to 
violate the girl, especially when the television is right in front of him 
to watch.

The whole campaign seems a complete hyperbole of the entire marijuana 
situation. The kids in these ads simply do not act stoned. They act like 
they're hopped up on something more sinister like PCP, GHB or any number of 
drugs so dangerous that they are referred to by initials.

Ads like these are designed to educate through fear. Fear is indeed a 
powerful tool, and had these messages been better suited for the drug they 
chose to condemn, they may have been effective for this particular drug.

For example, one ad could start as Joe Schmo smokes a blunt in the parking 
lot of his favorite bar. He walks in dazed and strikes up a casual 
conversation with a drunkard at the bar about, oh I don't know, how Dave 
Matthews sucks.

The drunk gets mad at Joe and tries to pick a fight. Joe puts up his fists 
but then stares off at a video screen showing a commercial. The drunk beats 
him senseless as the phrase "Marijuana will distract you during a bar 
fight. Be a good fighter, pass on grass."

Or how about a scenario where two guys are sitting around smoking a hookah 
and yakking about the Smurfs, how it's all a metaphor for, oh I don't know, 
communism.

As they speak, the light through the windows quickly turns darker then 
brighter. The slogan "You wasted $20 on a sack. Now you've wasted three 
days talking about '80s cartoons. Those three days are gone" (and Gargamel, 
by the way, was Stalin).

Maybe slogans such as "Three pizzas later Billy realized he had his fill," 
or "Janice wanted to get high. Now all she wants to do is clean her house 
all day and watch Jim Henson movies."

Sure, those may be a bit excessive, but no more so than idiot teenagers 
taking bong rips and shooting each other.

The whole thing seems a throwback to "Reefer Madness," a 1939 
anti-propaganda film that depicted pot smokers as sex-crazed axe murderers 
strung out on herb and willing to do anything and run anyone over to get 
it. These current ads share a hilariously large amount of similarities with 
the film, which is now considered more of a comedy than a wake-up call.

When did marijuana become such an issue in the media that it has been 
depicted as more harmful than alcohol? How many people have been sexually 
assaulted as a direct result of alcohol consumption?

Compare it to the number assaulted because of marijuana use and I'm sure 
you'll find a huge difference ratio between the two. Yet, alcohol is 
depicted as harmful only when coupled with driving.

The whole thing stinks to high hell. Better research on the behalf of those 
responsible for these ads would have resulted in less laughable 
commercials, the next of which will probably depict a 13-year-old pothead 
cross dressing and making out with the neighbor's dog.

A.P. Kryza is The State News film reporter. Reach him at