Pubdate: Fri, 04 Sep 2015
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: David Bauder, The Associated Press

MTV AWARDS SHOW CRITICIZED FOR GLORIFYING MARIJUANA

NEW YORK (AP) - An organization that ran anti-cigarette smoking ads 
during the Video Music Awards has complained to MTV's parent company 
about the program's multiple references to marijuana and said it sent 
the wrong message to young viewers.

Show host Miley Cyrus was responsible for most of them. She even came 
backstage with a lit joint after the show and passed it around to 
photographers.

"It is entirely understandable for viewers to be confused, after 
hearing so much about marijuana during the VMA broadcast, to see a 
powerful advertisement about the dangers of tobacco," said Eric 
Asche, chief marketing officer of the Truth Initiative, which 
sponsored two anti-cigarette ads.

Asche said his group was "extremely disappointed" and expressed that 
feeling to Viacom.

An MTV spokesman said the network declined to comment.

The VMAs are MTV's biggest event of the year, and the show was seen 
Sunday by nearly 10 million people across several of Viacom's 
networks. Cyrus sang a song, "Dooo It!" that included the lyrics, 
"loving what you sing, and loving smoking weed." She ate supposed pot 
brownies with Snoop Dogg in one skit and lit up with a group of 
friends in another. She held up a selfie stick and encouraged the 
group of people behind her, "Everyone say marijuana!"

Pot is popular among MTV's target audience. College students are 
smoking marijuana at a higher rate than at any time in the past 35 
years, surpassing cigarette smoking, according to a University of 
Michigan study released this week.

The message sent by celebrities about marijuana on the VMAs is every 
bit as persuasive as the show's commercials, said Tim Winter, 
president of the Parents Television Council.

"What they're basically doing is telling everyone, especially kids 
but all viewers, that marijuana use is nothing to eschew," Winter said.

Plenty of successful people smoke pot and have the financial cushion 
to handle it if things go wrong, said Kevin Sabet, head of the 
anti-drug group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Not everyone in MTV's 
audience has the same luxury.

"It's really a bad message to young people that marijuana is 
harmless," Sabet said, "especially at a time when the marijuana kids 
are using is five to 10 times as strong as the marijuana their parents used."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom