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 kryzaand@msu.edu
