In 2003, the war on drugs experienced a new high when a barrage ofanti-marijuana ads, targeted at teenagers, hit TV and radio airwaves.
Itstarted during last year's Super Bowl with an ad in which a teenagerbecomes pregnant because she smoked pot. The ad begins with a motherin the bathroom holding a positive pregnancy test, while her daughtersits on the rim of the bathtub. Then her father walks in to receivethe bad news. A voice then says: "Smoking marijuana impairs yourjudgment. It's more harmful than we all thought."
Now, I've heard some lies in my life, but blaming weed for teenpregnancy is a scare tactic that is just plain wrong.Fifteen-year-old boys and girls going through puberty create teenpregnancies. Weed does not. If young girls want to make love toanybody while they're stoned, it's probably to a carton of Ben andJerry's or a box of Mike and Ike's.
This ad, along with many others like it, began airing last yearwhen Congress decided to use billions of dollars in taxpayers' moneyto launch a huge media campaign aimed at teens. The original proposalincluded anti-alcohol themes, but that quickly came to a halt afterintense lobbying from the alcohol industry. Surprised, anyone?
They decided public money was best used to try to preventteenagers from using marijuana despite the fact that, according towww.changetheclimate.org, driving studies reveal that marijuanaproduces "little or no car-handling impairment - consistently lessthan that produced by low to moderate doses of alcohol and many legalmedications."
It would be perfectly fine to provide kids with facts aboutmarijuana effects and abuse, but instead the government decided torevert back to the "reefer madness" days of the 1930s. As a result,we've been subjected to watching and listening to anti-marijuanacommercials that range from absurd to bona fide lies.
One such ad depicts a group of stoned teenagers in a car who areat a fast-food drive-through ordering some food (naturally), when allof a sudden they hit a little girl on her bike as they're leaving.OK, I guess it's possible for that to happen. But is that really thenorm?
The message is something tragic will happen if you smoke anddrive. I understand the combination can be dangerous, but it isn'tnearly as dangerous as drinking and driving - the No. 1 killer on ourhighways.
There's another ad that shows an infant girl wandering around apool, as if to assume she's about to fall in and drown. Apparentlythe baby sitter is in the house puffing the magic dragon, because avoice then says in a sarcastic manner, "Just tell her parents youwere busy getting high."
Then there are the irresponsibility ads. One commercial is aboutan older brother forgetting to pick up his younger brother frompractice because he was stoned, while the other is about a kid whoforgets to get a tuxedo and make other preparations for his prombecause being stoned all the time made him too lazy.
These are nothing more than propaganda ads that blur the linebetween typical marijuana use and its extremely rare effects.
Don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with educating youngpeople about marijuana, but these ads are simply ridiculous. Untilthe number of teenage smokers exceeds the number of teenage drinkersand people stop getting hooked on drugs that can actually kill youfrom overdose, like cocaine and heroin, marijuana is hardly worth allthe attention it receives.
According to a 2001 survey at www.infoplease.com, 36.9 percent ofAmerican adults have used marijuana, making it the most widely usedillicit drug. In a sense, marijuana use is already a "normal" part ofAmerican culture, and the only thing making it evil is its continuedcriminalization. Marijuana may be bad for kids, but prohibition isworse for everyone.
- Simon Samano is a journalism senior and a senior staff writerfor The Daily Aztec.
- This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed - include your full name, majorand year in school.
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