Pubdate: Mon, 03 Feb 2003
Source: Daily Cardinal (WI Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The Daily Cardinal Newspaper Corporation
Contact:  http://www.cardinal.wisc.edu/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/712
Author: Justin R. Damm
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?135 (Drug Education)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?195 (Partnership for a Drug Free America)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

WEED ADS STONE PARENTS, MISS TEENS

Dude, your sister's hot. That's not cool. Gimme 50 hamburgers. Puff. Yes, 
these are the sounds of the new TV campaign against the gentle herb. They 
are, in a word, superextrastoopidfunny. You know what else is funny? They 
chose a TV campaign because they knew all the lazy dirtbag stoners would be 
watching it anyway. Ha.

All of the spots focus on teenagers. This is presumably because they are 
easily influenced by television, are at a stage in their life in which they 
have to make a lot of decisions, and because parents are more easily 
freaked out when they can associate an image with their kid.

Man oh man, but those kids sure do get into adult size trouble, like 
manslaughter or molestation or pregnancy. The spots push the message that 
marijuana is indeed seriously harmful, but the inference is that teenagers 
shouldn't smoke weed because they aren't ready. Trix is to kids as these 
anti-weed spots are to...? The answer is parents.

Teenagers do what they want, which usually involves weed. Parents, on the 
other hand, actually pay attention to television and feel a need to 
constantly worry about their children. These new anti-drug spots recognize 
the power that parents wield and go straight for the parental Achilles 
heel: worry.

So, according to television, there are three types of behavior that weed 
provokes in teenagers. The first is acting like a teenage boy, that is to 
say, distracted. The consequence for acting like a teenage boy is that 
there must be a manslaughter committed accidentally by those careless, 
irresponsible fools.

The second kind of behavior is drunkenness. Girls sure do get slutty when 
they're drunk, I mean high, right. That one has to kill the dads. They 
picture a boogie van, like the one The Clipse has in its video, with the 
red light and the bed, that's pretty cool; oh wait, my daughter, you 
heartless bastards you.

The third behavior is driving drunk. It's kind of an offshoot of behavior 
two. Apparently, in almost all accidents in which drugs or alcohol were 
involved, marijuana was present in the driver, who was drunk. They skip the 
whole part about weed staying in your system for a month. It's conceivable, 
then, that the statistic is bunk because being high had nothing to do with 
crashing in at least some of those cases.

Apparently, Americans were getting too comfortable with the idea of 
recreational marijuana usage. Mothers need to be scared, because weed will 
make your teenagers act exactly like teenagers. Someone I knew once crashed 
a car because he took a turn too quickly. The impetus for recklessness you 
ask? One might say it was because the bowl wouldn't light, and the 
prolonging of his soberness irked him and he took it out on the road, which 
would be right in a sense. It would be more correct to say that the impetus 
was being a stupid teenage boy.

The desire to put blame on weed, or terrorists, or an evil leader is fine 
with me. It's a useful delusion for those who are lazy about the task of 
perception. There's a whole lot of blame floating around, just waiting to 
be foisted, and you have to put it somewhere. You can tell a lot about 
people's specific delusions just by seeing where they put blame. Some fat 
people blame McDonalds. I blame myself, because that is what I am usually 
thinking about.

Justin R. Damm is a senior who may be reached at  
His column runs every Monday in The Daily Cardinal.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl