Right now, there are about a million reasons to hate the United States. Most of these reasons would involve the words "oil," "Iraq" and "Bush." But there is another reason to criticize our government: those ridiculous public service announcements against marijuana.
I understand that it is the duty of our government to do everything it can to inform the public about any dangers, including narcotics. But there is a fine line between "informative" and "stupid." And with these recent public service announcements, the government has crossed that line.
The announcements, shown with commercial advertisements on television, typically depict teenagers smoking marijuana and ending up with dire consequences.
The first one I saw showed two kids smoking a bong in one of their parents' rooms, giggling and talking about nonsense as the camera fades in and out. Then, the kid - sitting at a desk - picks up his father's gun and accidentally shoots his friend. At the very end, a voiceover comes on and says, "Marijuana can alter your perception of reality. It's more harmful than we all thought."
So now, marijuana can make you think it's OK to shoot your friend while smoking in your dad's study.
In another one, there is a crash-test dummy video being played backwards in slow motion. Before the car crashes, the camera shows the crash test dummies passing a joint back and forth. It ends with the statistic that one out of every three car-crash victims have traces of marijuana in their bloodstream.
What it neglects to mention is that marijuana can be detected in a person's bloodstream for up to 30 days since that person smoked. By that fact, the "one in every three" statistic is meaningless. All it means is that one out of every three accident victims smoked marijuana at least 30 days prior to the crash.
In my favorite commercial, there is a middle-aged couple pacing back and forth, poring over a home pregnancy test. As the camera follows them, titles appear on the screen talking about how the couple is expecting a child. But the last title says, "They're going to be the youngest grandparents in the neighborhood." The camera then shows a young girl crying, implying that their daughter is pregnant. Then the voiceover recites the line about how marijuana is "more harmful than we all thought."
It took me a minute to understand this one. Are they saying that this girl smoked weed, and now she's pregnant? Or are they saying that this girl got high and had unprotected sex?
Let's see: Smoke weed and shoot your friend; smoke weed and get into a car crash; smoke weed and get pregnant. I fail to see the connections.
How is it possible for any person to take these commercials seriously? Instead of warning parents about leaving guns around the house, or warning teenagers about unprotected sex, these situations have been fabricated to give America exaggerated, inaccurate views of the effects of marijuana.
Marijuana can alter your perception of reality. But any kid should know not to play with guns, how to drive carefully and to use a condom when having sex. Smoking weed has nothing to do with any of these things.
Normally, these types of commercials would give me a laugh. But since the government produced them, taxpayer money was used to make them. And I don't want money taken out of my paycheck so that some anti-drug campaign can skew statistics to lie to the American public.
The people behind this campaign obviously have no idea about the drug culture or the reality surrounding the effects of marijuana. Frankly, it's insulting the government would take money from taxpayers to create commercials that lie to them about a situation that isn't going away anytime soon.
According to www.norml.org, marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop, with an industry reaching as high as $30 billion per year despite the fact that it's illegal. I would also say that it's easier for a 16-year-old kid to get a gram of weed than it is for him to buy a 6-pack of Bud Light.
People are never going to stop smoking weed, no matter what. No matter how many commercials the government makes, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how many girls mysteriously become pregnant. And until the American government acknowledges and accepts this, they are simply lying to themselves and to the American people.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
