Stupid anti-marijuana commercials

Cloud9 · #1 03-21-2003, 10:05 PM

Can I just ask...

Ok, I do not smoke marijuana(I'm a classical voice major, I refuse to smoke anything EVER so I can pursue a career), though I have friends who do, which generally I don't have a problem with. They're very intelligent people, and very motivated, and to be honest, I see people abuse themselves much, much more using alchohol. But that's just to give you an idea of my connection with the subject matter, on to the actual point of my post...

Does anyone else find these "Marijuana...it's more harmful than we all thought" commercials to be entirely ridiculous and uninformed? I can't help but crack up everytime I see them.

So apparently smoking marijuana will cause you to support terrorism, shoot your friend(with his father's gun), cause a car accident, and get pregnant. Puuuuuuuuuhleeeeeeeeeeaze.

Support terrorism? Well, that may be very very very very far removedly true(although at NYU, which I belive is the Number 2 pot college in the country, weed is obtainted almost if not entirely from home grown student sources.), however there are plenty of illegal substances that do that in an exponentially larger way.

Shoot your friend? oh come ON, that's just ridiculous, there is no legitimate connection at all. There's a better way to prevent a situation like that, but it involves stricter gun control, and entirely different issue...

Cause a car accident? Hmmm...I think people are confusing smoking up with getting drunk. I don't encourage people to smoke and drive of course, my point is that alchohol is legal and it's a bigger cause of road accidents.

GET PREGNANT???? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Marijuana, while it does alter someone's mindset, does not have a significant(does it have ANY???) link with teenage pregnancy. Once again, I point you to alchohol, a readily available substance for people everywhere.

Anyways, I'm not necessarily opposed to preventing the use of marijuana, although I think it would be a much wiser and more profitable decision for the government to legalize and strictly regulate it(i.e. tax the crap out of it like cigarettes in NY). But at least if you ARE going to campaign against it, come up with better and less corny ads! If I were a teen watching these ads I'd actually prolly be incited to try marijuana.

Does anyone else have thoughts on the subject?

chideltjen · #2 03-21-2003, 10:49 PM

in reguards to the pregnancy commercial: if i DID get so wasted and ended up becoming pregnant that same night... my parents wouldn't hug me when the test results came up... they'd prolly smack me.

It is however, advertising. Sometimes the most extremes will get the point across and cause you to think or even start msg board topics like this one.

DigitalAngel126 · #3 03-21-2003, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by chideltjen

It is however, advertising. Sometimes the most extremes will get the point across

I do agree, but I don't find these to be 'extreme'...Just stupid!! Anyone with any knowledge of marijuana and it's effects knows what a load of crap and how far removed from reality these commercials are.. Oh, and my favorite is the one where it's talking about something like 1 in 5 people involved in deadly car accidents tested positive for marijuana...WELL DUH, 1 in ANY 5 people tested would come up positive for marijuana... Unlike alcohol, the tell-tale signs of usage stay in your system for more than a day..up to something like 1-2 months, longer than that if they take a hair test....How does that prove they were altered when the accident did happen??? Arg..Just one of my pet peeves...

winnieb · #4 03-22-2003, 12:23 AM

The commercial with the couple reading the pregnancy test--
"their lives are about to change".... "they are about to become the youngest grandparents in town". I laugh everytime I see that one. It has to be one of the funniest commercials on tv.

--wendi

MoxieGrrl · #5 03-22-2003, 12:31 AM

I think that the commercials are pretty good. I kind of took them as "marijuana = lowered inhibitions = stupid stuff happens".

The fact that they are "real life" kind of situations that teenagers might relate to, like smoking up at a party, in the car, in your parents house, make them more realistic than "if you smoke weed, then you are a dirty hippie who is homeless and smelly and deals with shady characters" image.

But with that said, marijuana supporting terrorism?

Yeah, right. Your dealer is probably a bored, middle-aged white guy going through a mid-life crisis who steals it off his mom who grows it in her garden for glaucoma."

Peaches-n-Cream · #6 03-22-2003, 12:38 AM

I like those commercials. I think that they are better than:

"This is your brain" shows an egg
"This is your brain on drugs" cracks the egg
"Any questions?" egg is fried

DigitalAngel126 · #7 03-22-2003, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cream
I like those commercials. I think that they are better than:

"This is your brain" shows an egg
"This is your brain on drugs" cracks the egg
"Any questions?" egg is fried

Oh Cream...that will forever be a classic!

Peaches-n-Cream · #8 03-22-2003, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DigitalAngel126
Oh Cream...that will forever be a classic!

How about the one where the girl starts to trash the kitchen with the frying pan?! She says the same lines and then goes psycho.

"ANY QUESTIONS?"

AOIIalum · #9 03-22-2003, 01:14 AM

I also like the pregnancy test commercial. My guys are hitting the age where they might find themselves confronted with both girls and marijuana (yikes to both!) Like Moxie said, we took it to be more of a "marijuana = lowered inhibitions = stupid stuff happens" and the boys responded as expected.

That means, they were like "ewww, no way!"

sugar and spice · #10 03-22-2003, 01:45 AM

I think they're hilarious. My friends and I have a particularly stupid inside joke where one of us is like, "Dude, your sister's hot" and somebody else says, "Dude, that's not cool" and pretends to shoot the first person. I still laugh every time I see the one where the little girl gets hit by the car . . . I know, I'm a terrible person, but it's just so cheesy that I can't help it.

I think the anti-drug movement is shooting itself in the foot with these commercials. Everybody I know thinks they're ridiculous, and anybody who knows anything about marijuana (basically anybody over the age of 15) knows how little fact is actually contained in them.

Does anybody else find it significant that after the big anti-smoking ad campaign was launched, teen smoking rates actually went UP? I think the same thing will probably happen with these . . . teenagers start to lose faith in the anti-drug movement after being confronted with propaganda that's this ridiculous.

I thought the "my anti-drug" commercials that showed dancers, singers, and that kind of thing, while cheesy, were at least more realistic than these and showed some legitimate reasons not to smoke up.

CanadianTeke · #11 03-22-2003, 04:37 AM

I know pot is more or less legal here--nobody cares, and really there are no more car accidents, or unintended pregncncy's or terrorist attacks for that matter. Pot is somthing that is not really an issue (especially in this univeristy town) and personally i don't see a huge difference between it and alcohol.

Jadey28 · #12 03-22-2003, 06:02 AM

I think the commercials are pretty stupid also, but I usually turn them off before I get to watch the entire thing. My boyfriend and his brothers constantly make fun of them and re-enact them just to have fun. And I totally agree with what someone said earlier about the commercials intriguing the children more to partake in the activities. Monkey see, monkey do!!!!

Jadey

Munchkin03 · #13 03-22-2003, 04:22 PM

I've seen more lives ruined by alcohol use than with marijuana use. Marijuana is a "gateway drug"? So is boredom. That's all I have to say on that.

The Pregnancy Test one makes me laugh, too! My partner and I were bent over in laughter after that one (Super Bowl Sunday). That same commercial could be done with alcohol (with thousands of examples, I'm sure), but then...it was sandwiched between two beer commercials.

Basically, marijuana is a mind-altering drug, but does not incite the same behavior as other, shall we say, aggressive drugs (alcohol, cocaine, speed). Karmically, it's just different--and doesn't lead to teenage pregnancies no more than boredom, miseducation, or lack of contraception does. Why don't these companies start trying to do something REALLY constructive? Or, at least start focusing on more lethal drugs?

Rio_Kohitsuji · #14 03-22-2003, 07:17 PM

Now, for once, I'm truly offended.

I lost my best friend a few years back to smoking marijuana which caused her to do something -very- stupid and ended up dying to to it. When you lose someone to something as 'harmless' as marijuana, you realize that it's not as harmless as it seems.

ps: I also worked for an Drug Education program, you learn a lot, and you see a lot. Next time you're out, check out a drug rehab and ask someone how they started. 90% it's the same thing...weed.

sugar and spice · #15 03-22-2003, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TKE209Sweethrt
Now, for once, I'm truly offended.

I lost my best friend a few years back to smoking marijuana which caused her to do something -very- stupid and ended up dying to to it. When you lose someone to something as 'harmless' as marijuana, you realize that it's not as harmless as it seems.

ps: I also worked for an Drug Education program, you learn a lot, and you see a lot. Next time you're out, check out a drug rehab and ask someone how they started. 90% it's the same thing...weed.

First of all, I'm sorry about your friend.

Still, I don't think whether or not marijuana is dangerous is the issue. Of course it's dangerous -- but no more so than alcohol, which also leads people to do very stupid things and leads to deaths.

And yes, marijuana may be the first drug that many of those who eventually get addicted to harder drugs try, but there are also millions and millions of people who never try any drugs other than marijuana.

Here's some other information that counters what these ads are telling us:

Smoking marijuana does not support terrorism. Eleven out of the 12 groups on America's list of "terror organizations with links to drug trafficking" are based in the Middle East and Colombia, which are not pot-growing regions. The twelfth is a Basque terror group known for trafficking heroin, not pot. The overwhelming majority of marijuana used by Americans is grown here, or in Mexico, Jamaica or Canada.

In studies done by scientists, caffeine and marijuana ranked as the two least addictive drugs (out of a study that also included nicotine, alcohol, heroin, and cocaine). In one such study, marijuana ranked lower than caffeine on the addictive scale.

At least 33 percent of all Americans have used pot at least once. (The actual number is probably much higher, as the 33 percent figure comes from a government-conducted survey. Would you tell the government if you were smoking up? Doubt it.) The overwhelming majority of them go on to lead productive lives, and don't end up killing people, running them over or having unprotected sex and getting pregnant.