Special Effects and Faulty Logic in the Latest Anti-Marijuana Propaganda

The youth of America has been besieged by the Office for Drug Control Policy for generations. I can vividly recall lectures, books, pamphlets and cartoon characters from ad campaigns designed to educate, intimidate and influence our opinions about drugs. There were many valuable and graphic lessons from these programs, such as the pictures of raw carnage wrought in drunk-driving accidents. These programs also introduced a valuable principle to us impressionable children; we can say no whenever we don't want to do something. I learned facts about various drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex and AIDS from these programs and I have to say that as I began my career of at-risk behavior as a teenager, I did not do so in ignorance.

While the facts presented in government drug campaigns were always thought provoking and informative, however, the interpretations proved to be utter propaganda. As I began to drink, smoke and do drugs-a little scientific field work, if you will-I began to discover the truth about these substances for myself and found the anti-drug education that I had received to be farcically out of touch with youth, alarmist and often deliberately misleading or erroneous in its treatment of the myths and realities of drug use. Never in my youth, however, did I find my intelligence, judgment, knowledge base or sense of logic so insulted by obvious propaganda as I have in recent years upon hearing the ODCP's recent "Above the Influence" ad campaign.

Know your enemy - Cannabis sativa, target of the Above the Influence Campaign.

Credit: Ryan Bushby

Copyright: Ryan Bushby