Truth Behind Anti-Drug Commercials

WHAT IT IS: A bunch of smiling kids tell the camera of the evil, nefarious things they did while high like not getting good grades, making one's mother cry, and high-texting (which I guess is the modern equivalent of drunk dialing, even though I'd never heard of high-texting outside of this commercial).

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: Look at the horrible, shameful things getting high will do to you.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: You get high, you do stupid shit but is getting drawn on and not picking up your friends really such a terrible thing? It also teaches you that if you want to rebel and get your parents upset or angry (which so few teenagers want to do) pot is the best way to do it. And, even more importantly, you'll be happy no matter what dumb crap you do- look how god damned pleased those kids are. What teenagers are ever that joyous?

WHAT IT IS: Kid starts smoking pot, builds a pot cocoon, comes out bald and fat.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: Every single decision you make today, especially the one to smoke weed, will affect the rest of your life FOREVER. And, even worse, if you smoke weed you'll be BALD and FAT and LIVING AT HOME!!! !! ! Scary.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Your parents will leave you alone for the 20 or so years you're hibernating in your pot cocoon. It also lets you know that it's possible build a pot cocoon with a decent amount of red in it.

WHAT IT IS: After 9/11, the anti-drug ad wizards realized the perfect way to get their message across would be to blame pot smokers for funding terrorism and 9/11. There were a few sets of ads: the Nick and Norm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS3hycTb_Nw) saga, teenagers talking to the camera confessing gleefully to their part in terrorism, and this one where a young girl on a train sees the souls of the people she killed (including an adorable little girl!) because she smoked weed that one time.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: That bowl you smoked caused 9/11.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: This is a post 9/11 world and you funded terrorism- you better run stoner. If the feds don't catch up with you, your guilt-ridden soul will drive you mad.

WHAT IT IS: Kid is getting dressed by people.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: When you give up the ability to decide for yourself, you give up what makes you … you. Making the decision to smoke pot means that you've given up the ability to decide for yourself.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Make your own decisions whether to smoke pot or not. If peers can peer pressure you into doing stuff, TV can be just as guilty. If you want to smoke do it, if not, don't. Don't leave your decisions in the hands of anyone but yourself and that's including television.

WHAT IT IS: In this spot, a kid is standing in front of school showing how limber he is by fitting into cardboard cut-outs of people doing things teenagers do like playing basketball or hanging out with friends. It's kind of like FOX's “Hole in the Wall.” But when it comes to someone offering him a joint of reefer, he walks away.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: If you want to fit in, don't smoke pot. Walk away when someone offers you pot.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: When you go the traditional, i.e. “society preferred,” route you willingly box yourself into uncomfortable positions. But when you experiment with drugs, that's when you're not only able to think freer and be “outside the box” but you're also able to be more natural and comfortable with oneself.

WHAT IT IS: In a fake home video, a girl is asleep at her friend's house during a party. Her friends proceed to draw on her and use her as a puppet all Weekend at Bernie's style, minus the Conga Line and using her lifeless corpse as a shield.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: If you get high, you'll be drawn on and treated like a puppet.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Don't fall asleep before your dickhead friends. This should be a lesson learned by anyone, no matter who your friends are or what you and your friends may or may not be on. There's not even any indication that pot was involved in her “unfortunate” circumstance. It's like the Ad people found some home movies of teenagers being stupid and said “let's just blame pot!” And even if she and her buddies were on pot, The King does a lot worse.

WHAT IT IS: At http://www.abovetheinfluence.com, there's a series of the cartoon dog commercials. I'm a bit hesitant to even call it a cartoon. It's barely animated, crudely drawn with eerie music over a yellow background with scribbled text. The “plot” of each episode is the same: the owner is smoking pot, his talking dog (again with the talking dogs) tells him he doesn't like him smoking pot and then the dog raises a flag with his face on it. In one he takes off on a UFO. Kind of odd.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: Pot users are addicts whose dogs hate them. Then the dog plants a flag or takes a ride in a UFO.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Once again, if you get high you can have conversations with your dog, like in Road Trip, except the dog will be a self-righteous douchebag. In addition, dogs have the latent ability to not just make a flag with their face on it and set up a flag pole, but raise the flag as well- at least one of those things I could swear you need thumbs for. Or dogs are aliens.

CARTOON ALL STARS TO THE RESCUE

I'm sure someone out there will enjoy seeing their favorite childhood cartoon icons as anti-drug political shills and propagandists once again in this piece forced on us in elementary school. (Garfield was such a sell out.) Sadly, it's not even the fun, racist, old school cartoon propaganda from Warner Brothers and Disney during World War 2; it's the lame touchy-feeliness from the late 80s/early 90s.

WHAT IT IS: Guy is sitting on his friend's couch saying how nothing bad happened after smoking weed. However, by continuously smoking weed all he'll do is sit on his friend's couch until he's 86 never truly living by doing things like ice skating with a girl. Nevertheless, he opts to go out in the more dangerous real world and experience that which makes us human.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: It's better to be outside living life despite the danger than living a coddled life on your friend's couch smoking weed doing nothing. Your pot-smoking friend is a dick for letting you bum around on his couch until you're in your mid-80s. And you'll never get laid.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Weed is a viable option for when you want to stay in and relax. It's true, if you do nothing but smoke all day you will be stuck on the couch doing nothing. But you're not bound to the couch with a joint taped to your lips. The guy in the commercial is free to leave any time and he does abandon his friends to go into the real world. At the end, he chooses not to sit on that cursed couch forged from the fibers of hell watching TV but instead chooses life . . . by sitting in a movie theater watching a movie.

WHAT IT IS: Girl gets some juice, her dog hops up on a stool and gives her a stern lecture about smoking weed.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: When you smoke, you abandon people close to you, even your adorable little puppy who just wants to be played with again.

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: When you get high your dog will talk to you. Sure, sometimes he might be a dick, but if you give him a little attention he'll probably get high with you and then you can talk about life, the universe and everything until the sun rises. That's when Beggin' Strips will come in handy.

WHAT IT IS: Kid at party walks into the laundry room and sees another kid smoking a joint. The smoker offers it to the non-smoker. The angel/devil scenario plays out on the offeree's shoulders as he's tempted to take a hit. When prompted a second time, the kid refuses.

WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN: In your life you'll be torn between doing evil and doing the right thing. Choose good. Live above the influence!

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS: Don't be a buzzkill and eerily stare at your shoulders while someone is getting high and being polite by offering you some. Or, the smoker is smoking some excellent shit for the non-smoker to get a contact high that strong so quickly. Or, the kid was already so stoned he didn't realize he took a hit when he began hallucinating.