The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reported last month that a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed (25 percent compared with 12 percent). The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent. So much for the "harmless" nature of pot.
There are more worrisome statistics still. The 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that among Americans age 12 and older there were 14.8 million current users of marijuana and 4.2 million Americans classified with dependency or abuse of marijuana. Addiction is a real threat. Another 2006 report found 16.1 percent of drug treatment admissions were for marijuana as the primary drug of abuse. This compares to six percent in 1992.
There surely are multiple reasons to explain the increasing use of this drug. But one reason for the trend is surely its glamorization by Hollywood, which thinks marijuana is a fun-and-games subject.
"Access Hollywood" has breathlessly promoted a new movie called "The Wackness," set in 1994 New York. A young man sells marijuana out of an Italian-ice cart. He starts seeing a therapist, asking him for guidance on dating a young woman. He pays for the therapy sessions with pot.
If the plot seems tiresome, it's the casting that's truly saddening. The young pot dealer is played by Josh Peck, who just months ago was delighting hundreds of thousands of small children as a rubber-faced jokester on Nickelodeon's teen comedy "Drake and Josh." One of his regular pothead customers is played by Mary-Kate Olsen, half of the famous twins who played the baby sister on the family sitcom "Full House."
Child stars too often go looking for a part to "stretch their range," but that's code for scraping off any odor of a goody-goody reputation. These actors are doing it by glorifying marijuana.
Drug-dealer chic really began with "Weeds," the Showtime pay-cable series starring Mary-Louise Parker as widowed suburban mother/pot dealer Nancy Botwin. The fourth season recently premiered to the delight of TV critics, who love the show's exposure of suburban hypocrisy. Showtime publicists wrote, with noticeable pride: "Last season, viewers saw Nancy venture from hesitant but determined toe-dipper in the unpredictable waters of drug dealing to confident, full-fledged queen-pin entrepreneur."
They're proud of the drug-dealing mom as she gains confidence in her "queen-pin" criminality?
The show's primary hypocrite is the boozy anti-drug crusader Celia Hodes, played by Elizabeth Perkins, who told TV Guide that her character "discovers drugs this year ...
and she's like a kid in a candy shop." Perkins is delighted by the bad behavior on the show. "There's just something delicious about watching people misbehave without any sense of conscience."
This is a classic Hollywood outburst. These people love misbehavior, wallow in it and suggest anyone who would dare take a stand that appears morally upright is undoubtedly just a repressed fraud. It carries an Orwellian echo: Honesty is found in corruption, and moral fervor is a sickness that needs to be vanquished. Morality is immoral.
Perkins displayed more of her debased philosophy on CBS's "The Early Show" on July 2 in a cozy showcase of CBS-Showtime corporate-cousin synergy. She described her moralizing character as fun to play because she's "really screwed up and evil." She's an unstable hypocrite in a bad marriage who's "going to take it out on whoever happens to be standing in her way."
CBS anchor Julie Chen asked Perkins if she supports legalizing marijuana in real life. "Oh, yeah, absolutely." she answered. "Alcohol is legal. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why marijuana's not."
Chen asked what her character would say in response. Perkins replied: "Oh, put them all in jail." Chen laughed and agreed. "She's so self-righteous." Perkins then added, "Well, Celia's probably the only character on the show who's never smoked marijuana ... Never cave with marijuana, because that's the 'evil drug' — according to her." Chen guffawed along, in mockery of the anti-drug position.
Teenagers will go see the movie with the Nickelodeon star selling pot, and teenagers are in the audience when Showtime is displaying its affection for "Weeds." Hollywood is not merely mocking people who moralize against marijuana, they're actively encouraging young people to explore the "edgy" life of illegal drugs they see on screen. But Hollywood will not be around for comfort or counseling when teenagers have to go to detox, or see psychologists for depression or other mental problems.
They ought to look in the mirror and wonder if they're the self-righteous people who are really screwed up and pushing evil.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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4 Comments | Post Comment
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As a note to your uptight Sunday school teacher "tribute" to George Carlin, a man whose genius you are destined to appreciate from afar --from very, very far--we should mark the passing of yet another clown. No, not Jesse Harmon, who merely played Bozo the Clown, but the real Bozo, Jesse Helms, race-baiting bigot, and like Bonzo before him, an icon of the Christian falangists. Yes, Jesse Helms, who, to the glory of God, died on my birthday. I can hardly imagine a more satisfying gift. Let's all pause to commemorate the moment when America became a better place through the loss of this senile "son of the South," professional hate-monger and fundamentalist know-nothing.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Robert Conner
Fri Jul 4, 2008 12:04 PM
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To comment on your George Carlin article: nothing was sacrosanct to the man.He taught me to laugh at topics and words I'd been taught to fear. He taught uptight people, full of fears, to laugh at themselves and their fear. I understand George was atheist, I'm not. His message is that we define ourselves by our beliefs and a lot of our beliefs are based on our fear and the fears of our parents and our society. That nothing has any power over us except the power we give it. The Bible teaches true love casts out all fear. George loved to talk about "taboo" stuff and yes, he did drugs. He was a human...being. There are all these sacred cows in our civilization, such as words you can't say. Subjects we "don't" talk about. George didn't believe in people's sacred cows he saw them for the hypocrisy they are and did not fear to name them. As for the Seven words. How can you berate a man for speaking the truth? Words are just words, not to be feared, with no power except what we give them. They're just words to be used, for evil or for good is in the mind and heart of man.
To comment on your marijuana chic article: I, too, shudder when I see the drug lifestyle promoted as chic and child stars in these breakout roles. But worse than the people who present and star in these types of "entertainment" are the parents and caregivers who allow their children to watch it. The entertainment industry, they're just trying to make a buck. But, the adults who allow their kids to watch it...what's their excuse?
Regarding marijuana, how do you know what they're smoking is pure, untreated leaf? In its pure state, used properly, it's medicinal and beneficial (if it wasn't, it would not have survived through the ages) but with the war on drugs spraying marijuana plants with toxins, and the dealers adding a little of this and that, well, these days, it's not safe unless it's pharmaceutical.
Comment: #2
Posted by: liz
Sat Jul 5, 2008 2:47 PM
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"...a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed (25 percent compared with 12 percent). The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent. So much for the "harmless" nature of pot." The conclusion there gets ahead of the data. Were people who used cannabis more likely to DEVELOP depression from that use (as the story implies, but does not prove), or were people who WERE depressed more likely to have tried some cannabis self-medication? The latter seems likely on its face, so the former is certainly not established by the so-called "study's" spin on the data.
Comment: #3
Posted by: M
Mon Jul 7, 2008 2:25 PM
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The criminalization of marijuana in the 1930s had nothing to do with public health or safety concerns, and everything to do with economic and political interests.
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The migrant labor that was in demand during the 1920s was unwelcome after the Depression got started. States in the American southwest were pushing Washington to enact anti-marijuana legislation so as to get legal means to crack down on Mexican migrants. In 1937, the Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act which was used in the southwest against Mexicans, jailing and deporting them on drug charges.
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Furthermore, commercial hemp farming was in direct competition with the oil industry (lubricants) and the timber industry (paper manufacturing). With the outlawing of marijuana, it became necessary (conveniently, for the oil and lumber industries) to ban the growing of industrial hemp as well, since the two plants can't be distinguished from one another on sight.
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Cannabis has been used for medicinal, spiritual and recreational purposes for at least 6000 years. It was known before wine and beer were invented. Moderate cannabis use is far less harmful to the individual and to society than the use of the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco. Marijuana prohibition serves no purpose other than to fill jails and prisons with honest, decent, law-abiding citizens who just happen to have a different taste in intoxicants.
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In fact, ALL drugs should be legal, as long as their use is restricted to adults. You've got to know what reality is before you start screwing with it.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Scot Penslar
Wed Jul 9, 2008 11:12 PM
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