According to Seth Stevenson of Slate, the alien anti-pot ads are the best anti-drug ads ever.
Now, I've seen these ads, and I agree that they don't commit either of the cardinal sins of drug ads:
1) no melodramatic scare tactics (accidentally shooting your friend, running someone over, etc)
2) teenagers aren't really worried that sitting on a couch for a long time will ruin their lives
However, nor do I believe that they are effective. He suggests that the ads "pick at the insecurities" of pot smokers, that pot makes them less interesting, and less desirable to be around. I disagree. I watched the ad and thought "only someone who is currently high can understand this" or "I am not sure that I'd leave my boyfriend for an alien, even if he smoked pot all the time."
I don't know that many kids who would be disappointed in their friends for smoking pot. I also don't know that many who smoke around their significant others, if that person has expressed a preference for a pot-free environment. Granted, these are anecdotal points, but the ads just seem silly and bizarre.
None of the pot-smokers that I know have been in any way affected by these ads. Except to say "wow, the creators must have been on pot."
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6 comments:
Agree for the most part. Except my personal experience has been the opposite (that is, people smoking in front of their significant others, whatever the others' feelings about pot).
It was the "not again" that suggests this is targeting habitual pot smokers. Also, they were outside, another hint.
Still, this is faint praise to be sure. Killer Weed was considered a joke of a film already by the 60s. That any ribbons should now be given for not exaggerating the effects of marijuana should be restricted for the special olympics of propaganda.
The "pot-smokers" are right. And the girlfriend in the video is atypical - unless she doesn't prefer relaxed, creative, harmless seekers of fun to cross-species intergalactic romance - at least from what I've seen when the competition was actually human.
Anon- I guess it depends on how sensitive/considerate the individual pot smoker is. I do not, however, think that insensitivity is endemic to pot smokers.
DK- I agree. Just because the ad doesn't make any of the ridiculous allegations of earlier ads doesn't make it good. It makes it not as bad.
MUL- to be fair, I've dated several pot smokers, and I'm not someone who has ever smoked. I have pretty severe asthma, so I can foresee a situation where I would (and have) asked a S.O. to refrain from smoking in front of me. Not sure that I would choose an alien over even an inconsiderate pot smoker if the only quality that the alien had was an abstention from pot.
I went to college in California. Nuf said. I know people who didn't smoke and would hang out with smokers and would leave the room for ten minutes and then come back for the movie...and pizza and cinibread and soda and Funyins man yah funyins.
All of these ads are crap and as DK so thoughtfully wrote these ads should be "restricted for the special Olympics of propaganda."
POLJ said,
"I went to college in California."
I knew it!
Just kidding.
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