I Learned It From Watching You

(Originally published 9/15/06.)

by Elizabeth Keenan

From the 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda-turned-cult-film-classic Reefer Madness to the late eighties “war on drugs” campaign to the Bush Administration’s recent absurd anti-marijuana commercials comparing pot smokers to terrorists (see below), it is no wonder the decriminalization of pot and legalization of medicinal marijuana is still a pipe dream for American smokers.

Unlike music and movies, which have long referred to and celebrated the existence of pot in our culture, television long perpetuated misconceptions about the drug, under the watch of the FCC, through myriad memorable sermonizing episodes on popular shows (alcohol is a common fixture without nearly the same negative focus).

Those days may be over. With the advent of cable and the freedom of unregulated plotlines, recent portrayals of marijuana users on television have finally started to evolve into a more realistic representation of the 22.5 million Americans who smoke pot. Programs like Six Feet Under, Chapelle’s Show, The Sopranos, and most recently Weeds, boast pot-smoking characters—a status once reserved for wayward teenagers, criminals and ghettos-trapped minorities—as housewives, professionals, and (gulp) many of our parents: the baby boomers.

This shift of marijuana users on television is based in truth. According to a recent report from the U.S. Government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month, and drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year, from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

While the critics of this development may fear that marijuana on TV will only hinder the government’s continued war against the drug, a study appearing in the May 2006 issue of Addictive Behaviors found:

18- to 19-year-old college students who view the White House's anti-marijuana TV ads develop more positive attitudes towards marijuana than those who do not view the ads…exposure to anti-marijuana advertising might not only change young viewer's attitudes to more positive toward the substance, but also might directly increase risk of using marijuana.

Whether the changing characterization of the marijuana user on television is contributing to the shifting of acceptance, or the emerging profile of John Q. Potsmoker is inspiring a more widespread use of marijuana in storylines, it is long overdue to recognize pot’s proper place in American culture. While it seems unlikely that weed will ever replace the martini (of the fifties sitcom), or beer (of every show about 20-somethings), it is an exciting prospect that marijuana’s newfound prevalence on television could help further dispel some of the long-held misconceptions about the green stuff.

(Illustration by Dustin Glick.)

Comments

[John Q.]

It's about time. Funny that drunk driving kills how many thousands every year, drinking makes you violent (and prone to infidelity), and alcohol leaves you with a hell of a hangover.

Pot, however, does none of these things.

Regardless, booze is all over prime-time, and weed is left by the wayside. Maybe there's a reason why it's called the boob-tube.