I Inhaled…

As someone who was once an avid user of marijuana I can tell you that it I only predict that its popularity will increase with time. There is an entire culture that has taken some of the momentum and values of the Civil Rights movement and through combining them with music, movies and news publicity has managed to make the prohibition of marijuana a public spectacle. As far as the chicken or the egg example for the questions: “Was TV making Americans more tolerant of marijuana use? Or was the increase in American marijuana users encouraging TV to depict the drug less negatively?” I would have to respond by saying that it would be the later since marijuana’s first exposer in mass media was very negative. I refer to productions like “Reefer Madness” which are now publicized to show the invalidity of their content, but were at the time considered the authority on the substance. They were also overwhelmingly against any use of the substance, arguing that it led to violent crimes, including murder. It certainly has more of a presence in media now. Even as someone who doesn’t use marijuana anymore, when I look at the prohibition of alchohol I see a frightneing amount of laws that in the end accomplished very little, doing more harm than good and I’m afraid that the same goes for prohibiting any substance.