Tell Your Children… Weed is Okay
For Leap 2, I chose to focus on anti-marijuana organizations and the propaganda they produce. As marijuana is one of the oldest targets for propaganda in the U.S. and is still prevalent amongst contemporary propaganda.
The legalization of marijuana is a topic debated by all demographics of people with a lot of interesting opinions on both ends of the spectrum. Marijuana has been federally illegal since the Richard Nixon administration when he appointed a special commission of physicians to research the medical benefits and effects of cannabis. In 1972 the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended that cannabis prohibition end, Nixon disregarded their claims and placed mairjuana on the Schedule 1 banned substance list, where it remains today.
There are many conspiracy theories regarding marijuna use, a lot of which are false and can be negated by scientific proof. This issue, however, is personal to me because I am from Massachusetts, one of the recent states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults, as well as the legal selling and taxation of marijuana. This all happened during my freshman year of college in 2016, the same year I became of voting age, and it was then when I first started advocating for a change in the rhetoric surrounding marijuana.
The first example of harmful propaganda I chose to examine is the organization known as Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuna (CALM). This organization is made up of everyday citizens and politicians who share the ideology that mairjuana should remain illegal. In my presentation I discuss how CALMs’ homepage content can be considered clickbait, and how their content disinforms its audience. CALM relies on their audience to disregard scientific evidence and offers the idea that if you agree with their ideology you can join their ‘better’ world-community.
The second example of harmful propaganda I chose to examine was an ad from another anti-drug organization, Above the Influence. Above The Influence was one of the preemptive anti-drug organizations in the U.S to create computational propaganda. I determined this ad to be harmful as, like so many anti-marijuana ads, it introduces misinformation and falsely profiles the teenage demographic, as a result of marijuna use. Which further tarnishes marijuana users’ reputation within society.
This repeated negative portrayal of marijuana side effects perpetuates rhetoric surrounding marijuana that is setting back scientific exploration of marijuanas’ medicinal benefits as legislators are also affected by negative propaganda. We, the people of the United States, have known on record since 1972 the benefits of cannabis in the field of medicine yet our government still considers it to be more harmful than cocaine. There are people whose lives have been totally altered due to nonviolent marijuana charges in states with severe possession penalties. Cannabis and hemp have been used globally since 6000 B.C. and is referred to as a ‘sacred plant’ in Hindu texts. Imagine if the way people thought about cannabis was positive from the start and where medicine would be now as a result.
SCRIPT:
Hemp, Cannabis, Marijuna, Weed, Kush, Ganja, Sensee, Collie, Ses, Buddah, Sherm, Green, Sticky Icky, are some of the many names given to the psychoactive drug over its long lifespan. As there are many names given to marijuana, there are even more opinions surrounding its use. Throughout my presentation I aim to explore the world of contemporary anti-marijuana propaganda, specific to the United States, and the harmful effects it is having on our society.
Throughout the country there are organizations with the central focus of outlawing drug use, most commonly marijuana use in teens. While my presentation does not encourage adolescent children to indulge in mairjuana, I am however calling out propaganda tactics used by these organizations to achieve their goal. For this assignment I focus on public service advertisements that employ tactics that include yet are not limited too: disinformation, false representation, censorship, and profiling.
The Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana (CALM) is a non-profit, all volunteer, political action committee whose only purpose for existence is to defeat any effort to legalize marijuana in the United States, it says so at the top of their home page. My qualm with this organization, and why I considered it to be harmful is their unbothered dismissal of scientific evidence that negates their beliefs. CALM relies heavily on the ideology that marijuana cultivation, use, and sale remain illegal per the Federal Controlled Substance Act, and its placement atop the Schedule I controlled substance list. Similar to Trump voters who are not steered away from his falsehoods, it is my theory, CALMs’ supporters accept disinformation because CALM content employs the beneficial propaganda concept, a combination of feelings and ideas to create and express individual values as a means to influence others, with an additional nationalist, law and order appeal that, which for supporters, allows individuals to become a part of a larger community.
Personally I think the Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana is ‘bullshit’, as Harry Frankfurt eloquently states , “For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false… He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
Currently CALM’s homepage features an article titled Marijuana Caused Young Woman’s Persistent Vomiting. Upon clicking on the article I was brought to a Philadelphia Inquirer article with a new title: Medical Mystery: What Caused Young Woman’s Persistent Vomiting? After reading the article I found, it never explicitly determines marijuana to be guilty of anything. However this example of clickbait is precisely how CALM is able to consistently alter opinions.
Another contemporary example of harmful anti-mairjuana propaganda I found was an Above the Influence commercial. Above the Influence was one of the first American organizations to employ anti-marijuana computational propaganda. Their goal according to their website is to, “help teens stand up to negative pressures, or influences”.
The ad follows the same theme and structure of many anti-marijuana ads, which profiles the teenage demographic through a false representation while relying upon misinformation and fear of the audiences’ unknown to deliver their message, unknown referring to the side effects of indulging in marijuana. Depicted in this ad is unrealistic imagery of a teenage girl in a shell of her former self as a result of smoking marijuana, beside her is another girl explaining, on her friend’s behalf, that she cannot do any of the activities she used to.
Anti-mairjuana propaganda is harmful because it presents an unlevel playing field within the marketplace of ideas for marijuana use. Anti-marijuana propagandas reliance on disinformation simultaneously progresses stereotypes, stigmas, and further besmirches the tainted reputation of marijuana patients and users. Meaning due to controlled information, whether it be censored or out right false, real opinions and worldviews are altered.
In the case of marijuana it is clear that, even with innumerable amounts of scientific studies and research diminishing false information associated with mairjuana use, Americans remain skeptical of marijuana use, because for so long the narrative surrounding marijuna has been consistently negative.
People who continue to dismiss the benefits of marijuna use, are as much conspiracy theorists as people who believe the earth is flat. If we as a society intend to finally put an end to anti-marijuana propaganda it must be done at the legislative level. If the laws surrounding marijuna do not change, there is no hope for the rhetoric within the debate of marijuana to change.
Interestingly though, the Above the Influence ad is no longer accessible on their youtube channel, where they keep all of their content. I was able to find this ad on youtube though, and since it was posted in 2008 it is less than 30,000 views away from a million and has almost 3,000 comments under it.
Works Cited
“About.” Above the Influence, 2 Dec. 2015, abovetheinfluence.com/about/.
Boodman, Sarah G. “Medical Mystery: What Caused Young Woman’s Persistent Vomiting?” Https://Www.inquirer.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 Aug. 2020, www.inquirer.com/health/cannabinoid-hyperemesis-syndrome-vomiting-cannabis-hot-showers-baths-20200828.html.
Haglage, Abby. “Meet the Anti-Pot Activists.” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 31 Jan. 2014, www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-anti-pot-activists.
Productions, Tacoian. “Flat Anti-Pot Ad.” Above The Influence, YouTube, 14 July 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh8GbPnoqCI
Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press, 2005. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7t4wr. .
