Yeah... it makes you dumb. Maybe that's why I produce better numbers than anyone in my department, with fewer corrections, smoking daily (I can't keep track, but it's about 1/4 a week)... and I've only been there 6 months. This is cardiac research, btw, not a "dumb" persons job.
OH MY FUCKING GOD!! Are you really THAT stupid!! You actually do "Cardiac Research" and you think there's no problem with that. Weed is more harmful for you than smoking regular cigarettes! PERIOD. Documented, FACT! If you are doing cardiac research than YOU of all people should know that!
OH and WHERE do I get MY facts from....I have a Master's Degree in Exercise Science and Cardiology. So don't come back with the typical, "you don't know shit" response, because I DO! I've been in the field for more than 10 years. People who do that shit have worse hearts that 30 year smokers.
Here is my final essay for english 1102 on "Anti Marijuana Ads"
Anti Marijuana Ads
Over the past couple of years, it has come to my attention that anti-marijuana ads on TV are overly negative on the outlook of this particular drug. I can ‘possibly’ agree that some people shouldn’t be using marijuana, but stretching the truth and making up facts should not be part of these ads. The media gives the general public who sees these ads an overly dramatic view of the actual marijuana situation. With my research, I have investigated the problem of anti-marijuana ads not conveying the complete truth. The ads do not provide useful information on medicinal marijuana, nor do they ever provide the evidence which shows that marijuana really isn’t that harmful. The question I ask is this, “Do the anti-marijuana ads on TV convey the truth?” I personally feel that the ads do not present enough information, they are negatively biased and opinionated, and their use of stereotypes makes them almost ignorant.
The problem does not lie in the marijuana issue itself. I don’t care that people want to spread the word on how they feel about marijuana and its uses. However, an organization that puts out ads that are one sided, don’t include all of the facts, and use stereotypes to display their message, is the wrong way to get people to think clearly about an issue. These ads affect more than one group of people. These ads affect people within the media itself, doctors- regarding medical marijuana, the average marijuana user, anti-marijuana lobbyists, and non-users such as parents, and dealers.
Marijuana has been in and out of the news and talked about government agencies, concerning arrests for dealing, and possession; along with studies concerning the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. The “White House Office of National Drug Control Policy” (Marijuana) started their National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign in October of 2002. This campaign was advertised towards the youth, and its purpose was “to position marijuana as risky, providing kids ages 14-16 with the facts about marijuana, including the risks and negative consequences of using the drug” (Marijuana). The parent advertising campaign was started in late September of 2002, and its purpose was to “reinforce efficacy and monitoring skills by emphasizing that parents can make a difference and by providing them with practical skills and strategies to raise drug-free kids. Advertising targets general market and African American adults” (Marijuana). These programs stopped in 2003, but other organizations are still producing fault ads up to this day.
For obvious reasons, these ad makers are against all kinds of marijuana usage. They feel marijuana is bad and should be kept illegal and should be counted as a crime. The same philosophy is shared by other anti-marijuana lobbyists. Doctors however, have critical evidence which shows that marijuana usage is not that bad, and may actually be helpful. Studies have shown that marijuana can be useful for medicine because of: relief from nausea and appetite loss, reduction of pressure within the eye, reduction of muscle spasms, and relief from chronic pain (Medical). Because medicinal marijuana has such helpful “side effects,” patients that have AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain would be able to use it and get some relief. Some patients have even reported that smoking marijuana has helped with arthritis, migraines, menstrual cramps, and depression. The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine even said that “there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses,” on March 17, 1999. This came as a result of two years of research which was actually funded by the White House Drug Policy Office (Medical).
I personally think that people who smoke marijuana daily don’t care about the ads. They are already smoking marijuana, and realize the dangers of using it, mostly that it could get them arrested. In the year 2000 alone, 734,497 people were arrested on account of marijuana charges. Nine out of ten of these thousands of people were caught only with simple possession. It costs $1.2 billion annually to keep 60,000 people in prison for their marijuana misconduct (Gerber). These are non-harmful people who only want to smoke for recreation. Studies have shown that marijuana usage does not kill brain cells; it merely changes the structures of the cells (Gieringer). The only reason I am so passionate about these ads, is because they are filled with old, and incorrect information, which is being broadcasted to millions of people daily, and influences them in the wrong way. I think the ads mostly favor the thoughts of non-users such as parents, because they simply don’t research marijuana, nor do they think to try it for themselves. I don’t think you can judge anything if you don’t know much about it.
Several things need to be addressed before this issue can be solved. First off, the ads need to increase their factual information. These ads simply bash marijuana, and do not present the other side with actual information. One of the ads says that 1 joint is equal to four cigarettes. The truth is that the average marijuana smoker does not smoke 5 joints a day, which would be equal to a pack of 20 cigarettes, which is common for the average cigarette smoker. In a study done by Dr. Tashkin, he noted that a better estimate of marijuana smoking compared to tobacco was “that marijuana smokers consume four times as much carcinogenic tar as cigarette smokers per weight smoked” (Gieringer). This sounds bad in comparison but because marijuana joint weighs less compared to a cigarette, you get less of the carcinogenic tar. However, it also stated that you can’t exactly compare marijuana smoking to smoking tobacco. The reason is that tobacco tends to affect the “smaller, peripheral passageways of the lungs” (Gieringer) while marijuana affects the central passageways, which are larger.
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There is also no documentation that links the death of someone to ingesting marijuana, it is physically impossible to overdose on it. Governor Gary Johnson said in 1999 that “about 450,000 tobacco-related deaths, 150,000 alcohol-related deaths and 100,000 prescription drug-related deaths were reported nationally.” On the other hand, there were only 5,000 cocaine, heroin, and marijuana deaths the same year (Williams). When comparing these statistics, one can clearly see that tobacco and alcohol, both legal and controlled substances are killing people in record numbers. In 1988, the “DEA administrative law Judge Francis Young finds after thorough hearings that marijuana has clearly established medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug” (Erowid).
I interviewed my friend Tyler, and he said that he once heard a rumor, that if you eat a large amount of high strain potent marijuana in a short amount of time, it may be possible to overdose. He also said that he smokes daily and is in good shape, and has never seen anyone smoke enough to hurt themselves. But along those lines, too much of anything is not a good thing, and who would be brainless enough to try and kill themselves by smoking or eating too much marijuana. For the questionnaire, I asked 40 people if anyone had ever heard of someone dying because of marijuana usage, 34 people said that they had not. I don’t know what the stories were that those 6 people heard, but the only outcome that I found by some of the replies, was that the marijuana was laced with another drug, or the user had some kind of accident while being high.
Secondly, the removal of opinions and negative bias is needed. In one commercial, a group of guys has been smoking in the car as they go through a drive-thru, and they speed off because they didn’t have money. They ended up hitting a girl on a bike and probably killing her. The way the ad makes it look, is that the girl was killed because the guys were high. What’s to say that she couldn’t have been hit by guys who were going through a drive-thru and were not paying attention as they left? People speed all the time, what’s to say someone didn’t speed off, and simply couldn’t break in time, and hit her? What was this little girl doing riding her bike in the middle of what seemed like heavy traffic during the way anyway? Where were her parents? These ads are very questionable, and leave people like me with questions.
In another ad, it shows a toddler playing around on a pool deck, and she goes and puts a raft into the pool and ends up drowning. The message says “just tell her parents you weren’t watching her because you were stoned.” That is absurd. Not only could that happen to anyone, she could have been on the phone or watching TV and not paying attention. What were the toddlers parents doing at the time? What selection process did they go through for the babysitter?
The girl being high doesn’t isn’t the only reason that the toddler died. The main problem in this ad is that the girl is irresponsible and should have been watching the girl.
Another ad shows two kids hanging out in one of the kids’ fathers’ office, while they are smoking. They are there day after day, until one day one of the kids looks at his father’s gun. One kid asks if it’s loaded, the other says no, and it goes off, preferably (by the organization) killing the other kid. This is negative to the max. Why wasn’t anyone watching these kids? Wouldn’t they have gotten in trouble if they were smoking in their dad’s office? No one looks for these kids? Why was a gun just lying around? If the kids were younger, they could have crawled onto the table and shot themselves, even if they weren’t high. These ads are overly negative, and only show one side of the argument, that being high is the only reason that these things happened, although things like this happen everyday, without marijuana implication. I am not saying that these incidents didn’t occur because the people involved were high, I am just saying that these things didn’t just happen because marijuana was involved- there are other factors to consider.
Lastly, stereotypes should not be used. In most of the ads, stereotypes are being used to convey the negative image of marijuana. In one ad, it shows a guy in the basement, who didn’t “go to jail, or drop out of high school,” but all he does is smoke. That is a character flaw in the person, and not because of marijuana. He could be doing nothing even if he didn’t smoke. Some other images are of a girl who keeps laughing after smoking, and others who talk nonsense when they are high. That is not the typical user of marijuana. Like the numbers I mentioned before, guys between the ages of 18 and up make up more than half of the marijuana users, while anything younger than that is roughly 20%. These ads display younger teenagers, while they are the minority marijuana smokers. They also display fogged out cars. That displays the thinking of people who are not very bright. Not only might they have an accident, but they would also get in trouble with the law. That stereotype displays a character flaw, and not a side of marijuana. It may impair judgment, but it will not make you “stupid” that’s something that’s there beforehand.
On one website, it has a list of “Facts for Teens,” and it was said that “If you’re high on marijuana, you are more likely to make stupid mistakes that could embarrass or even hurt you. If you use marijuana a lot, you could start to lose interest in how you look and how you’re getting along at school or work” (US Department: Teens). Something like that is easily seen on such ads, and it’s just ridiculous. I can understand that ‘some’ people may get lazier with taking marijuana, but that is a character flaw, and most people that smoke are not the kind of people to sit around all day. For example, the Valedictorian of my high school in Coral Springs for the class of 2004 smoked marijuana on a daily basis, and is currently attending MIT.
From here on out, I think we have a few possibilities to make the ads better. The easiest thing to do would probably be to stop the current agencies from making these outlandish ads. From the questionnaire that I conducted, which included 40 students, 33 feel that those ads do not give enough, or totally accurate information, so that you can make your own decisions about the drugs they display. So I think that removing these ads would be a good bet. After they have done more extensive research and actually talked to real people who smoke and study marijuana, they can start making better ads. It would also be better if they got together with other agencies and have a more collaborative ad that tackles other issues besides “marijuana is bad, it will kill you.” I would think that these agencies would want to put out ads that speak to the majority of the people, and not a select view that believe anything on the TV. The current ads aren’t helping anyone, but if new ads shun some light into medicinal marijuana or how marijuana really isn’t that bad for you, we would be better off.
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If you help as much there by giving the wrong info like you do in here, then it's probably useless anyway.
What wrong info have I given? I dont try to give info in OT cause it doesnt count. Haha.
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Its good. Read it. Its only like 7 pages double spaced or something.
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Last edited by Butt Hurt : Jun 26th, 2005 at 08:26 PM.
I dunno, my Jr year at college I was a binge bong smoker, and I got my best grades that semester. I quit by my Sr. year and was on academic probation during that time. It is worse than cigs, but you dont smoke a pack of joints a day...
I dunno, my Jr year at college I was a binge bong smoker, and I got my best grades that semester. I quit by my Sr. year and was on academic probation during that time. It is worse than cigs, but you dont smoke a pack of joints a day...
From my paper
One of the ads says that 1 joint is equal to four cigarettes. The truth is that the average marijuana smoker does not smoke 5 joints a day, which would be equal to a pack of 20 cigarettes, which is common for the average cigarette smoker. In a study done by Dr. Tashkin, he noted that a better estimate of marijuana smoking compared to tobacco was “that marijuana smokers consume four times as much carcinogenic tar as cigarette smokers per weight smoked” (Gieringer). This sounds bad in comparison but because marijuana joint weighs less compared to a cigarette, you get less of the carcinogenic tar. However, it also stated that you can’t exactly compare marijuana smoking to smoking tobacco. The reason is that tobacco tends to affect the “smaller, peripheral passageways of the lungs” (Gieringer) while marijuana affects the central passageways, which are larger.
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Currently enjoying a good puff after a long ass week. My first smoke in about 8 days. I used to smoke heavy ass shit 7 or 8 times a day about 2 years ago. I started up again about 2 months ago. Since I initially quit, I've erolled in full time college with all a's and b's and I've been at the same job for over a year now (just got a .50/hr raise too), and I take care of myself, I'm in the best shape of my life right now. I don't smoke cigarrettes. I drink pretty often, and play too many video games.
RESPONSIBLE STONERS ARE NORMAL PEOPLE. GET THE STICKS OUT OF YOUR ASSES.
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1992 240sx SE HICAS -- "johnny five"
Quote:
Originally Posted by sethwas
cars haven't polluted in over 10 years. The air outside is routinely cleaner than car exhaust.
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