This is Your Brain on Drugs

Remember the anti-drug commercial from the late 80’s featuring eggs in a frying pan? For those unfamiliar with this propagandist masterpiece, I’ll paint a general picture:

You see two eggs. A calm, male voice says: “This is your brain.”

Then you see a sizzling cast-iron frying pan, and the voice adds: “This is drugs.”

The eggs are cracked open, thrown into the pan, and instantly begin to fry. The voiceover concludes: “This is your brain on drugs.”

(Dramatic pause. The camera closes in on the greasy, popping, eggy mess).

“Any questions?”

I’d inevitably encounter this commercial on a college rec room TV with my fellow scholars. We were all deadheads and usually “fried” on pot while watching, so the commercial succeeded only in making us hungry.

“Dude, I’ve got the munchies. Let’s go to the cafeteria and get some eggs,” someone would suggest, and off we’d troop, red-eyed and grinning, visions of fried eggs urging us forth. I’ve often wondered if there was anyone, even one person, who stayed away from drugs because of that commercial.

The current anti-drug “public service messages” seem to target marijuana specifically. There’s one in particular depicting two teenage boys getting high in what appears to be dad’s home office.

One boy is sitting behind a desk.

Between smoky tokes, he decides to rummage in the top drawer, and wouldn’t you know it? Dad’s pistol is in there amongst the pens and paper clips. So naturally the boy picks up the gun, aims the barrel at his friend (ostensibly with his finger about to squeeze the trigger), and asks, “Is this loaded?”

But before he can finish the sentence, the commercial cuts to black and the viewer is to understand that the unfortunate, stoned youth has just shot his unsuspecting smoking buddy.

Then a male voice says:

“Harmless? Pot can distort your reality.”

I have a problem with this.

When stoned, my friends and I admittedly had a propensity to: play hours of Super Mario Brothers while listening to Pink Floyd: The Wall, eat enough popcorn to feed a theatre, and skip class. The discovery of a gun, however, would be more likely to inspire a panic attack than spontaneous target practice.

Besides, the commercial seems a more appropriate message to gun-toting parents, if you ask me. Or is it common practice nowadays for a responsible father to store a loaded pistol in his unlocked top desk drawer?

And what percentage of gun accidents (or murders, for that matter) happen to teens under the influence of marijuana compared to those under the influence of, let's say, alcohol...
or cocaine
or crack
or heroin ?

Why target marijuana, of all things?

Are you telling us it's a "gateway" drug? Saying that smoking marijuana leads to "heavy" drugs is like saying that eating leads to obesity. Yes, some people who smoke pot will go on to become crack addicts. And some people who eat will get fat. But I eat every day and I'm skinny as a rail.

Now, many not-so-desirable things can and do happen to stoned people. I should know; I’ve smoked my share of pot. Under unfavorable circumstances, pot can catalyze anxiety and laziness. Pot sometimes makes your lungs feel like they’re on fire. Pot has the ability to whisk away your short-term memory, leading to the oft-heard query:

“What were we just talking about?”

...but pot doesn’t cause reefer madness of any kind. I don’t care how much you smoke or how good the pot is.

I have personally flown to Amsterdam, Holland and ordered their costliest champagne-brand of bud, “Northern Lights,” from a café menu. After sampling a generous portion of this fine cannabis, I spent hours outside on a bench in a lazy haze, my glaze of a stare focused on the swirling, exquisite beauty of the sunlit water in the canal.

I freely admit that I was in no shape to solve an algebraic equation. But at no point during my loss of sobriety did I have the slightest inkling to walk in front of a moving vehicle, drink poison, or do anything else even remotely paramount to pointing a might-be-loaded gun in someone’s face. I simply wanted to sit, smile, and be.

More realistic anti-drug commercials do exist, mind you. Consider this one, for example:

Two grown men, age thirty or so, are smoking pot in one guy’s bedroom and basically just sitting around watching cartoons.

In the background you hear a mother-voice calling:
“Trevor, did you look for a job today?”

Through the curtain of pot smoke the camera shows us the vacant stares of the stoned men. Neither man answers the voice, and the screen fades to black.

Clearly, the message here is that pot can cause you to become a lazy, lumpy, succubus of a human being. I can buy that scenario, though it’s still not a likely one.

There are plenty of fully functioning adults in the world who smoke pot. They are peaceful, responsible, intelligent, creative, contributing members of society. Or maybe they’re not. But either way, I don’t believe the pot has anything to do with it. Yes, marijuana can be abused, just like any other vice. I simply don't believe that its use, however rampant, warrants a million-dollar ad campaign...especially when that ad campaign doesn't even work.

If the Partnership for a Drug Free America really wants to discourage marijuana use, perhaps they should create a commercial portraying a more probable disaster. I could even write the script, because I lived it:

Several pot-smoking young adults stand laughing outside McDonald’s. They are clearly too high to function, so they decide to “shoot for it:” whoever loses must enter the restaurant and purchase food for everyone.

The camera comes in close on the luckless loser: she is laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her face.

“Get your shit together,” demands one of her giggling companions.

The girl takes one deep breath and enters the crowded McDonald’s. We see her standing in line: mouth set in a controlled grimace, eyes straight ahead, hands nervously jammed into her pockets.

When it is her turn, the counter boy asks, “May I help you?”

The stoned girl bursts out laughing in absolute uncontrollable hilarity. Unable to speak or move she sinks to her knees: gasping, giggling, crying, and drooling. She must crawl the fifteen feet or so to the door. In shame she is ushered out by shocked and disapproving glares from customers and staff alike.

As she exits the building to face her devastated friends, a voice-over solemnly states:

“Harmless? Pot can distort your sense of humor, causing starvation. Remember: If you can’t stop laughing, you can’t order food.”

On second thought, I’m not sure my commercial would discourage today’s determined reefer-smoking citizens either.

Why go to McDonald’s, after all, when you can have those yummy fried eggs sizzling away in the frying pan?