The Bong Show

POT LEGALIZATION GOES PRIME TIME

In the last decade, when pot-law reform advocates have faced off with
the status quo on equal footing, pot reform has won. Initiative
backers in a dozen states, for instance, have spent big bucks passing
medical-marijuana measures despite fierce opposition from federal
officials. Nevertheless, the adult recreational use of pot (as
opposed to medical use) doesn't have majority support to pass in any
state. Before voters will ever approve that sort of proposal, pot
advocates must first change attitudes toward the drug by going toe to
toe with the White House's multimillion-dollar antidrug media campaign.

The national ACLU has decided to fund a pilot effort. Beginning on
Valentine's Day, television viewers in the Seattle media market will
begin seeing a slick, 30-minute pot-reform infomercial.

Hosted by television travel guru Rick Steves, Marijuana: It's Time
for a Conversation will initially be available on Comcast On Demand
cable, says Alison Holcomb, director of the ACLU of Washington's
Marijuana Education Project, which produced the show. Holcomb says
the ACLU plans to spend at least $20,000 per week airing the program
around the state. Three local network affiliates (KOMO, KING, and
KIRO) have already received and approved copies of the script, she
says. However, none of the station's advertising managers could be
reached for comment. "We're working with the stations to figure out
what times are available," Holcomb says. By the end of 2008, she
expects the program to begin airing in more conservative regions,
including Pierce County, Clark County, and greater Spokane.

"It's good to be in a corner of the country where we can test-market
for this," said Steves at an advanced screening. The national ACLU,
which opposes punitive marijuana laws they believe chip away at civil
liberties, chose Washington because polls suggest reforming marijuana
laws is most feasible here. (Disclosure: I used to work for the ACLU
of Washington.)

The program makes its case against pot prohibition by chronicling the
racial hysteria behind the drug's criminalization in the 1930s and
examining the impact of modern-day pot laws, under which about
800,000 people are arrested in the U.S. each year.

The format--an infomercial with the requisite gregarious host and an
audience that robotically claps on cue--is clearly geared to strike a
chord with its target demographic: moms, a group traditionally wary
of marijuana but proven to buy products sold on TV.

But, to fit within cable and station programming guidelines, the show
cannot advocate for any specific legal reforms. It must settle for
encouraging viewers to start a discussion on the issue and prompting
them to visit www.Marijuana Conversation.org for more information.

The absence of overt advocacy actually makes the program
compelling--it encourages the viewer to hang on and find out what he
or she is supposed to do. Although, the potential for backlash does
exist. When the program wraps up without defining its goals, moms may
wonder what exactly the ACLU wants. Does the civil-liberties
organization want to allow adults to smoke pot in the privacy of
their bedrooms, or is this part of a nebulous liberalization agenda
that would make drugs more available?

Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen, the state's leading critic of
drug-reform efforts, worries that the infomercial turns pot smokers
into politically sympathetic characters. "When you start running ads
and say, 'Golly, gee whiz, look at all the things happening to people
who get [unfairly] arrested,' you start putting out a story saying
there is no problem with marijuana," says Owen. These messages lower
the perception of pot's harm, he adds, thus increasing the rate of
marijuana use, especially by kids.

"The show doesn't encourage anyone to use marijuana," Holcomb
responds. "This show acknowledges risks associated with heavy
marijuana use, and no one is saying that marijuana use is a good thing."

"The question we are positing is this: Is criminalizing marijuana use
actually increasing public safety and decreasing health risks,"
Holcomb says, "or is it hurting us on both counts?