ADDICTED TO MORE THAN THE MUNCHIES

Judging from the anticipation that led up to Wednesday's high-profile
release of Pineapple Express, a stoner comedy about two pot-smoking
wastrels who go on the run from a drug lord, it seems a certain
percentage of North Americans like to get high. And who can blame
them? After a long day's work, there's nothing more relaxing than
kicking off your shoes, popping in a DVD from newly reunited drug
comedy duo Cheech and Chong, and firing up a bowl of crack rock while
injecting a mix of cocaine and Halcion directly into your tear ducts.
Wait - did I mix up my socially acceptable drugs? Which is the one
that makes you eat Frito dust and find Adam Sandler funny? Is that
weed, or just brain damage? Being straight-edge, I sometimes get
confused when it comes to drug culture, so I turned to DVDs of
dope-related movies as my pharmacological guide.

Drug: Marijuana

Effects: Lethargy, Chappelle's Show marathons, transformation into
sweaty-palmed rapist.

Okay, so the last effect may not be entirely accurate, unless you take
Reefer Madness (1936) seriously. An anti-drug "morality tale" similar
to Marihuana (1936) and She Shoulda Said "No"! (1949), Reefer Madness
confuses pot with a combination of anxiety disorders and road rage,
contributing to its status as a cult film. In fact, Legend Films' DVD
release features a comedy commentary by Mystery Science Theater 3000's
Mike Nelson, and a deliberately campy movie musical version was made
in 2005.

The more informative Weed (1972) examines many of the barriers
involved in the battle to legalize the drug, such as government
propaganda, and pot crusaders who resemble either Ted Nugent or a
felon dressed up for the parole board.

Drug: STP

Effects: Delirium, panic, overacting.

This powerful hallucinogen was briefly popular in the '60s, before
people realized that spending days catatonic with fear leads to
bedsores rather than introspective self-awareness. Psych-Out (1968),
about a deaf woman searching for her hippie brother, is one of the few
films dealing with STP. It's also notable for starring a young Jack
Nicholson, though his well-lined face still resembles a crumpled
parchment treasure map.

Drug: Speed

Effects: Insomnia hyperactivity poor punctuation run-on sentences.

The last thing a generation of filmmakers weaned on rapid music-video
editing needs is a twitchy speed fix. Spun (2003), a film about a
group of addicts, apparently features more than 5,000 separate cuts,
giving it the subtlety of a dentist's drill. The Salton Sea (2002),
starring Val Kilmer as a musician who falls into addiction after his
wife's murder, feels slightly less like watching your own brain have a
stroke.

Drug: Heroin

Effects: Euphoria, rock-star martyrdom.

I can understand why heroin is so popular: Not only does it help you
lose weight, but a gangrenous arm and jaundiced skin tone can
complement light-coloured complexions. Still, there is a dark side, as
in the MPAA-incensing The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), which
starred Frank Sinatra as an ex-con struggling to stay clean. The
Junky's Christmas (1993) is a surprisingly moving Claymation short, in
which William S. Burroughs narrates his own story of a heroin addict
who shares his last fix, and presumably his hepatitis, with a needy
youth.

Drug: LSD

Effects: Hallucinations, Pink Floyd record sales, stupid conversations about
quantum
physics.

LSD also provides the context for cinematic experimentation, which
mainly involves filmmaking with melted crayons and finger paint. For
example, three-quarters of The Trip (1968), in which Peter Fonda takes
the drug to help deal with the dissolution of his marriage, appears to
be filmed through a lava lamp.

And while the once-banned Brazilian exploitation film Awakening of the
Beast (1970) posits that all drugs will lead youth to depravity,
public urination, and eventual death from sex-related injuries, it
pays special attention to LSD - which, apparently, both raises the
dead and colourizes black and white film. Though it still can't make
Adam Sandler funny.

Al Kratina is a freelance filmmaker and writer who reviews comics and
movies for www.comicbookbin.com.