POT PLAYS STARRING ROLE ON TV, IN MOVIES

Sniff. Sniff. Smell that? It's the pungent odor of marijuana wafting
in the air as the music, television, and film industries inhale a
lungful of pot culture:

On the cover of High Times magazine, Aaron Lewis, lead singer of the
rock group Staind, proudly clutches a bong and a handful of weed.
Afroman had a novelty hit song this year, "Because I Got High," which
had nothing to do with altitude.

On ABC's "Once and Again," the eldest son passes a joint to his
teenage stepsister, while on NBC's "The West Wing," the surgeon
general floats the idea of decriminalizing marijuana.

Cannabis also gets a starring role in two winter films. The comedy,
"The Wash," pairs producer, rapper, and now actor Dr. Dre with one of
hip-hop's most notorious smokers, Snoop Dogg. Rappers Redman and
Method Man puffed their way into theaters yesterday with "How High,"
in which the pair smoke magical pot that gives them the smarts to get
into Harvard University.

"People are not proud to say they do coke, but marijuana -- it's been
a trend for years," Redman says. "It's a movie star in its own self."

Blame the revival on a generation of baby boomers working in film and
television today who came of age during the pot smoking era of the
1960s and 1970s. Add to that teens and 20-somethings who are creating
what the Department of Justice ominously calls "the New Marijuana
Epidemic" by making ganja their drug of choice. Combine these two
generations with an ongoing public push to legalize marijuana and
suddenly, it seems like we've jumped into a time machine and gotten
off in the 1970s.

All of which is enough to make organizations such as the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy want to spoil pop culture's
high. "We have decided as a society, or at least as a legal system,
that there isn't anything called responsible drug use," says Donald
Roberts, a communications professor at Stanford University who has
worked on studies of drug, alcohol, and cigarette usage in music,
television, and film for the National Drug Control Policy. "That
being the case, one would hope you would portray it in ways that make
people not attracted to it."

The darker side of marijuana use is clearly delineated in the news. A
conga line of celebrities has been arrested for marijuana possession
this year, including Aaron Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing," Snoop
Dogg, and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Nate Newton, who was caught
twice in the last two months.

That hasn't stopped the nation from embracing its bongs, blunts, and
joints. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 10
million people use marijuana and 69 million people over the age of 12
have smoked it at least once. The drug trails only alcohol and
cigarettes in popularity.

So it's hardly noted that the lead singer of the rock band Nickelback
wears a marijuana leaf T-shirt onstage and calls for the legalization
of the drug. Or that a spate of high-quality films -- "Eyes Wide
Shut," "American Beauty," and "Wonder Boys" -- feature characters
casually smoking weed. It's a subtle shift from the past, when,
according to Steven Hager, editor in chief of High Times, pot users
were depicted as destructive people with dead-end lives.

"I don't think marijuana is treated as badly," says Mark-Boris St.
Mourice, managing editor of Heads magazine.

"It's more levelheaded," continues St. Mourice, who likens the drug's
more casual treatment to how homosexual lifestyles have increasingly
gained acceptance in pop culture. Take Tommy Chong's recurring role
as the stoner owner of a photo lab on television's "That '70s Show."

"He isn't denigrated; he's just another one of the characters," says
St. Mourice. "The young characters are smoking pot on a regular basis
on that show. That's a big deal, too."

"Once and Again," which focuses on the second marriage of two parents
who both have children, kicked off its season with the eldest child,
18-year-old Eli, being arrested for pot possession. A recent episode
started with him getting fired from his job for arriving late one too
many times, possibly because of his ongoing drug use. It ended with
Eli introducing his 16-year-old stepsister, Grace, to pot.

"We're showing a fully dimensional, complex person who has a lot of
great qualities who's smoking pot a lot -- maybe to his detriment --
and it really isn't spelled out," says Winnie Holzman, an executive
producer for the show. The story line developed out of the
experiences of Holzman and her co-executive producers, Edward Zwick
and Marshall Herskovitz, the pair behind the angst-ridden dramas
"thirtysomething" and "My So-Called Life."

"In our generation it was very common to smoke pot," says Holzman,
who's in her 40s. "It's an issue now because we're all raising
teenagers."

On the other hand, we still live in an era where television and
movies, such as the teen flick, "Dude, Where's My Car?" and last
year's "Saving Grace," use goofily doped-up characters for laughs.

"One of the problems with illicit drug use is that it gets portrayed
sometimes seriously and responsibly in the sense that, 'Gee, this guy
used marijuana and it did reduce his reaction time driving the car --
and that cost the kid his life,' says Roberts, "but the next film is
a comedy. ... There's not much consistency there." "How High" plays
pot for laughs, using as a jumping-off point Method Man and Redman,
whose first single together, also called "How High," was a paean to
smoking. Hip-hop artists have never hesitated to throw in references
to Buddha, blunts, and joints to their lyrics. Snoop Dogg recently
completed his Puff, Puff Pass tour, named after the etiquette
followed by weed smokers: two puffs, then pass it on.

When the script writers began building "How High" around Redman and
Method Man, the duo had two requests. The action had to take place on
a college campus and "we wanted to be smoking a hell of a lot of
weed," says Redman, who's also known as Funk Doctor Spot, or Doc for
short.

"People in hip-hop know we smoke," he explains. "How we going to do a
movie and not have a tremendous amount of weed? It wouldn't have been
right."

And indeed, many scenes show the characters shrouded in smoke. The
filmmakers brush off any suggestions that the film, which is rated R,
encourages drug use among the teens who will inevitably sneak into
theaters to see their musical heroes.

"I don't think the film at all says, 'Go out and do drugs and you'll
do well,'" says Pamela Abdy, executive producer of "How High."

Adds Redman, "I'm not promoting it to a younger crowd. But if you've
got to hear it from us not to smoke weed and your parents are not
telling you, there's something wrong." Redman and Method Man waged
their own informal antidrug campaign by abstaining from smoking as
they shot the film.

"You got to step it up," explains Method Man, "because if everyone's
on the same page and you're not, it shows. It's embarrassing, really."

As he talks, a lighter clicks. He takes a drag that echoes over the
telephone line. A cigarette, perhaps? No, he replies, weed.