GIVE US THE STRAIGHT DOPE

If You Demonize Marijuana, Drug Education Goes Up In Smoke

Has there ever been a dumber slogan than "Just say 'no' to drugs?"
There in five words you have the ultimate in institutional stupidity
writ small. Was there really a highpaid agency somewhere that decided,
after days of deliberation around a boardroom table, that the best way
to teach kids was to tell them "no" and watch as they fell in line?

AGENCY REP: Hey, what if we just told children not to do
it?

That's what I did for my kids and they turned out okay. In fact my son
Jimmy was just named most improved inmate!

"Just say no" is not in as high rotation as it used to be (at least on
this side of the border), but it still nicely sums up the simplistic
philosophy of too many people and organizations who want to curb drug
use.

I've been thinking about this because of two stories in the news
lately: The RCMP warning parents that "designer drugs" are on the rise
in New Brunswick, and Saint John Police charging a Cannabis Cafe owner
in Saint John with possession for the purpose of trafficking.

It's the condescension in the anti-drug lobby's approach - and
society's approach in general - that bothers me. In a nutshell, it's
that all drugs are bad and, for the most part, that all drugs are
equally bad. Crack cocaine? Evil. Ecstasy? Evil.

Marijuana? Evil. It's a no-go zone, kiddies.

Don't you worry your pretty little heads. Just say "no." Even someone
whose brain resembled an egg sizzling in a frying pan could tell you
that the just-say-no approach is idiotic. First of all, the
condescending tone sounds like it is aimed at toddlers, a subsection
of society that already gets its hallucinogenic fix from sniffing glue
sticks, watching SpongeBob SquarePants, and eating breakfast cereal
that contains food colouring and six essential kinds of sugar.

And anyone actually old enough to be thinking about drugs will feel
downright motivated by the word "no" because, as everyone knows,
teenagers can't believe that anyone would have the unmitigated gall to
tell them what to do ("unmitigated gall" being a popular teenage saying).

If you started a campaign tomorrow that told teens to just say 'no' to
chewing through high-tension wire with their teeth, large groups of
teenagers would be hanging out on the country's suspension bridges by
sundown, bragging about their widest wire and showing off how many
teeth they're missing.

Of course, you already know this. You're an intelligent, sensible
person who knows that simplistic blanket statements are silly and not
very useful. You are not a member of the anti-drug lobby.

Nobody seems to understand that condescending to kids hurts the
anti-drug cause. When I was in school, I was told in certain terms
that marijuana use was right up there with beating up handicapped
puppies on the list of unacceptable activities.

I was confused when I saw lots of people partaking in the odd puff
with no ill effects. They weren't falling from a ceiling beam to the
floor (a favourite cautionary marijuana story of one teacher), they
seemed to have full use of their IQ points, and they didn't feel an
overwhelming need to call me "dude" or "brother" or "Beavis." Here's
the irony: Hearing that marijuana is demon weed - or watching someone
taken to court over selling the stuff - sends a terrible message to
young people. Because when they figure out that marijuana is not so
bad and then look at other warnings - that ecstasy is a potential
killer on the rise in N.B.- they think, "Whatever." I know I do.

I saw a newspaper article about the dangers of designer drugs and I
thought, "Cops are supposed to scare people." And then I saw a story
about kids who had their lives torn apart by ecstasy and I thought,
"Fair enough, but is ecstasy any worse than alcohol? Or better yet in
New Brunswick, is it any worse than Video Lottery Terminals?" I'm not
suggesting that there is nothing to the warnings. I'm just saying that
I don't trust them because I've been lied to before.

I guess it does show that marijuana is an incredibly powerful drug,
though. It can affect the brain function of people only talking about
it.

- - Humour columnist John Mazerolle provides free and addictive ecstasy
to his readers every week. Hear him Thursdays on CBC Radio One's
Information Morning in Saint John (every week), as well as Fredericton
and Moncton (occasionally).