HIGH SOCIETY

In Magazines And Movies, On The Radio And On Tv, It Seems That Everybody
Must Get Stoned

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 recently
released comedy, ''The Wash,'' pairs producer, rapper, and now actor Dr.
Dre with one of hip-hop's most notorious smokers, Snoop Dogg. On Friday,
rappers Redman and Method Man puff their way into theaters 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, the heyday of
Cheech & Chong.

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 are,
after all, still in the midst of a war on drugs.

''We have decided as a society, or at least as a legal system, that there
isn't anything called responsible drug use,'' says Donald F. Roberts, a
communications professor at Stanford University who has worked on studies
examining 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. And the LA Clippers' Lamar Odom was suspended for five games
for smoking it.

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 smoking weed
as casually as they'd light up a cigarette or drink a glass of wine. 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 the year-old Heads magazine, which, in another
indication of marijuana's increasingly popularity, is battling with High
Times and Cannabis Culture for dominance in the pot publications genre.

''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. Yet they still happily go on with life and
don't end up cutting their mom's head off with an ax.''

''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 - at her behest.

''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.'' And anyone who's raised a child, he
adds, knows how important consistency is in affecting behavior.

''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 billows of 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.