The Movie Reefer Madness

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Many of the youth today probably don’t know about the film Reefer Madness. Originally titled as Tell Your Children and sometimes called The Burning Question among others is a 1936 American propaganda movie about exaggerated events that follow after high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana. The melodramatic incidents go from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, hallucinations, and descent into madness due to marijuana addiction. Little wonder that the Los Angeles Times has claimed that it was one of the first films that a generation associate as "the worst." Las Vegas CityLife dubbed it as the "worst ever", while AMC described it as "one of the worst movies ever made." It was even mentioned in…show more content…
Although the film was absurd and nonsensical at best, the propaganda worked. Along with the War on Drugs campaign by the former president Nixon in the 1930’s as well, parents have been very watchful and overly protective with their children in regards to their consumptions. Thankfully, the marijuana scare caused by the propaganda is slowly dwindling as shown in the data of Wall Street Journal and NBC News poll. The survey found out that 49 percent of respondents claimed that tobacco was the most dangerous followed by alcohol drinks that came in at 24 percent, then by sugar at 15 percent, and only 8 percent of those surveyed said marijuana poses the most danger. Tobacco has been known to have adverse effects of the users and the people around them. The packaging even has warnings to their consumers. Some of the recorded adverse effects on the health of tobacco use are asthma, heart attack, and several cancers from the mouth to the lungs to name a few. It also causes an average death toll of 480,000 Americans…show more content…
It’s remarkable and stimulating that more people who took the survey believe that it poses a greater danger than marijuana, a drug that the federal government classifies as one of “the most dangerous” substances alongside LSD and heroin. But these Americans are onto something though. Health risks associated with, for example, regular drinking of carbonated drinks often lead to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, stroke, and can eventually death. Speaking of which, excessive sugary beverage intake was linked to 25,000 deaths annually in the U.S. Let’s be direct to the point. There was never a case of death related to marijuana overdose. As a matter fact, one would need to consume 20,000-40,000 times an average dosage in order for marijuana to kill someone. That would be about 680kgs of marijuana in 15 minutes. This is according to a ruling from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 1988. There are still some controversies in regards to the legalization and medical studies of marijuana. Luckily, more and more people are starting to see that there is no danger in the plant. Former President Obama even said, “As has been well-documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”, in his interview with The New
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