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Hollywood’s High Times
Studios light up for marijuana movies. Bad for the U.S.?
NEW ROLE MODELS “Just Say No” is just no match for the dope-smoker-as-cool persona being portrayed in Hollywood.
Recent examples include Weeds, a hit on Showtime cable, and the popular Harold & Kumar feature fi lms.
.
By Paul Bond cursing, teenage sex, and obligato- for example, would be shown in
ry displays of Christian hypocrisy, a smoke-fi lled room where it’s
ORK INC
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UMA PRESS
H
OLLYWOOD’S HIGH. Weeds focuses on a widowed subur- assumed they were getting high. But
How else to explain Tinseltown’s ban mother who secretly makes a liv- the act of smoking a joint was never
TE FILMS
WTIME NETW
sudden love affair with marijuana? ing selling high-quality marijuana to explicitly shown.
Sure, comedians Cheech and her Southern California neighbors. “Since that show debuted, others
Y OF SHO
Chong made a few silly pothead No worries, however — her moral have become much more direct. It’s
TES
UMAR/KINGSGA
OUR
movies more than three decades ago, code prevents her from dealing dope no longer just implied by a cloud of
/
C
and Sean Penn sparked his career to children. smoke,” Henson says. WEEDS HAROLD & K
by playing a dope-smoking loafer in Weeds is just the most obvious in
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But a long line of recent TV shows that
the entertainment industry’s latest portray protagonists as grass smok-
STRAIGHT DOPE ON
attempts to make marijuana main- ers, or pot dealers. But unlike Weeds,
stream are unprecedented. shows such as Swingtown on CBS
NOT ALL MOVIES ABOUT
There’s even a TV show dedi- and the CW’s Privileged air on free
marijuana set out to glorify the topic. Case
cated to it. Appropriately titled Weeds, broadcast television.
in point: Reefer Madness, arguably the most
enduring cult fl ick of all time.
it’s a one-hour drama series that’s According to Melissa Henson
A church group looking to instruct
among the top-rated programs on of the Parents Television Council, parents on the evils of smoking dope
the Showtime cable network. That the most recent trend of portray-
made the fi lm in 1936 under the original
sort of winking acknowledgement of ing seemingly average Americans
title Tell Your Children. The movie still plays
illegal drug use is part of the reason as regular dope smokers began with
at midnight shows in theaters across the
country, though not in its original form.
why almost 45 percent of Americans That 70s Show, the Fox program that
Shortly after Tell Your Children was
now admit that they smoke mari- aired from 1998 to 2006 and made completed, rights to the fi lm were
juana, according to the World Health Ashton Kutcher a star.
purchased by a producer who was attracted
Organization (WHO). However, That ’70s Show was
to the amateurish acting and outrageous
Once you get past the rampant more subtle about pot. Teenagers,
plot that had normal folks going insane,
16 NEWSMAX / DECEMBER 2008
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