When teams from the two states that have legalized marijuana for
recreational use clash at Sunday’s Super Bowl, so will activists on
both sides of the debate about pot prohibition. The Marijuana
Policy Project (MPP) is
sponsoring five billboards near MetLife Stadium in East
Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Denver Broncos will face the
Seattle Seahawks. The anti-pot group Project SAM is
responding with an ad that “will be placed on digital and vinyl
billboards throughout the New York-New Jersey area.”
Four of MPP’s
ads are variations on the marijuana-is-safer theme that played
a conspicuous role in Colorado’s legalization campaign and was
recently
echoed by President Obama. Two ads criticize the National
Football League’s anti-pot policy, showing generic players asking,
“Why does the league punish us for making the safer choice?” The
other two note that marijuana is safer than football as well as
alcohol. The fifth MPP ad shows a tally of attendance at the last
10 Super Bowls next to a tally of marijuana arrests in 2012 (about
750,000 in both cases).
How does Project SAM respond? It can’t very well deny that
marijuana is safer than alcohol, since its chairman
admitted as much on national television last week. Nor can it
deny that pot prohibition generates hundreds of thousands of
arrests each year, the vast majority for simple possession. Here is
what the group came up with instead:
That’s right: Project SAM—which stands, believe it or not, for
Smart Approaches to Marijuana—is warning Americans about
amotivational syndrome. In 2014. The theme reflected in this
billboard was hoary when it was first applied to marijuana in the
1960s, having figured prominently in anti-cigarette
propaganda two decades before the federal ban on
marijuana, which before it was portrayed as a soporific that
renders people lethargic and unambitious was feared as a “killer
drug” that made them aggressive and irrationally violent.
I am not sure what target Project SAM had in mind when it
created this ad, but even kids are apt to smell the bullshit here.
After all,
many NFL players use marijuana to relax or relieve aches and
pains, and it does not seem to have affected their motivation,
perseverance, or determination. It may even have helped. The
swimmer who won more Olympic medals than any other athlete in
history was a pot smoker, for crying out loud. Nor did marijuana
prevent our last three presidents from ascending to the highest
political office in the land. MPP has a list
of various other high-achieving cannabis consumers, in case you are
curious.
Many people who are not celebrities also manage to consume
marijuana without losing in the game of life. Yet Project SAM is
still trying to persuade Americans that if they smoke pot it will
kill their drive and prevent them from accomplishing anything
worthwhile. In a country where most people born after World War II
have tried pot, it is hard to make this tired slacker stereotype
stick. But I guess it’s the best pot prohibitionists have to
offer.
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