Drugs and the Media

Sunny Perez

April 6, 2014

There are various ways the media promotes the use of drugs. Especially marijuana. There just seems to be too much material out, promoting nothing, but these kinds of lifestyles. For example, most music videos talk about nothing more than drinking, and getting high. They show how much fun they are having while doing these activities. They make it look like the cool thing to do. But, in reality it’s not. It’s not the cool thing to be doing. Media just makes us think that way. We should not abuse any type of drug, and getting “high” is not the cool thing to do. I believe, media is sending out the wrong message to us. Especially children. They should not even be exposed to these things to begin with. I have noticed, that children seem to be starting to experiment with drugs at a much younger age now. This seems to be, because of everything the media is feeding us either though music videos, movies, or even sports. Why is this type of media promotion even aloud? Shouldn’t we be promoting more anti-drug ads? Banning music videos, and movies that are so heavily promoting such drug use?
There are a few artist who quickly come to mind, when I think about who promotes drug use quite often. But, the one on the top of my list is Lil Wayne. He seems to do nothing more, than get high and rap. All his rap songs talk about lighting up, or getting messed up. I don’t believe he has a single song out, where he doesn’t talk about marijuana. His songs are constantly being blasted out on the radio. His music videos are also all over TV, and he’s doing nothing, but smoking in his music videos, surrounded by women praising him for living this kind of lifestyle. I believe this is sending out the wrong message. After watching the Reefer Madness and High: True Tale of American Marijuana, I am finally able to see marijuana being a good use from a medical standpoint. But, like any other drug out there, it’s only good as long as it is being used for its medical purposes, and not being abused. But, the media only promotes marijuana use for getting “high”. The media doesn’t promote it for any other reason, but that. There are no ads out promoting the medical use for it. Which after watching the movie High: True Tale of Marijuana I am able to see the many good reason for medical marijuana.
The movie Reefer Madness seemed to demonize. Marijuana use. It did this by using scare tactics, and scaring people away from using. They made weed use seem like losing your mind. It made it seem like it made you into a violent and very irrational person. For example: In the movie Jimmy started acting like a maniac right after he smoked a joint in the car. After he smokes he started acting like a maniac and drives away very recklessly, when driving recklessly he ends up hitting a pedestrian who was trying to cross the street. Another example in the movies was when Blanche stared playing the piano after she had smoked with Ralph, the both of them acted like they lost their mind. He kept repeatedly telling Blanche to play faster, which she obliges and plays faster for him. When she plays so fast she seemed almost crazy. As though something had come upon her and took over. Blanche then starts to laugh uncontrollably as Ralph started to beat Jack to his death. In the movie they also seemed to portray the affects as long lasting and permanent. Ralph is thrown into an asylum to live off the rest of his days.
In the second movie, or should I say documentary, High: True tale of American Marijuana they are promoting marijuana use, and legalization. In the movie they show a lot of interviews with people that are experts on the matter. They also include statistics that helps us see the picture more clearly. In the documentary they were trying to show us how it is they are attempting to get marijuana FDA approved, for those who need it. But the FDA once