Weed Nostalgia

2009.04.03

It is a lot of fun watching those old anti-pot movies made in the thirties, especially if you’ve just had some. What is hard to get your head around, even in an altered state, is how someone could even think of taking themselves so seriously that it was painful to watch.

Remember that it was the government that funded these things, and governments are not known for their sense of humor. Take the example of Bugs Bunny creator Chuck Jones. Now, granted there was a lot of sexuality in those cartoons, and on purpose – well hidden in the cartoon framework, but in an interview, Chuck described a scene one day that was right out of the men in black.

He said a black car rolled up to the studio and two men in black suits with sunglasses got out and approached him without any introduction or ID. They began to grill him about a cartoon he had just done where bugs was running through a barnyard, and he frightened a cow that reared up on her hind legs, exposing her large udder.

The men in black didn’t suggest, they told Chuck that that was inappropriate for American audiences and that he would have to re-do the scene, but this time with the cow in a dress that covered her udder. So, if you’re wondering how the government could even make these ridiculous, anti-pot propaganda movies, just think about that story, and, after you stop laughing, you’ll understand.

Probably the most well known and infamous anti-pot movie is Reefer Madness, where it only took one puff of the reefer and that was it – you were a raving, sex-crazed lunatic who could do inhuman things like play the piano so fast it sounded like there were six people playing fast. Then, of course the howling mad- sex with complete strangers that a moment ago your WASP morals wouldn’t even permit you to look at.

At the end, of course the high school principal, who narrates, looks like an escaped museum exhibit, and warns that all this could happen to YOU, as he points at the camera. If you weren’t so busy laughing, you’d weep. These films were made by the same geniuses that, during the cold war made the threat of a nuclear bomb look like nothing more than a barbeque on fire!

The plots were pretty much all the same where, with just one puff, you suddenly turn into something that would scare Dracula to death, as you get involved with every scumbag who ever lived, forcing you to do things that would make a sociopath cringe, while you lose your soul and get framed for it!

It is scary to think that these things were made for our “benefit”, being the poor dumb great unwashed that we are. Some of these anti-pot movies make Plan Nine From Outer space look like a blockbuster, so, if you are ever in the mood for a good laugh, watch one.