Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
Why blame irresponsible parents when you could blame drugs?
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has a televisions ad out featuring two male teenagers –one of whom is wearing a yellow shirt- smoking pot inside of the house where the kid with the yellow shirt lives.
After some mindless mutterings about a potential divorce of the yellow shirted kid’s parents and the attractiveness of his sister, the boy with the yellow shirt pulls a handgun out of a drawer and says, “Hey man check this out.”
His friend responds, “Cool. Is it loaded?”
“No,” says the kid who is at home before pulling the trigger and a shot going off in the general direction of his friend.
“MARIJUANA CAN DISTORT YOUR SENSE OF REALITY” in white letters splashes onto a completely black background.
The basic message of this ad is that marijuana is not harmless but rather a drug that can lead to dangerous and tragic consequences. In that sense it has the same theme as many of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s other ads but it seems to me that the primary problem in this situation is the easily accessible loaded gun, not marijuana. And the blame for that belongs to the parent, or whoever else, not only kept a loaded gun around but also made it something that her or his kid could easily get at.
In theory I oppose gun control but I just might have to rethink that position if we actually live in a society where sensible people see this ad and think drugs are to blame. posted by micah holmquist at 11/03/2002 12:16:00 PM
