Major Analysis Paper Final Draft

A legitimate business with all the proper state permits was raided in broad daylight by DEA agents. Pamphlets at student health centers say marijuana can cause schizophrenia, but the common image of a marijuana user is a docile, giggly person—not an insane one. Marijuana use, and its possible medical applications, has been a constant debate in the political world for years. As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws the federal government also increases their efforts to shut the dispensaries down and spread information discouraging people to vote for future bills. The problem, however, is that the messages being sent to the general public about marijuana are extremely conflicting. The pro and anti-marijuana sides of the debate both exaggerate facts, over generalize, and use questionable tactics to draw supporters. The question that becomes important then, is: who do you believe? It’s important for people who are voting on bills to have accurate information about what they are voting for, and with marijuana, that is not usually the case.

Disinformation has been spread around about marijuana ever since the drive to get it banned in the 1930’s. “Reefer Madness,” the famous 30’s exploitation film scared parents into thinking their children would enter a “drug-crazed abandon” if they ever got high. On the other hand, the list of ailments you can get a marijuana prescription for in California far outnumbers almost any other drug, making it out to be some miracle plant. Clearly the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

The way marijuana is portrayed in the media is one of the primary reasons for this confusion. TV ads and other media from organizations like “Above the Influence,” and the National Institute on Drug Abuse attempt to characterize weed-smokers as boring, anti-social, and prone to being nothing but couch potatoes, but popular movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” and “Super High Me” show their main characters getting high and doing the exact opposite: being social and having interesting conversations. It’s also rare that characters in movies or television will encounter negative consequences relating to marijuana, whereas when harder drugs are involved that’s almost always the case.

“Stoners in the Mist” is a series of short Internet videos created by Above The Influence, aimed at capturing YouTube era adolescents and other people who might not be influenced easily by TV commercials. Its goal is obvious: convincing people that marijuana shouldn’t be used. Its claim is that “stoners” are lazy, forgetful, and anti-social. The warrants for the claim they present are many, but are mostly fairly shallow. The video pieces that provide the support are shorts shot in the style of a nature documentary, featuring a host that’s reminiscent of the Crocodile Hunter. They claim that marijuana makes you “sedentary, uninspired, remarkably unmotivated,” and show through their clips marijuana users having difficulty with simple social interactions, being oblivious to their psychical appearance, and spending days sitting in the same place watching television.

Their support and warrants, however, come across as extremely inaccurate. The majority of the way they warrant their claims is through visual evidence, which in this case is obviously staged. These aren’t real “stoners,” but actors paid to pretend to conform to the lazy stoner stereotype. The website also makes the claim that stoners have “extreme difficulty fitting in to social groups,” but again only provides an over-the-top sketch to support that claim, where a “normal person” tries to make conversation with a stoner, who is too out of it to even remember his name. The only real warrants offered on the website is a small section called “marijuana: the facts” which attempts to support the video evidence with sources. The majority of the sources, however, are pamphlets from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an organization with an anti-marijuana bias. They hardly cite any objective content. If someone went to the “Stoners in the Mist” website to attempt to find valuable information about marijuana, they could be easily confused.

Arguments for marijuana and medical marijuana in the popular media are similarly exaggerated. Movies that portray marijuana users rarely do it in a negative light, and there are documentaries like Doug Benson’s “Super High Me” that attempt to claim that nothing is wrong with marijuana at all, and it’s completely fine to smoke it all of the time. He spent 30 days not getting high, and then 30 days getting high all the time as his support, and his warrants consisted of various tests and doctor evaluations during that time. During his 30 days not smoking, he scored a 980 on the S.A.T, and during his smoking month, he scored 1030. In addition, he had a higher sperm count during the marijuana month, and at the end his physician concluded that constant marijuana smoking for a month didn’t have any adverse effects on his health. While some of these claims have validity (mostly the doctor’s opinion), it still falls short as a great argument that marijuana isn’t harmful. However, it does give off a very strong impression of validity, and given most people’s ability to take anything they see in a “documentary” as truth, this could turn into a very misleading piece of information. A truly good argument would have had to involve different types of marijuana users (not just none and all the time) and also different situations (people with actual jobs and responsibilities, not just working on a movie about smoking marijuana).

With propaganda in the multimedia world coming from both sides unable to be trusted entirely, let’s now look at print, hopefully a place where better arguments will reside.
The Independent, a national daily in Britain, launched a campaign in 1997 to decriminalize marijuana. A couple years ago they took that campaign back with an “apology,” where they reveal the research findings that changed their mind on the issue. Their claim is that marijuana has changed over the years—that new strains of the drug are being created that are more powerful than ever, and, they argue, more dangerous.

They support this with hard facts and quotes from doctors: “The number of young people in treatment [for cannabis] almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006.” “Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at London's Institute of Psychiatry, estimates that at least 25,000 of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK could have avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis.” They also talk about some research that will be published later and show that “cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.”

While this is clearly a stronger argument against marijuana use and legalization than “Stoners in the Mist,” it lacks a good amount of context, and leaves a ton of unanswered questions. Were the people in treatment for cannabis using other drugs as well, or just marijuana? What about the schizophrenics—was marijuana the sole cause for their disease, or did it merely exaggerate an existing condition? Their warrants for their claim are strong, but in the end the piece comes off as sounding sensationalistic and fear-mongering, lacking any real world context for all of their statistics and “expert opinions.”

The New York Times, on the other hand, argues for marijuana’s benefits in an editorial claiming that medical marijuana laws are just. They argue at the start through an appeal to pathos, presenting the character of Ed Rosenthal—a man who is being prosecuted for growing marijuana for use by the seriously ill. They cite that “Doctors have long recognized marijuana's value in reducing pain and aiding in the treatment of cancer and AIDS, among other diseases,” and that “the reasons the government gives for objecting to it do not outweigh the good it does.”
Unlike The Independent’s article, they support their claim about medical marijuana well with real life-examples, but this one falls short when it comes to statistics and expert opinions: there aren’t any. “Doctors,” is an extremely vague term, and “the good it does” is very vague. The article makes some good appeals, but others just don’t make the cut.

Looking at all this information, it is clear that someone trying to make an informed decision on a medical marijuana or marijuana legalization bill would be very confused. How can a drug that causes schizophrenia according to one article do so much good in another? If a medicine has the side effect of making its taker go insane, would it really be allowed to function as a medicine? If marijuana does cause users to do nothing all day every day like “Stoners in the Mist” attempts to convince its audience of, why are there people who smoke weed and do creative things like make movies and write songs about it, and why is it such a popular drug? Clearly there has to be more to it than the anti-marijuana propaganda will make you believe, and clearly it’s not the miracle drug like some medical-marijuana advocates and doctors would have you believe—with the ability to solve a laundry list of psychical and mental problems.

The only thing that will further the discussion on cannabis to the point where real conclusions can be drawn is more unbiased research. Unfortunately, that won’t be able to happen until the federal government changes its mind on the drug. As of right now, the only way to get legal marijuana to research is from them, and the process is long, complicated, and yields a very week, single strain of the drug—nothing like what is available on the street or in cannabis clubs in medical marijuana states. To create a better research environment politicians need to work to get the federal standpoint changed, and for that to happen the general public needs to receive accurate information so they can lobby their politicians effectively.


Works Cited
The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Dir. Judd Apatow. Perf. Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Catherine Keener. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2005.
Advertisement. Above the Influence. 29 Jan. 2009 .
The New York Times editorial board. "Misguided Marijuana War." The New York Times 4 Feb. 2003. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Owen, Jonathan. "Cannabis: An apology." The Independent 18 Mar. 2007. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Reefer Madness. Dir. Louis Gasnier. Prod. Dwain Esper. Perf. Thelma White and Carleton Young. DVD. Motion Picture Ventures, 1936.
"Stoners in the Mist." Above the Influence. National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Super High Me. Dir. Michael Blieden. Prod. Alex Campbell. Perf. Doug Benson. DVD. Bside entertainment, 2008.