The most recent example of liberals’ willingness to distort reality when it comes to drugs is a commercial depicting a slow-motion car wreck. “How a crash affects your vehicle” the voice over drones. “How a crash affects your body,” it continues as the crash dummy hits the steering wheel. “The cause?” it asks… and we see the passenger and driver (the dummies) taking a hit from a joint (still in slow-motion.) The closing statement follows: “In a roadside study, one in three reckless drivers who were tested for drugs, tested positive for marijuana. It’s more harmful than we all thought.”
Now, all you f***ing stupid people out there are going to gasp, cover your mouth in horror, and start quoting some study that says that “such and such percent of hard drug users tried marijuana first” which is, of course the same as saying that “such and such percent of school shootings are committed by boys who play violent videogames.” It’s NOT a direct correlation if that’s the only statistic you have! It’s backwards logic. Think about it. What does it prove except that boys like to play violent videogames? What you have to do is show me the statistic that says that “60% of boys who play violent videogames will commit a school murder, as compared to 9% of boys who do not play violent videogames.” THAT could possibly mean something! Consequently, it means absolutely nothing when you say that 1 in 3 reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana. That does not at ALL establish that it was the marijuana that caused their reckless driving. Hell, 1 in 3 people are reckless drivers when they’re as sober as a Baptist on Sunday morning! It also, of course, mentions NOTHING about the possible presence of alcohol in their systems. Every single one of these drivers that tested positive for having a tiny bit of marijuana in their system could have been drunk off their ass.
Now I’m not saying that marijuana doesn’t impair your motor functions to some extent when enough is taken. But if it were such a big problem, then don’t you think they’d have some better statistics (or some statistics at all)? I think people are desperate to prove that marijuana is a drug that causes people to become violent… instead of a drug that makes people sit down on a sofa and each 4 pounds of Famous Amos cookies.
Drugs in general, are not a good thing. And it is important for kids to know the RIGHT reasons for that. If I may, I’d like to quote a favorite show of mine… South Park:
(Stan is a 4th grader, and Randy is his father)
Randy: Oh… Well… Son, we’ve just been trying to make sure you know how dangerous drugs like pot are.
Stan: I’ve been told a lot of things about pot, but I’ve come to find out a lot of those things aren’t true! So I don’t know what to believe!
Randy: Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn’t gonna make you kill people, and… it most likely isn’t gonna fund terrorism, but… well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored and… It’s when you’re bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or… being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren’t good at anything.
Stan: I really, really wish you just would have told me that from the beginning.
It may not be as “startling” as false conclusions of violence caused by marijuana, but it’s the truth. The truth might not fit into a commercial as well as you’d like, but it doesn’t mean it’s okay to lie just because your goal is altruistic.