Recreational Use Of Marijuana:Propaganda Then And Now

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The Recreational Use of Marijuana: Propaganda of Then and Now


Marijuana is the most commonly used and abused drug in the United States. As

marijuana use continues to popularize in the United States, concerns continue to rise. Many

attempts are being put into action in order to not only defame its usage, but to end its “abuse” all

together, by using scientific data and “statistics” to propagandize the “harmful” effects of its use.

What is more important, though, is what is being applied in such propaganda and how this

information began to spread, and, in comparison, how today’s (propaganda) reflects the past. In

this essay, I will be speaking of two pieces, one being an “informational” film(“Reefer

Madness”), as the other is today’s standards and messages from the National Institute on Drug

Abuse (NIDA). These two sources represent marijuana in a negative light, in that marijuana is

harmful to oneself and to society, in great deal. Are these reasonable accusations on such a drug,

or only myths, in order to gain better control on drug use? First, we must understand the “past”

and previous takes on the use of marijuana.

In the film “Reefer Madness,” marijuana is displayed in a negative light in 1937. The

film displayed a boy who gets caught up into the act of smoking marijuana, and eventually leads

to the plunder of many people involved in the drug. The movie displayed, to some extent,

surrealism, or an unlikely story board, spewing out information of horrid and fright. The

imposition of the film was to show to the many “ good Americans” that marijuana use can lead

to reckless behavior, aggressive driving, grave addiction potential, and/or fatalities. The

problem was that the film implicated great imagination, not truly showing the “realistic” view

on such a subject. Thus doing so, many of the people, especia...