cannabisnews.com: High Society High Society Posted by FoM on December 18, 2001 at 08:14:16 PT By Vanessa E. Jones, Globe Staff Source: Boston Globe Sniff. Sniff. Smell that? It's the pungent odor of marijuana wafting in the air as the music, television, and film industries inhale a lungful of pot culture: On the cover of High Times magazine, Aaron Lewis, lead singer of the rock group Staind, proudly clutches a bong and a handful of weed. Afroman had a novelty hit song this year, ''Because I Got High,'' which had nothing to do with altitude. On ABC's ''Once and Again,'' the eldest son passes a joint to his teenage stepsister, while on NBC's ''The West Wing,'' the surgeon general floats the idea of decriminalizing marijuana. Cannabis also gets a starring role in two winter films. The recently released comedy, ''The Wash,'' pairs producer, rapper, and now actor Dr. Dre with one of hip-hop's most notorious smokers, Snoop Dogg. On Friday, rappers Redman and Method Man puff their way into theaters with ''How High,'' in which the pair smoke magical pot that gives them the smarts to get into Harvard University. ''People are not proud to say they do coke, but marijuana - it's been a trend for years,'' Redman says. ''It's a movie star in its own self.'' Blame the revival on a generation of baby boomers working in film and television today who came of age during the pot smoking era of the 1960s and 1970s. Add to that teens and 20-somethings who are creating what the Department of Justice ominously calls ''the New Marijuana Epidemic'' by making ganja their drug of choice. Combine these two generations with an ongoing public push to legalize marijuana and suddenly, it seems like we've jumped into a time machine and gotten off in the 1970s, the heyday of Cheech & Chong. All of which is enough to make organizations such as the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy want to spoil pop culture's high. We are, after all, still in the midst of a war on drugs. ''We have decided as a society, or at least as a legal system, that there isn't anything called responsible drug use,'' says Donald F. Roberts, a communications professor at Stanford University who has worked on studies examining drug, alcohol, and cigarette usage in music, television, and film for the National Drug Control Policy. ''That being the case, one would hope you would portray it in ways that make people not attracted to it.'' The darker side of marijuana use is clearly delineated in the news. A conga line of celebrities has been arrested for marijuana possession this year, including Aaron Sorkin, creator of ''The West Wing,'' Snoop Dogg, and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Nate Newton, who was caught twice in the last two months. And the LA Clippers' Lamar Odom was suspended for five games for smoking it. That hasn't stopped the nation from embracing its bongs, blunts, and joints. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 10 million people use marijuana and 69 million people over the age of 12 have smoked it at least once. The drug trails only alcohol and cigarettes in popularity. So it's hardly noted that the lead singer of the rock band Nickelback wears a marijuana leaf T-shirt onstage and calls for the legalization of the drug. Or that a spate of high-quality films - ''Eyes Wide Shut,'' ''American Beauty,'' and ''Wonder Boys'' - feature characters smoking weed as casually as they'd light up a cigarette or drink a glass of wine. It's a subtle shift from the past, when, according to Steven Hager, editor in chief of High Times, pot users were depicted as destructive people with dead-end lives. ''I don't think marijuana is treated as badly,'' says Mark-Boris St. Mourice, managing editor of the year-old Heads magazine, which, in another indication of marijuana's increasingly popularity, is battling with High Times and Cannabis Culture for dominance in the pot publications genre. ''It's more levelheaded,'' continues St. Mourice, who likens the drug's more casual treatment to how homosexual lifestyles have increasingly gained acceptance in pop culture. Take Tommy Chong's recurring role as the stoner owner of a photo lab on television's ''That '70s Show.'' ''He isn't denigrated; he's just another one of the characters,'' says St. Mourice. ''The young characters are smoking pot on a regular basis on that show. That's a big deal, too. Yet they still happily go on with life and don't end up cutting their mom's head off with an ax.'' ''Once and Again,'' which focuses on the second marriage of two parents who both have children, kicked off its season with the eldest child, 18-year-old Eli, being arrested for pot possession. A recent episode started with him getting fired from his job for arriving late one too many times, possibly because of his ongoing drug use. It ended with Eli introducing his 16-year-old stepsister, Grace, to pot - at her behest. ''We're showing a fully dimensional, complex person who has a lot of great qualities who's smoking pot a lot - maybe to his detriment - and it really isn't spelled out,'' says Winnie Holzman, an executive producer for the show. The story line developed out of the experiences of Holzman and her co-executive producers, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, the pair behind the angst-ridden dramas ''thirtysomething'' and ''My So-Called Life.'' ''In our generation it was very common to smoke pot,'' says Holzman, who's in her 40s. ''It's an issue now because we're all raising teenagers.'' On the other hand, we still live in an era where television and movies, such as the teen flick, ''Dude, Where's My Car?'' and last year's ''Saving Grace,'' use goofily doped-up characters for laughs. ''One of the problems with illicit drug use is that it gets portrayed sometimes seriously and responsibly in the sense that, `Gee, this guy used marijuana and it did reduce his reaction time driving the car - and that cost the kid his life,' says Roberts, ''but the next film is a comedy. ... There's not much consistency there.'' And anyone who's raised a child, he adds, knows how important consistency is in affecting behavior. ''How High'' plays pot for laughs, using as a jumping-off point Method Man and Redman, whose first single together, also called ''How High,'' was a paean to smoking. Hip-hop artists have never hesitated to throw in references to Buddha, blunts, and joints to their lyrics. Snoop Dogg recently completed his Puff, Puff Pass tour, named after the etiquette followed by weed smokers: two puffs, then pass it on. When the script writers began building ''How High'' around Redman and Method Man, the duo had two requests. The action had to take place on a college campus and ''we wanted to be smoking a hell of a lot of weed,'' says Redman, who's also known as Funk Doctor Spot, or Doc for short. ''People in hip-hop know we smoke,'' he explains. ''How we going to do a movie and not have a tremendous amount of weed? It wouldn't have been right.'' And indeed, many scenes show the characters shrouded in billows of smoke. The filmmakers brush off any suggestions that the film, which is rated R, encourages drug use among the teens who will inevitably sneak into theaters to see their musical heroes. ''I don't think the film at all says, `Go out and do drugs and you'll do well,''' says Pamela Abdy, executive producer of ''How High.'' Adds Redman, ''I'm not promoting it to a younger crowd. But if you've got to hear it from us not to smoke weed and your parents are not telling you, there's something wrong.'' Redman and Method Man waged their own informal antidrug campaign by abstaining from smoking as they shot the film. ''You got to step it up,'' explains Method Man, ''because if everyone's on the same page and you're not, it shows. It's embarrassing, really.'' As he talks, a lighter clicks. He takes a drag that echoes over the telephone line. A cigarette, perhaps? No, he replies, weed. Note: In magazines and movies, on the radio and on TV, it seems that everybody must get stoned.This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 12/18/2001. Source: Boston Globe (MA)Author: Vanessa E. Jones, Globe Staff Published: December 18, 2001Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.Contact: letter globe.comWebsite: http://www.boston.com/globe/How Highhttp://www.howhighmovie.com/CannabisNews - Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #1 posted by Jose Melendez on December 18, 2001 at 09:55:29 PT: false on its face ''We have decided as a society, or at least as a legal system, that there isn't anything called responsible drug use,'' Yawn... This guy needs a beer and a cigarette. Anyone out there know if he's on antidepressants? Arrest Prohibition - Drug War is TREASON [ Post Comment ] Post Comment