Marijuana is not the bad guy folks

I'm going to freebase cocaine. I'll hop into my beat up station wagon, and pick up my friends who have recently used heroin.

We'll go to the meth dealer and to Burger King. We'll drive up and down the crowded highway, taking hits from our newly lit crack pipe.

I'll soon forget where I am, who I am, and what I'm doing. I will probably die, but at least I didn't smoke weed!

As you've probably noticed, there are a decent number of commercials depicting scenarios in which marijuana is the enemy.

Most chilling of all is the commercial which opens on two young boys and a fair amount of smoke, talking about someone's sister or something like that. The scene starts over a few times, each time the smoke getting thicker.

The commercial ends when one boy pulls out a handgun. The other asks, "Is it loaded?" He answers no and blasts a hole into his friend's head that would make vice cops vomit.

Of course the last part isn't actually in the commercial but that much is gathered from a flash of light and the gun shot sound.

My first problem with this commercial is the message. As a person who has never indulged in smoke inhaling of any kind (read it again if you want), I would just assume that weed makes me want to kill my friend with a fire arm and chase his sister around making kissing noises.

Logically, I understand the idea that this child was severely mislead into thinking the gun was unloaded, and just happened to pull the trigger while aiming the gun with pin-point accuracy.

But to a younger person, for who these commercials are obviously intended, that is the first thing that would come to mind.

Honestly, it would discourage me from using marijuana. Yet lying to our children, intentionally or unintentionally, is a terrible crime to commit.

Even more horrible considering there are no commercials for my friend crystal meth or your friend cocaine.

If we are going to wage war against the use of drugs through the media, let's choose a drug that isn't quite as hilarious. Sure, damage can be done by marijuana if you decide that it holds a place on the food pyramid. And even if you trust your friends not to add a little crack to that joint, it still isn't half as scary as dancing zombies. The first person to try a weed overdose fell asleep 15 minutes into it.

What the media chooses to ignore: heroin, crack, alcohol- doesn't need a gun to kill you. If we are going to scare our kids into fetal positions we should do it with something we really don't want them to do.

I know you parents out there would much rather find a joint in your child's sock drawer than a baggy of fine white powder and a handful of drinking straws.

And it's been tried before, on the category of "drugs," but an egg doesn't make my toes clench and my brain scream "oh shit!" like the image of a gunshot wound to the skull.

What they need is a commercial that sums everything up, a commercial that covers all the drugs, makes us think, scream, close our eyes for fear of witnessing the horror of narcotics, and blasts a kickin' sound track.

What the media needs is a commercial length version of Requiem for a Dream, with nasty bruises, fellatio and all. And the techno, my god the techno. Even a commercial as effective as that couldn't do much anyway.

There is no truly effective way to stop death, accident, rape by drug use. The only thing I can say to future commercials of this type is: Don't forget the alcohol!

If you're going to scare me, scare me right. Nobody wants to get pulled around and shown what "might happen."

Show me a bloody gash from a flight down the steps or out a window. Show me a stomach being pumped.

Show me scabs and bruises. Show me a collapsed nasal passage. Show me a miscarriage. Show me deformed children. Show me withdrawal symptoms. Show me gun shot wounds.

Show me beating victims. Show me death.