Drug Propaganda Thursday

The latest TV ad from ONDCP almost makes one wonder what the people in the drug czar's office have been smoking. It's actually a pretty funny commercial, shot in mockumentary style. I just don't understand the point. I actually first thought it was a parody of an ONDCP ad.

The message seems to be something along the lines of, "smoking marijuana because everyone else is doing it is as dumb as sticking leeches on yourself because everyone else is doing it."

Except of course that marijuana is a dried plant that gets you high and makes you feel good. Leeches, on the other hand, are carnivorous annelids that use mucus and suction to attach to a host, at which point they secrete an anti-clotting enzyme that enables them to gorge on the host's plasma until full.  They then fall off to digest the hemoglobin-y goodness they've just snorted into their bellies.

So yeah. Totally the same.

Of course, there are some similarities. For example, while many people find leeches icky and undesirable, they're basically harmless . Kinda' like marijuana. What's more, despite their bad reputation, leeches also have some medical benefit. Again, kinda' like marijuana.

I guess the one big difference is that absurd as SLOMming would be were anyone to actually try it, it would still be perfectly legal (unless there were some evidence that it gets you high, at which point I'm sure legislators would rush to ban it). The only real harm associated with marijuana is generally what the government will do to you if they catch you using it.