Controversy erupts over bus billboards promoting marijuana as safer than alcohol

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

7greeneyes

MedicalNLovingIt!
Joined
Jul 25, 2008
Messages
8,071
Reaction score
789
url: hMPp://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pro-marijuana-bus-ads-stir-controversy-portland-maine-article-1.1474724



Controversy erupts over bus billboards promoting marijuana as safer than alcohol



The fight to legalize marijuana is now being waged on the buses of Portland, Maine.

An advertising blitz promoting pot as “less harmful” than alcohol went up on buses and bus shelters in Maine’s largest city Wednesday, angering anti-drug crusaders.

"It's highly inappropriate to be promoting Pro Marijuana message in a place that has a large audience of people under the age of 21", Kate Perkins, a spokesperson for 21 Reasons, a drug prevention group, told WCSH News.

Voters will decide the fate of Question 1, an initiative that would legalize recreational pot use for adults in Portland, on Nov. 5, and the Marijuana Policy Project purchased $2,500 worth of ads to try and help pass the measure.

“It has a very, very good chance,” Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told the Daily News.

The ads feature rather clean-cut looking individuals along with captions touting phrases used in other campaigns run by the group.

“I prefer marijuana over alcohol because it doesn’t make me rowdy or reckless,” one of the captions reads. “Why should I be punished?”
Despite complaints to METRO, Portland’s public bus service, the ads will remain up until Election Day. The agency said the ads amounted to political advertising, and therefore were in line with its guidelines.

“If we’re going to allow one type of political advertising, we have to allow it all,” METRO General Manager Gregory Jordan told the Portland Press Herald.

21 Reasons fears that the ads will further legitimize pot use among teens.

“If we do not ban such promotions, we will see a significant increase in marijuana marketing and promotion,” the group said in a press release.
The Marijuana Policy Project counters that their message is undeniably true and is not a call for anyone to smoke pot.

“These ads encourage people to support marijuana policy reform, not to use marijuana,” David Boyer, the Maine political director for the Maine Marijuana Policy project, told the Press Herald. “These ads simply highlight the fact that marijuana is objectively safer than alcohol, and that is a fact everyone should know.”
 
gateway for the weak. I started on weed and have done a few other drugs, chemicals pretty dam hard. but I woke up and haven't touched any booze or hard drugs in 20 yrs. so like sex, smoking, coke, gambling, driving fast, doing stuff we shouldn't do, there will always be people doing it.
if we legalized herion, coke, crack tomorrow, would we all run out and start doing it??? no firkin way, so why would people assume, we would with weed.
 
There is no gateway to anything. You may as well say everything is a gateway to something. McDonalds is a gateway to Red Lobster...yummy...any way, we experiment, that's what we do as human beings. Everyone's curious about something, be it drugs or sex or whatever. What you start with really just depends on you. :)
 
I used to be of the anti gateway mind set but I changed my opinions once I looked back on how I was introduced to other drugs. Notice I said that it CAN be a gateway....and the only reason it can is because of the legal status and it gets lumped in with other bullshit like coke, H, and pills.

It's only because it's found in those same circles that it causes people to climb up the ladder of drugs. It's kind of like popping your drug cherry...once you try weed your more likely to try harder drugs...even though some never do.
 
The dead lobster ....errr red lobster :rofl:


great thread....weed IS safer than alkie. Thanks eyes
 
The only reason weed is a gateway drug is because its the most plentiful/available.
If coke was all over the place and weed hard to find coke would be the gateway drug to weed.

People with agenda's will say anything to sensationalize there view with little regard to any true facts.
 
If anything is a gateway drug it's aspirin(Tylenol for the young generation). Mom gave it to you when your were young and it made you feel better, and you been hunting for something to make you feel better since. That's all any drug/medicine is something that makes you think you feel better
 
Portland is a very liberal city, I lived there for 7 years. This article does not support the majorities opinion of legitimizing or even legalizing weed. Most people in Maine use, it is very much a part of the culture here and not really viewed as a "drug" by most people. Many of the people I know who do not smoke say they would if legalized. It is simply a matter of breaking the law, not a moral or ethical choice. They way I see it if people graduate to harder drugs after using pot they are likley risk takers by nature and also likely would have tried harder drugs anyhow, regardless of what they started on. Being in kitchen for 20 years I can tell you all kinds of drugs are readily available almost anytime. Did weed lead me to use other drugs in my younger days? Nope. The culture and lifestyle of the industry did. Peer-pressure from my co-workers did. Bad decisions on my part did. Blaming weed for being a meth head or coke addict is just silly.
 
Ill agree with Barry Cooper in that if you have enough disrespect for your health,your mind or your family you will do any number of unhealthy things such as overeat,use alcohol,smoke crack or even abuse cannabis.But studies show that if you do abuse cannabis you are less likely to experience the health risks associated with other drugs.Its like its that refer madness propaganda still has thousands of people afraid that if you light up a joint you are gonna turn into a psycho killer or something.
 
"They way I see it if people graduate to harder drugs after using pot they are likley risk takers by nature and also likely would have tried harder drugs anyhow, regardless of what they started on. Being in kitchen for 20 years I can tell you all kinds of drugs are readily available almost anytime. Did weed lead me to use other drugs in my younger days? Nope. The culture and lifestyle of the industry did. Peer-pressure from my co-workers did. Bad decisions on my part did. Blaming weed for being a meth head or coke addict is just silly." Beerbong

Exactly right!! They(MJ opponents) talk about that ad leading teenagers to smoke MJ then they need to remove ads for: sodas as they are bad for you; food as too many over-eat; merchandise like clothes as young girls will over-spend; pictures of skinny models as that leads young girls to too many problems to list; and the same ads lead teens to sex :rolleyes:

If I had to choose what vice my teenaged son takes up, I would choose MJ over tobacco, alcohol, food, sex, and sometimes even video games :chuck:
 
haha hush, thats great i feel the same way, id prefer to smoke with my kids when they are of age and start to find out about it from others, my parents were always cool with it, they didnt smoke but they said if i did it was my choice and they just asked that i do it at home or a select few friends houses they know is safe, they also knew that i wasnt a stupid kid and knew when things start to go south to get out, iv always been a chill stoner, just sit around listening to music smoking, maybe play some video games while i veg out lol... i too would prefer my kids to turn to mj over other drugs or even booze and tobacco, there are so many people who raise a stink over MJ, ooh its bad for you, its a really bad drug, its addicting blah blah blah, in reality tobacco and alcohol and even soda is far more physicaly addictive then MJ, its more a mental thing, you may crave the effects but your body doesnt NEED it in the way a coke head or meth heads body physicaly NEEDS that chemical. i wish people would get off this high horse and just get over it already and leave us mj users alone. and everything here goes back years and years to 2 things, government tests of MJ effects and the timber industry, all because they KNEW the value of MJ/hemp and were afraid they would lose money.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top