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Pete Gets Off the Couch and Joins a Gang

Submitted by smorgan on
The closest thing to schizophrenia ever caused by marijuana is occurring at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which can't decide whether pot leads to laziness or gang violence.

First, ONDCP announced that marijuana causes extreme lethargy, via the ironic "Pete's Couch" ad in which marijuana is called the "safest thing in the world" because it keeps you from ever leaving home.

Now, ONDCP wants everyone to know that marijuana is linked to violence and gang membership, via a self-produced study, which cherry-picks and manipulates various statistics in an effort to portray marijuana users as violent criminals.

So which is it? Are some marijuana users driven to violence while others are incapacitated by laziness? In reality, gang members and lazy people both enjoy marijuana, as do a great number of people who are neither lethargic nor dangerous. People like pot, and there are countless subgroups of users whose lifestyle can be falsely attributed to marijuana if one is willing to ignore the scientific method.

The blatant contradiction inherent in ONDCP's anti-pot messages is best illustrated in their blog, where they brag about Slate Magazine's praise for their new line of softer ads, then announce in the very next post that marijuana is linked to youth violence.

Maybe it just depends on your definition of the word "gang." What do you call a group of  teenagers who get together and commit crimes on Pete's couch?

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