Reply #43: History of Reefer Madness [View All]

[jmowreader]

It was originally titled "Tell Your Children." A church group funded its production. And it was so absurd NO ONE believed it. An exploitation filmmaker named Dwain Esper bought it and added even more shit to it.

It lay forgotten in the Library of Congress until Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for it. He paid $297 for a print of it. He then started a company to distribute the film to college campuses...he named the company "New Line Cinema." Reefer Madness earned so much money (because it is one of the finer pieces of unintentional humor our government has ever produced, ranking right up there with "USS VD: Ship of Shame") they were able to branch out into distributing higher-quality films like Pink Flamingos and Polyester--which of course led to them ultimately becoming one of America's top movie companies.

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I simply MUST tell this heartwarming story from my misspent youth. Government employees like to give money to charity and there are lots of charities for them to give to. To prevent ten thousand different charities from coming in and hitting our brave public servants with pitch after pitch, the feds created the Combined Federal Campaign. They give you a little book with all the charities in it. You pick out the ones you want to donate to, and you can either write a check or set up a monthly payroll deduction. At one time you could give to ANY charity; the book for next year was compiled from all the charities people had used. One of the divisions in West Germany was having a contest to see which unit was the most generous. I guess they were offering a three-day pass to the outfit with the highest percentage of donors. This led to abuses, as you'd expect. One commander actually ORDERED his troops to donate. Some of the troops got pissed at this. One guy got pissed enough that he donated $250 to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Next year...sure as shit...NORML had a CFC number, which pissed the commanders off to no end. "How are we supposed to run our antidrug programs if a group whose stated purpose is violating the drug laws is in CFC?" read one letter to Stars and Lies. (For the record, they don't advocate breaking the drug laws, they advocate legalizing weed. Big difference.) I think someone also donated money to NAMBLA, but they were astute enough to not put THAT one in the handbook.