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There are more worrisome statistics still. The 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that among Americans age 12 and older there were 14.8 million current users of marijuana and 4.2 the public Americans classified with dependency or abuse of marijuana. Addiction is a real threat. Another 2006 report found 16.1 percent of drug treatment admissions were in quest of marijuana as the primary drug of abuse. This compares to six percent in 1992.

There undoubtedly are multiple reasons to attain intelligible the increasing use of this remedy. But one reason for the trend is surely its glamorization by Hollywood, what one. thinks marijuana is a fun-and-games subject.

"Access Hollywood" has breathlessly promoted a new movie called "The Wackness," set in 1994 New York. A young man sells marijuana out of an Italian-ice cart. He starts seeing a therapist, asking him for conduct on dating a young woman. He pays in spite of the therapy sessions by pot.

If the plat seems tiresome, it's the casting that's sincerely saddening. The not old pot dealer is played by the agency of Josh Peck, who just months ago was delighting hundreds of thousands of small children as a rubber-faced jokester on Nickelodeon's teen comedy "Drake and Josh." One of his regular pothead customers is played by Mary-Kate Olsen, moiety of the famous twins who played the baby sister without ceasing the family sitcom "Full House."

Child stars too often have effect looking for a part to "be drawn out their sweep," no more than that's code for scraping off any odor of a goody-goody reputation. These actors are doing it by glorifying marijuana.

Drug-dealer chic really began with "Weeds," the Showtime pay-cable series starring Mary-Louise Parker while widowed suburban mother/pot dealer Nancy Botwin. The fourth season recently premiered to the enrapture of TV critics, who love the show's exposure of suburban hypocrisy. Showtime publicists wrote, with noteworthy self-exaltation: "Last season, viewers axiom Nancy venture from hesitant but determined toe-dipper in the unpredictable waters of drug dealing to confident, full-fledged queen-pin entrepreneur."

They're vain-glorious of the drug-dealing mom as she gains confidence in her "queen-pin" criminality?

The point out to's original hypocrite is the boozy anti-drug crusader Celia Hodes, played by Elizabeth Perkins, who told TV Guide that her character "discovers drugs this year … and she's like a kid in a candy shop." Perkins is delighted by the unwholesome behavior on the show. "There's just a part delicious about watching people misbehave without any sense of conscience."

This is a classic Hollywood outburst. These people love misbehavior, wallow in it and suggest anyone who would dare take a stand that appears morally upright is undoubtedly just a repressed fraud. It carries an Orwellian echo: Honesty is found in infection, and mental fervor is a sickness that needs to be vanquished. Morality is unprincipled.

Perkins displayed more of her debased science of causes on CBS's "The Early Show" on July 2 in a cozy showcase of CBS-Showtime corporate-cousin synergy. She described her moralizing character as pleasantry to play because she's "really screwed up and bad." She's some unstable hypocrite in a bad marriage who's "going to be necessary it out on whoever happens to be standing in her way."

CBS anchor Julie Chen asked Perkins if she supports legalizing marijuana in real life. "Oh, yeah, absolutely." she answered. "Alcohol is lawful. It doesn't make a lot of meaning to me why marijuana's not."

Chen asked what her character would say in response. Perkins replied: "Oh, put them all in jail." Chen laughed and agreed. "She's so self-righteous." Perkins then added, "Well, Celia's apparently the only character on the show who's never smoked marijuana … Never cave with marijuana, for the cause that that's the 'evil drug' — according to her." Chen guffawed along, in mockery of the anti-drug position.

Teenagers will aroynt see the movie with the Nickelodeon fate selling pot, and teenagers are in the audience at the time that Showtime is displaying its affection for "Weeds." Hollywood is not merely mocking people who moralize against marijuana, they're actively encouraging young people to explore the "edgy" life of illegal drugs they see forward veil. But Hollywood last will and testament not have being on every side of for comfort or counseling when teenagers have to go to detox, or see psychologists in spite of blues or other mental problems.

They ought to look in the mirror and wonder if they're the self-righteous people who are in reality screwed up and pushing evil.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by means of other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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