It's terribly frustrating when people on your side of an argument diminish the strength of your position.

For example, there are advertisments up at the malls, from FreeVibe, that talk about how terrible drugs are... The one that pisses me off, right now, is the one that says "Marijuana. Harmless?" and lists a bunch of stuff people have tried to do while high:

- Tried to e-mail Uranus
- Made a hat out of meat

etc.

While mildly humorous, they fail to make their point. Isn't trying to e-mail Uranus pretty harmless? I suppose the hamburger beret was wasteful and stinky, but wasn't it pretty harmless?

What they ought to be doing was showing the strong correllation between chronic weed smoking in high school and harder drugs (if such correllation exists). Or showing the correllation between teen pregnancy and pot use.

But, of course, they're afraid that someone will point out that there's an even stronger correllation between teen pregnancy and alcohol consumption. And there's a higher correllation between driving injuries and alcohol. And we know prohibition didn't work.

But telling lies to kids is likely to backfire. When I was in high-school, I'd have seen the ad as "hey, if that's the bad stuff that can happen, it seems worth it if it makes you feel good."