[Chaotic sounds as police enter a home.]

[Police Officer:] Everybody remain seated where you are.

[Man 1:] Are you puttin' me on, you know I can say anything I want, to put on this film.

[Police Officer:] Yeah.

[Man 1:] Then why isn't alcohol made illegal, it's a lot worse than grass...

Like [?]

[?] man, they get hangovers and cirrhosis of the liver. Besides grass isn't habit-forming like alcohol is.

[Man 2:] Besides that, cigarettes are much worse than pot.

No one ever got cancer from pot.

[Man 1:] You tell 'em, you tell 'em. Hey, quit pushing.

[Man 3:] Everybody knows that weed is okay, you can blow as much as you want.

[Woman 1:] And quit anytime you want.

[Woman 2:] There's nothing wrong with blowing grass.

You can do it a thousand times and you'll never go to hard drugs.

[Man 4:] Don't take any films of me, you're not gonna use them anyway.

[Police Officer:] Well, speak your mind then.

[Man 4:] Okay, I will!

No one has the right to tell me what I can do with my own body.

What I can eat, drink, or smoke.

This is a free country and no one has the right to take away my constitutional rights.

[Woman 3:] I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything.

[Man 5:] I think it's terrible that the American people have accepted a law 

that makes smoking a harmless weed illegal.

Marijuana is legal all over the world.

There's no question about it, marijuana should be made legal.

Now! Now!

[Crowd chanting:] Make marijuana legal! Make marijuana legal! 

Make marijuana legal! Make marijuana legal!

[Woman 4:] What's wrong with adults anyway?

What's so bad about feeling good?

[Three girls:] Make marijuana legal! Make marijuana legal!

[Sonny Bono narrating:] Good. Bad. Right. Wrong.

That's not where it's at in this film.

Right, wrong, good, bad, those are things for you to decide.

Many people have already decided for themselves, and you,

whether grass is good or bad.

What's most important is what you think.

So without any preaching from this film, let’s examine the facts and only the facts.

There are too many false impressions and prejudices to do it any other way.

[Man 1:] Okay then why isn't alcohol made illegal, it's a lot worse than grass.

[?] man, they get hangovers and cirrhosis of the liver. Besides grass isn't habit-forming like alcohol.

[Sonny Bono:] Right. The facts are...

if you drink enough, alcohol will give you hangovers, cirrhosis of the liver, 

and what's more, it can even kill you.

If you are a certain emotional and psychological type, you may become dependent,

both physically and emotionally, and will join the five to six million known alcoholics in the United States.

Now, what are the facts about marijuana?

What do doctors and psychiatrists have to say about which is worse for you 

physically and emotionally?

Alcohol or marijuana?

The facts are, at this time there are no known damaging physical effects from the use of marijuana.

But, unlike alcohol, when you take too much at one time, you don't pass out.

You more than likely run the risk of an unpredictable and unpleasant bummer.

[A guy smokes so much he starts to hallucinate.]

The occasional drink before dinner by adults, like the occasional use of marijuana,

does not necessarily lead to an emotional dependency in the stable, mature personality.

[Father at the dinner table:] Sure, go ahead.

[Son:] Great olive, man.

[Father:] You like that? I'm glad.

They're good olives.

[Son:] Well, oh that's mine.

[Sonny Bono:] However, teen age is not a time of great maturity and stability for most teenagers.

The pressures of school.

Parents.

Finding your own identity and self-confidence.

Sets you up for a drug dependency that could just as well be alcohol, if you prefer that to grass.

Some adults are not mature or strong enough to stand the pressures of their daily lives.

These adults can become just as emotionally dependent on marijuana as on alcohol.

Whichever is more socially acceptable and easier to get.

Even when the alcoholic is physically withdrawn from his body's need for alcohol, 

he always goes back to it until he learns how to handle his problems.

Just as the alcohol drinker who finds himself needing a drink more and more frequently 

is the warning sign of his dependency, so it is with the pothead.

The more he needs the escape from reality, or the pleasure of marijuana,

the more he is becoming emotionally dependent,

exactly as the square and unhip alcoholic adult does.

Do two wrongs ever make one right?

[Man 2:] Cigarettes are much worse than pot. 

Nobody has ever got cancer from pot.

[Sonny Bono:] That's right, it's a fact.

No one ever got cancer from pot.

But it's also a fact that no one ever dropped out of school because they were hung up on tobacco.

And no one who just finished smoking a cigarette ever forgot she was driving a car

as she tripped out on the beauty of a back road nature trip.

[The girl drives off a cliff, there are sounds of a crash.]

And, no cigarette pusher ever tried to turn you onto hard drugs or the needle.

Another basic difference is that you can smoke cigarettes and do other things.

You wouldn't dare to do this on pot.

Or this.

Or this.

And would you rather your pilot had just finished a joint, not a cigarette?

Or your surgeon operating on your heart?

Your attorney pleading your case?

Your sergeant?

Your dentist?

Your flight leader?

Your team center?

Your LSO?

Your school bus driver?

Your country's astronauts?

Or even the guy who is just changing your front tire.

Would you rather he was smoking a cigarette or a joint?

However, neither your government nor any responsible person recommends smoking.

So, two or three wrongs don't make one right either.

[Man 3:] Everybody knows that weed is okay, you can blow as much as you want.

[Woman 1:] And quit anytime you want.

[Sonny Bono:] Blow as much grass as you like and your body won't need it? Right.

You can quit anytime you like.

Not true for everybody.

And that’s the problem.

The World Health Organization of the United Nations with its leading medical and psychiatric experts 

from over one hundred member nations has this to say about marijuana being habit-forming without one dissenting vote. 

[A desire (or need) for repeated administration of the drug on account of its subjective effects, including the feeling of enhanced capabilities.]

[A psychic dependence on the effects of the drug related to subjective and individual appreciation of these effects.]

[Woman 2:] There's nothing wrong with blowing grass.

[Woman 3:] Yeah!

[Woman 4:] You can do it a thousand times and you'll never go to hard drugs.

[Sonny Bono:] That may be true for the great majority who smoke pot, 

but it’s not true for the many thousands who have gone on to acid, amphetamines, barbiturates, 

and end up on heroin.

However, it is not a fact that practically everyone on grass turns into a flaky drug addict.

That’s just not true.

Every informed person knows this.

What is true, may be discovered in this narcotics rehabilitation center

 in some of the group therapy sessions,

where we will learn what former drug addicts have to say 

about marijuana turning them on to hard drugs.

[Therapist:] How many of you started on pot before you started heroin?

[Former addict 1:] I did.[Former addict 2:] I did too.

[Former addict 3:] I did too.[Former addict 4:] I did too.

[Former addict 5:] So did I.[Former addict 6:] I did.

[Former addict 7:] I did.[Former addict 8:] So did I.

[Former addict 9:] Me too.[Former addict 10:] Me too.

[Former addict 11:] I did.[Former addict 12:] I did.

[Former addict 13:] So did I.[Former addict 14:] I did.

[Former addict 15:] Me too.

[Therapist:] That means all of you have used marijuana then.

[All of the women:] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Former addict 7:] I was only eleven when I first start using it.

[Former addict 3:] I was about nineteen.

[Former addict 7:] I think it’s kind of hard to do marijuana because it’s so bulky, you know.

and you have to go through the trouble of chopping it up and cleaning it.

I think it’s much easier to deal heroin, you know.

[Former addict 15:] Really, 'cause you know, all that bulk and everything. 

It’s much easier just to have a small bag or balloon that you can carry and you can cut that up and get a lot more money for it.

[Former addict 7:] You know, and all the trouble you have to go through with it, you know, 

like, uh, cutting it up.

especially if you get a kilo, you know, you have to cut it up.

Then you have to clean it you know, and then you have to roll it.

And box it, you know, and can it. You know, it’s a big hassle behind it you know.

[Former addict 15:] That’s why I think the dealers go on to dealing heroin 

and then get us to buying heroin.

[Former addict 3:] I think if you smoke marijuana or take pills or get loaded in any way at all,

that you will be accepted into the dope world and eventually you will have contact with this environment.

[Former addict 1:] I definitely think that if you get loaded on marijuana, 

you are subjected to the environment and it does become readily available to you.

[Former addict 9:] That’s the way it is man, you know, when you're around a crowd

and you're all smoking weed and then they stick in some other drug and you go right ahead along with them,

and uh you end up using it and get higher,

and then the weed isn't good enough anymore,

and then you turn on to heroin, too.

[Counselor:] Most of you started smoking marijuana when you were introduced to narcotics?

[Former abuser 1:] I did, I started with smoking weed.

[Former abuser 2:] Not me.

[Former abuser 1:] For me it was, but I wanted a different high, you know?

And weed wasn't uh, it wasn't good enough and I heard that heroin and stimulant, crystals, 

were a better high.

And that’s why I went to 'em, you know?

[Former abuser 3:] Yeah, I'm the same way man.

I guess uhh, a lot of people started that way.

Speaking for myself, I did.

[Former abuser 4:] Well, I started on weed and uh, got burnt out.

Then I needed something strong so I went to heroin.

[Former abuser 5:] Well I started smoking weed because I was running away

from something, something which was myself.

And out of all the, I've run through a lot of highs trying to run away from myself.

Heroin, LSD, methedrine.

I, I like marijuana I just couldn't handle it myself. Uh, I was looking for something else.

[Former abuser 6:] I myself think really the real reason I started smoking marijuana

is because usually, I was one of the younger dudes from my neighborhood.

I wanted to be accepted.

I was weak, scared. And uh, from this it led to heroin.

And then just fitting in, then going to jail back and forth and uh, I don't like it 

and I hope nobody else will use this.

Not because of the fact that it’s bad itself, but what it leads to, man.

That’s the way I feel.

[Former abuser 2:] Well I can only speak for myself, but I imagine some of the other dudes in here 

feel the same way I do about it,

that some people are addictive-prone to it.

I mean uh, like myself, I can't handle it because I mean, this is just the way I am.

I use it for an escape.

I did it before I, I, I came in here. I hope when I go out that I've changed, and which I feel that I have.

But, but I'm a small minority of the people that we can't handle anything, you know?

Like my alcohol, I can't handle that.

I couldn't handle heroin.

I mean uh, weed because I needed something stronger.

To escape or anything else like that.

And there is more people like me that I feel, you know?

And uh, I imagine that certainly some of the other dudes in here could uh, could go along...

[Former abuser 7:] You couldn't handle liquor either?

[Former abuser 2:] No.

[Former abuser :] Yeah it's a personality thing where sure, there's a lot of people who can go out there...

[Sonny Bono:] These are the files of the research and statistics office 

of this narcotics rehabilitation center.

It's like out of one hundred drawers, 95 of them are filled with file folders of people

who started on marijuana.

The rest started on glue, pills, alcohol, and a few on heroin itself.

A more accurate percentage is 78 percent of the inmates started on marijuana.

However, what the computer doesn't say is...

[Woman:] This is the kind of people who avoid taking care of business

and will turn to grass when they get hung up and forget about everything else

they're supposed to do when they're behind grass.

[Former abuser 6:] Marijuana doesn't uh, it's not addictive but by using it uh, you uh, don't do uh, 

the things that you should do.

For instance like in school uh, you try to do the things that you have to do in school 

but your mind is uh not all there.

You understand?

[Man 4:] Nobody can tell me what to do with my own body.

What I can eat, drink, or smoke.

This is a free country and nobody has the right to take away my constitutional rights.

[Sonny Bono:] That could be a fact if you were the only one affected by what you do.

But, the Constitution and the laws that came out of it were designed to protect the individual,

and the group from irresponsible individuals.

Which is why there are speeding laws.

Building safety laws.

Pure food laws.

Pure drug laws.

Laws to protect your money.

Laws to protect children.

Laws to protect the aging.

And even a law to protect you from taking your own life.

[Man prepares to jump off a fire escape.]

[Two officers close in on the man to prevent him from killing himself.]

Law after law after law.

All of them hopefully designed by a democratic government

to protect both the individual and the group.

From aspirin to the latest vaccines,

the manufacture and control of all drugs is government-supervised.

Would you really want it any other way?

Like without government supervision?

As a drug, marijuana comes under the supervision of the federal and state governments.

It is the assigned work of the police to enforce the law.

It is not something they dreamed up on their own.

From the Ten Commandments to the Constitution, man has made laws 

to protect him from hurting himself,

in the common interest of the group called society.

Doctors, 

psychiatrists, 

social scientists, 

chemists, 

biochemists...

basically, people who are primarily concerned with the ethics or the morality of the use of marijuana

have provided their expert knowledge to our legislators.

Which in turn has caused them to pass laws to make marijuana illegal.

Not as a matter of morality, but as a matter of health.

Mental health. Period.

[Man 5:] I think it’s terrible that the American people have accepted a law 

that makes smoking a harmless weed illegal.

Marijuana is legal all over the world.

There's no question about it.

Marijuana should be made legal.

Now! Now!

[Young people chanting:] Make marijuana legal! Make marijuana legal!

[Sonny Bono:] There's no question about it.

Many young people agree with that.

Let’s examine the facts.

First, marijuana is not legal all over the world.

It isn't legal in Mexico,

Egypt,

India,

Great Britain,

China,

Japan,

or any of the major nations in the civilized world.

Nigeria is one of the latest countries to make marijuana illegal.

Here, the pusher is given the death penalty.

[Sound of gunshot.]

Though each year more and more teenagers commit crimes 

while up on grass, this is not the major problem.

However, grass as a factor in crime must not be overlooked.

Especially in that percentage of unstable and aggressive types, and those who wind up

in trouble with the law because of something done while they are high on pot.

[Music]

[Teenagers prepare to break into an establishment, then the sound of glass breaking.]

[Music]

[Police arrive and grab the teens as they leave the store.]

Too many average and decent teenagers smoke pot without committing crimes, 

except for the illegality of the sale, possession, or the use of it.

So, why not make it legal?

Why not bring it out in the open and make it legal in America?

It's just that there are too many unstable people in America

who would become emotionally dependent on marijuana

and end up as non-functioning weedheads.

Easy availability and the implied approval of society will, in the opinion of many medical authorities,

create a drug dependency problem far more serious than that of the 

five to six million alcoholics today.

If the acknowledged effect of marijuana is much greater than alcohol, it becomes easy to see why 

the emotionally unstable and immature may turn to marijuana in even greater numbers 

than to alcohol,

and eventually go to more dangerous drugs

in the form of LSD, pills, and heroin.

[Person 1:] Who me? [Person 2:] Who me?

[Person 3:] Who me? [Person 4:] Who me?

[Sonny Bono:] It's possible, and that’s the problem.

You can never tell who is so stable and so emotionally secure that they will not become 

become dependent on marijuana or other drugsfor pleasure and fulltime escape.

[Woman 4:] What’s so bad about feeling good?

[Sonny Bono:] Nothing baby. Nothing.

[Music, then sounds of fast-moving cars and a horn honking.]

[Two teens speed along the highway.]

[They crash into a wall.]

Years ago, only the criminals and socially deprived blew grass or used heroin.

Today, the nicest people may be on grass.

Why is that a fact?

[Girl 1:] I took it on a dare.

[Sonny Bono:] But only kids take dares.

[Group of kids:] Come on, I dare ya.

Come on. Jump! Jump!

I dare you to jump. Jump!

Jump.

I dare you to jump.

[Teenage boy:] Man, everybody blows pot.

[Sonny Bono:] But everybody doesn't blow pot.

[Girl 1:] I don't want it man. I don't want it.

[Boy 1:] Take it. Take a hit.

[Boy 2:] No, I don't want it.

I don't want it.

No.

[Boy 1:] Take a drag, come on it won't hurt you.Come on.

[Sonny Bono:] The first sign of character and emotional weakness is when you do things

just because others are doing them.

[Pot-smoking artist:] When I'm high it enhances my creativity.

[Sonny Bono:] This is the same subject matter and painter for both paintings.

One was painted before going up on weed and the other while high on weed.

Can you see any significant creative difference?

[Pot-smoking artist:] When I'm high, it enhances my creativity.

[Sonny Bono:] The artist thinks he's being more creative, but do you see it in his work?

To some extent, the very inhibited person may feel a greater freedom to be creative, 

but this doesn't mean that he will have the necessary talent to be so.

[Teen smoker:] It really makes me understand myself.

[Sonny Bono:] If you don't understand yourself when you're down, 

then there's no logical or scientifically accepted reason that you will when you're high.

Besides, while you're up on grass, you may tell yourself only what you want to know.

If you are lucky enough not to be on a bad trip and discover a frightening thing about yourself 

at that time.

[Music]

[Gunshot]

Let’s face it, the reasons we've heard for blowing grass up to now are like an iceberg.

What about the underlying reasons that are like the 90 percent of the iceberg you never see?

The reasons below the surface that makes teenagers get so hung up on marijuana,

 in spite of what their parents say and in spite of the big risk of being busted.

[Teenage boy:] The world stinks. Adults keep making wars.

Next war will probably kill everybody on earth, including me.

[Teenage girl:] Parents are hypocrites.

They tell us one thing but then they do another.

Why don't they practice what they preach?

[Teenage boy 2:] Why are adults so hung up with making money?

That’s all they think about.

[Teenage girl 2:] School is a real bummer.

Dull teachers, dull subjects, I just can't wait to get out.

[Teenage boy 3:] Why can't we dress the way we want in school?

[Teenage boy 4:] Sure, we're old enough to be drafted, but we're not old enough to vote.

[Teenage boy 5:] Why are they always treating us like children?

[Teenage boy 6:] Adults never have time to listen to us and when they do,

they just don't dig what we're saying.

[Teenage boy 7:] If adults like to make war so much, why don't they go and fight in them?

[Teenage girl 3:] I'm better educated than either of my parents.

But they don't listen to me.

[Teenage boy 8:] How can I plan for the future with the draft waiting for me?

[Teenage boy 9:] Why don't you come back some other time,

when everything is all right with us?

And in the meantime, I'll do what I want to do here 

and you do what you want to do where you live. 

Dig?

[Teenage boy 10:] Why shouldn't I smoke grass?

Why shouldn't I live now and have all the fun I can?

If I don't get killed in the war or by the big bomb, all I can look forward to

is making money like my father.

And I know he isn't happy.

[Teenage boy 11:] You know sometimes I think it’s like a war.

Everyone over 30 is the enemy.

[Teenage girl 4:] Over 30? Over 25!

[Sonny Bono:] Obviously, these are things that bug a lot of the young people but this time,

rather than hear from the establishment who run newspapers, radio, television, book, 

and magazine publishing companies, political parties, and schools,

let’s hear from those other teenagers who aren't smoking pot.

[Sober teen 1:] Not all teenagers are on grass.

I'm not and my close friends aren't.

[Sober teen 2:] Every time someone wants to turn me onto pot they tell me I'll discover myself.

Well, I don't need that kind of crutch.

Besides, I've never seen any potheads come up with any kinds of answers 

that help them cope with the kinds of problems they have.

Or I have.

[Sober teen 3:] I think the teenagers of today are very idealistic.

But we don't have definite ways of showing it.

We're not old enough to vote and older people are always telling us what to do.

You can't blame us too much for fighting back.

But I don't think taking drugs is fighting back.

The most you can say for it is it’s a sign of rebellion.

But what we rebel about isn't changed one bit by getting high on marijuana

because when you come back down, nothing's changed.

[Sober teen 4:] I think that parents have done the best they can.

You can't expect them to know all the answers.

Lots of us have had a better education than they have, but that doesn't prevent us 

from profiting from their experience.

[Sober teen 5:] I think you have to be real immature to get hung up on pot.

Mature people try to find solutions for their problems 

instead of trying to find new experiences.

[Sober teen 6:] I say that teen age is the time to put up or shut up.

Not to gripe and go on a trip inside yourself.

But to have guts like our parents have to have.

To go out every day and deal with the things in the outside world that bug them, too.

[Sober teen 7:] I know my parents are too hung up on making money, and putting on a show for the neighbors,

but that doesn't mean I have to put down money completely.

Because now maybe I don't need much.

But when I get married, I'm gonna have to have money for my family too.

I just don't have to be as materialistic about it.

That’s all.

[Sober teen 8:] The world is changing and some things are still too hard 

for our parents to understand.

But blowing grass?

That's really a cop-out.

And it won't help our parents understand a darned thing.

[Sober teen 9:] School is like everything else.

You only get out of it what you put into it.

It’s not a party.

The way I look at it, I'm here to learn.

Even if some of the subjects or the teachers aren't the greatest I've got to make the best of it.

I'm here for an education and everything extra is just gravy.

[Sober teen 10:] There really is a communication gap.

But I think that if I have a better education and a better life than my parents,

I should make the first move to make that gap become smaller and smaller.

[Sober teen 11:] From what I've read and from what I've heard, there are millions of adults

over 30 who don't like the establishment or going to war more than we do.

I honestly believe that adults are disappointed in us, because it's always been expected 

of young people to try to change things, to make things better, 

or at least prepare to change things if we don't like them.

Not to cop out on life through grass or other drugs.

[Sober teen 12:] No, not for me.

I'm more interested in dropping into the world I live in than turning on, tuning in, and dropping out.

[Sober teen 13:] I don't like to criticize anybody.

But I think that too many teenagers don't have too much purpose.

It's like they don't have any goals.

I don't mean that they should just be planning to make money and all that, but I think that

trying to find something you'll enjoy doing for the rest of your life is the least you can do now.

Because everybody has to work,

even girls before they get married,

and even after they do.

[Sober teen 13:] I think too many teenagers traded in their idealism for a stick of weed.

When I see some teenagers acting superior to those of us who don't need drugs to feel good

or understand ourselves, I get real bugged.

[Sonny Bono:] Well now, you've heard from both sides of the question.

But, what you do with your life is up to you.

If you become a pothead, you risk blowing the most important time of your life.

Your teen age.

That unrepeatable time for you to grow up and to prepare for being an adult

that can handle problems and make something meaningful out of life.

Or, you have the choice to have the courage to see and deal with the world for what it really is.

Far, far from perfect, but for you and for me, the only one there is.

While it’s true that some of you will actually go to the moon and perhaps other planets, 

it’s also true that in a few short years this world will be your establishment and you will be the establishment.

And what you do or don't do about it will be your scene.

You're the generation with the brain power and the opportunity to do more for the human needs 

of this world than any other generation in history.

Let’s hope that your teenage children don't have too much criticism about what you did or didn't do 

because you were on pot.

[Produced, Written, and Directed by Max Miller]

[Associate Producer John D. Schofield]

[Editor Paul Jasiukonis]

[Consultants Edw. R. Bloomquist, M.D., John Warner]

[Music Composed by Gene Clark, Played by "Things To Come"]

[Portions of this film included dramatic re-creations based on factual material]

[An Avanti Films Production, Los Angeles, California]

[Distributed by Bailey Films Hollywood, California 

Justin Purchin, Director of Product Development and Production]