The 23 Ways Colorado Says Marijuana Will Ruin Your Kid's Life

Yesterday, in this space, we noted that a new series of public service announcements from the Colorado Department of Transportation, released under the umbrella term "Hank's How to Get Hit by a Car," had stolen the thunder from the State of Colorado's latest anti-marijuana campaign aimed at those under 21.

Here's why.

Whereas the CDOT spots are bizarre and amusing, the approach taken by Project What's Next is utterly predictable — a low-key version of War on Drugs era characterizations of cannabis as something that will utterly destroy lives. And such overstatements tend to ring false when a teen smoking his first joint doesn't wind up dead in a gutter ten minutes later.

The home page of the web site features the phrase "Don't Let Marijuana Get in the Way of," with flashing animation filling in different ways to finish that thought.

A lot of different ways — 21 by our count (although, to be frank, we might have missed one). Moreover, the terms are incredibly broad and sweeping. They seem like the fruit of an ad agency brainstorming session in which participants threw out ideas — but instead of focusing in on the strongest three or four, the boss decided to use all of them.

In addition, there are six videos, with four of them focusing on terms below. But the two others highlight different ways to complete the sentence — "Guidance" and "Big Moments," specifically.

That makes for 23 ways total that marijuana will destroy a child.

Your tax dollars at work. Count down the first 21 terms below, followed by the aforementioned PSAs.
Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9

Number 10

Number 11

Number 12

Number 13

Number 14

Number 15

Number 16

Number 17

Number 18

Number 19

Number 20

Number 21



Send your story tips to the author, Michael Roberts.