The year is 1968. All over the country, teenagers are turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Marijuana is everywhere. So, what’s the American government to do? Make an anti-pot film starring Sonny Bono, of course! This vintage 34-minute video begins with a gang of stoned adolescents passing around joints and then getting raided by the cops. In what is surely a scrupulously accurate portrayal of what happens whenever kids light up, police drag them out of the house while they’re screaming things like, “Grass isn’t habit-forming like alcohol!” and “No one has the right to tell me what I do with my own body!” (Both good points, actually!)

If you weren’t already suspicious that whoever the government hired to make this film had a different agenda entirely, wait till good, old host Sonny Bono shows up. About three minutes in, Bono tells us he’s going to give us the facts and let us make our own decisions. What makes his appearance in the video hilarious — besides those gold pajamas — is the fact that, as Dangerous Minds points out, he narrates the whole thing in an archetypal stoner drawl. Then, he warns us that although “there are no known damaging physical effects from the use of marijuana,” if you smoke too much, your high is likely to transform into an “unpredictable and unpleasant bummer.” You know, the kind where your face transforms into a bargain-store Halloween monster mask. Watch and learn(?) after the jump. … Read More