The Stoner Sloth campaign is a symptom of our poor drug conversation. If we legalised marijuana then we could discuss how it's used without euphemisms, hypocrisy and bizarre furry animals, writes Jeff Sparrow.

Meet Barry, a notorious stoner. Even within a group of friends so dedicated to marijuana they call themselves the "Choom Gang", Barry is famous for loving his weed.

Whenever a joint is passed, Barry jumps in before his turn, shouting "Intercepted!" and then takes a long toke. In lung-busting sessions in the gang's VW "choom wagon", Barry rolls up the windows so no smoke can escape; he insists on punishing anyone on board who exhales too quickly for wasting precious bud. Barry calls this philosophy "TA" (for "total absorption").

You can be excused for thinking Barry belongs in the NSW Government's new Stoner Sloth campaign, plaintively bellowing and making feeble three-toed gestures as he fails at passing the salt or making small talk at a party.

Actually, though, Barry's done quite well for himself. These days, he's less Stoner Sloth and more POTUS.

That's right: Barack Hussein Obama, current president of the United States of America, was once a big time herbsman.

It's easy to mock Saatchi & Saatchi's new anti-weed campaign. It's fun too, as the internet quickly discovered, with one enterprising YouTuber even drawing on Stoner Sloth to provide the most credible explanation so far offered for the late unpleasantness known as Tony Abbott's prime ministership.

You have to wonder just how baked they were in the Saatchi & Saatchi boardroom when they allocated their anti-drug website (Stoner Sloth.com.au) an almost identical url to that of a marijuana dispensary (Stoner Sloth.com). In the wake of #QantasLuxury and #McDstories and #susanalbumparty (yes, that was the hashtag for a Susan Boyle album launch), did it really not occur to any of the marketing hotshots at a prestige advertising firm that a social media campaign featuring a stoned sloth might go viral for all the wrong reasons?

Yet the Stoner Sloth fiasco isn't merely the fault of clueless ad executives. The story of Barry and his Choom Gang illustrates the fundamental hypocrisy that renders sensible discussion of drug use well nigh impossible.

The teens targeted by #Stoner Sloth are not stupid. They know that the Boomers loved to get high; that the world is now run by Barack Obama and people like him; that a huge proportion of the politicians and judges and newspaper editors and school principals did, at one stage or another, inhale.

"There are hundreds of thousands of pot smokers that work full-time jobs, pay their bills, help our nations run, even teach our children. One way or another weed hasn't ruined people's lives."

That's Stoner Dan, the proprietor of the original Stoner Sloth.com (which is now, one imagines, enjoying an inadvertent boost in traffic courtesy of the NSW taxpayer). Dan's quite right - and that's why scare campaigns don't work anymore.

Today's teens smoke weed for the same reason that Barry did: simply, getting high is pleasurable. That's why, over the festive period, Australians will adjust their moods with huge quantities of booze.

Everyone knows that alcohol's far more dangerous than marijuana. Yet in NSW (as elsewhere in Australia) possession of cannabis can land you in jail. The prisons of America are jammed with those who shared Obama's enthusiasm for the audacity of dope - but who, unlike him, had the misfortune to be caught.

Prohibition prevents proper drug education. If you can get past the sloth's frenzied moaning, the messages conveyed in the NSW campaign are pretty unobjectionable. Yes, kids, it's probably not a good idea to smoke marijuana when you're preparing for an exam. It's also sensible not to make weed consumption central to your life (there's a reason why Barry eventually stopped riding the choomwagon).

But that then begs the obvious questions: when should you smoke and how much is too much?

For all the problems caused by alcohol, the social acceptability of that particular drug makes conversations about safe consumption habits at least theoretically possible. We can discuss the difference between a glass of wine over dinner and chugging vodka until you vomit. But marjuana's illegal irrespective of the circumstances in which it's consumed.

That's why the Stoner Sloth ads fall so flat. To some, it appears they're advocating responsible marijuana use - but responsible marijuana use can still land you in jail.

As every stoner knows, most of the dangers about toking weed are a direct consequence of the legal prohibitions on its use and sale.

By definition, Stoner Sloth must score his dope from someone prepared to risk the more substantial penalties on dealing. After buying from a criminal, our furry friend becomes a criminal himself, sparking up his blunt with one eye open for the narcotics squad. He has no real idea of the particular strain he's ingesting; he can't talk to anyone about how marijuana might react with whatever prescription medication he might be taking; and because he's forced to keep his habit secret, his friends and family have little idea about exactly how much he's smoking.

Prohibition doesn't work. It costs billions of dollars. It criminalises ordinary people; it makes the drug use that inevitably happens far more dangerous. Legalisation could save money and save lives - and, according to a new study, doesn't necessarily correspond with an increase in teen use.

That's why, like marriage equality, marijuana legalisation is slowly spreading across the globe.

But, as with marriage equality, Australia is lagging behind. Which politicians are even talking about it here? NSW premier Mike Baird tweeted recently that the Stoner Sloth videos were "quite something".

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But the sloth's a symptom, not a cause. Legalise marijuana, and then we can discuss about how it's used without euphemisms, hypocrisy and bizarre furry animals.

Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor and broadcaster, and an honorary fellow at Victoria University. His Twitter handle is @Jeff Sparrow.