kindtxgal This film, along with other anti-drug offerings of the time, such as "Marihuana", attempts to warn against a multiple of probable scenarios that result from its usage. The name of the film is a forewarning of content, with an over-dramatization (to the point of silliness) of marijuana effects on the youth of the day.Similar to drinking and driving films of that time, this film focuses on the lives of a handful of high school students, shiny with possibility preyed upon by smartly dressed, sinister adults. Stealthily they are lured into all manner of deprivation and poor choices resulting in tragedy while the dealers cash in and skulk in their silken rat holes.Over the top, and in light of modern knowledge of marijuana usage by even the medical field, this film borders on the side of hilarity due to excessiveness of the stupidity of the victims and iciness of the dealers while hapless parents & teachers scramble for a solution.I recommend it for all to see, if anything as a time capsule view of the norms of the 1930s era of criminal, parent, educator, law enforcement and youth scramble around madly due to lowly reefer as the prime target of propaganda.

bkoganbing First let me say that we've come a long way in our thinking on marijuana. Now many advocate its use for medicinal purposes to alleviate pain. It will probably be legalized within the next 20 years in all states.I grew up in the Sixties when the effects of marijuana were being questioned and the view that Reefer Madness espouses was being ridiculed. From my own observation those who used it in the Sixties certainly had a different experience than what you see here. Those that I saw use it became laid back and mellow. What they lost with too much use was a drive to get up and accomplish something. Reverend Jim Ignatowski on Taxi was a perfect example of that. I also remember a public service commercial from the Seventies and Eighties showing these two thirty somethings puffing on the weed and yelling down to one of the smoker's mother that he'll do it tomorrow. That's far more the effect of overindulging in the devil's weed as Reefer Madness shows. Then overindulging in any pleasure is never good.Joseph Forte small town high school principal after a brief prologue tells the tale of a pair of high school kids, Dorothy Short and Kenneth Craig who fall into the evil clutches of dope peddlers Carleton Young and Thelma White. It results in death for one and near death for the other. There's also a friend of Young and White played by Dave O'Brien who had a substantial career in B westerns playing second string leads and sidekicks. He's presented as the model for the crazed dope fiend and he also has an unpleasant fate. O'Brien's performance also presents an exact opposite picture of the marijuana users I knew back in the day.Carleton Young had a most substantial career becoming a member of the John Ford stock company and he got into some classic films for Ford and others. Everyone else in this cast toiled in obscurity.What can you say about a film that is so horribly wrong and dated, with performances and a story that are laughable and looks like it was shot with an old Bell&Howell camera? Give it the bad rating it so richly deserves.

Mr-Fusion "Reefer Madness" describes marijuana as "the new drug menace, which is destroying the youth of America". And you would think that this might just be a hyperbolic tagline on an anti-drug poster, but the filmmakers back that up with an alarmingly earnest sense of paranoia and hysteria. They're serious. As an unintentional comedy, "Reefer Madness" takes its time getting going. The dialogue of these unrelatable characters is peppered with the usual "swell"s, "gee"s, etc. of the time. The real fun occurs when the wretched mary jane rears its ugly head. Pretty soon, those evil pushers have gotten our upright moral youth speeding off after a vehicular homicide, raping young girls, shooting people, window-diving, and descending into general madness. And then they listen to that risqué jazz music!It's not hard to see why this movie's a cult classic. It's absurd in its warnings, firebrand in its portrayals, and undeniably goofy. But that's how it comes off now. I really do wonder how effective this movie was in what seems like the original "Just Say No" campaign. Did people take this seriously? Judging from the continuation of such dire warning movies as "Boys Beware" [1961] (extolling the dangers of homosexuals), it'd be easy to conclude so. And that just makes this all the more amusing.A 7/10 on the ridiculous scale

DawnOfTheSong Very funny, exaggerative, yet informing film on how society classified marijuana use in the first of half of the century. When the characters in this movie smoke marijuana, they react extremely, killing others, and acting completely insane. This movie also portrays the use of reefer as an addictive act, and directly stresses that marijuana be kept away from our youth (as defined by a scene in which an adolescent school-boy smokes marijuana at an apartment jazz party, finds his girlfriend being taken advantage of by another man who is acting marijuana-crazed, and then gets blamed for shooting them). This movie is a complete contrast to the way marijuana use is commonly viewed today. Like previously stated, it exaggerates the use of this drug purposely to be used as a scare-tactic to society of that time period. I would give this movie a 7.0 based on humorous portrayals, classification information, and comedic depiction.