Contrary to what Grandma's Boy postulated, does marijuana help or hinder videogamers?

click to enlarge The President

The White House Drug Czar's office has stumbled through a varying set of warnings about the dangers of marijuana over the ten years. The cannabis that once would saute your brain or, more likely, lead to heroin addiction, has been downgraded. . .it is now a cause of feeble gaming.

The new ads posit that while reefer may not specifically kill you, it will turn you into a crappy gamer.

DARE send-up

The Drug Czar Office (now run by Seattle Police Chief Kerlikowske) is going one further: not only does marijuana cause you to spend hours of wasted time on your couch, it chisels away at your gaming skills.

"Getting high affects your brain in ways that may directly influence your gaming ability," warns the Drug Czar's web site. "Many of the skills required for beating a level, defeating an opponent, [and] beating games" are erased by marijuana use.

Some famous gamers in the zone

The site interviews a computer-generated character: "I used to have a good time with Lyle," she says. "We made a good team. He had skill. He had swiftness," she says. "Well, he used to, anyway. Then our last fight, Lyle decided to get high. And it was simply: sayonara skill, sayonara swiftness."

The 2009 US budget allocates $100 million for the Drug Czar's media campaign.

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