Colorado’s “Drive High, Get A DUI” Campaign: Because Having The Munchies Is Distracting

Car? What’s a car, anyway, but a thing with wheels?

Just like Colorado doesn’t want drunk drivers swerving all over its roads and endangering people, the state doesn’t want anyone getting stoned and trying to operate a car, now that marijuana is legal in the state. Because if what we’ve learned from the movies about reefer is true, there are plenty of distractions when you’re stoned — food (Funyuns specifically), the way Willie Nelson’s braids sway just so and oh what’s that thing I must stare at over there?

While you probably have that one friend who insists, “No, it’s fine — I’m way more focused on the road when I’m stoned!”, Colorado disagrees: The state is spending $1 million on TV ads for the Colorado Department of Transportation’s new “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign that make fun of pot users who already space out under normal circumstances.

The point there being that driving a potentially deadly hunk of metal around other people could be a really bad time to space out. For example — one ad shoes a guy (with huuuuge hair, because obviously the more cartoonish of a character, the better comedic value!) trying to operate a grill while high and not realizing what the problem is, because he’s stoned. The idea being, you wouldn’t want him driving a car if he can’t turn a grill on.

It’s the first time since marijuana was legalized in 2012 that Colorado has pushed such a campaign to remind drivers to treat marijuana like alcohol, reports the Associated Press. The state has also recently started tallying impaired driving violations due to marijuana, while in previous years those just fell under the same category as drunk drivers.

And also? The ads are actually pretty funny:

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Colorado launches campaign to stop stoned driving [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist