Say No to Drugs!

For years and years, Truth and the anti-drug people have been paying good money to buy advertising space on WWE programming. Of all the annoying trends of commercials on WWE programming, those are the worst, especially Truth. They're allowed to badmouth and smear a perfectly legal product on television, one that is not legally allowed to fight back with advertising of their own. I mean, I'd never smoke cigarettes and would never recommend that people do, but it's not illegal, and in my opinion, cigarettes are at the very worst on the same par as alcohol, and that's allowed TV advertising.

That being said, I wonder if they feel like they're getting their money's worth, especially now that the top heel on Smackdown, and the most effective heel in the company, bar none, right now is CM Punk, a guy who says "Just say no" to a chorus of boos, a guy who chides a crowd for smoking with the crowd jeering lustily in response. And honestly, it couldn't have happened to a better set of sponsors.

I do find it a bit short-sighted that the WWE would put a heel directly in opposition to sponsors like that. I mean, it would have been like them having a Col. Sanders look-alike come out during the commercial free RAW and berate everyone for not eating his Kentucky Grilled Chicken, and then mentioning Popeye's or Church's to a rousing applause. However, I can't say that I'm not enjoying this.

As I've said before, I lean libertarian in my views on politics, and like many people of my ilk, I believe that drugs should not be illegal and that people should be allowed to choose whether they want to use them or not. I also believe in free enterprise and that if a product is perfectly legal, then it should not be restricted by any governmental in how it can advertise. Yeah, I know, Big Tobacco should hardly be looked upon as a sympathetic figure, but the fact that these assholes from Truth are allowed to smear them when they're not allowed to fight back with advertising, well, it smacks to me of kicking an old man when he's down after having tripped over the curb.

That's one of the reasons why CM Punk's rise as the straight edge preacher has made me feel so moist and gooey inside. He's coercing millions and millions of people to let out their truest feelings about substance use in the open, flying in the face of these people who want to flood the commercial airwaves with their propaganda. And while the WWE shouldn't be in the practice of pissing off advertisers, well, I for one would welcome more Stacker-2 Five Hour Energy commercials on RAW if it mean the Truth and the anti-drug commercials would go away.

Again, I don't advocate that America become a nation of junkies, and if I had a kid watching, he or she would be forced to be CM Punk fans (and not just because CM Punk is so awesome that he's listed in Roget's Thesaurus under the synonyms section). However, I do think that personal choice and responsibility with said choice are far more important values to hammer home than substance abstinence.