Quebec launches bizarre cannabis public relations campaign (VIDEO)

Feb 6 2019, 5:32 am

A new public awareness campaign from the province of Quebec has been turning heads with its use of some very unusual images.

Recently, several bizarre and humorous images have appeared on the provincial website’s cannabis section. Seemingly aimed at teens, the ads depict young people having bizarre and cartoonish reactions to cannabis. In one, a young girl grows hair out of her eyes, while in another a young man has an impossibly elongated neck, others show long strands of hair coming out of ears and even ears protruding sideways from the top of a head.

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Each is followed by a bold sans font reading, “Impossible que le cannabis fasse ca. Mais il y a de vrais risques,” or, roughly, “There’s no way cannabis can do this. But the risks are real.”

The images are also available as full page posters on the province’s website.

Screen capture from encadrementcannabis.gouv.qc.ca.

Quebec has also released two short commercials as part of the campaign. A boy snatches popcorn from a bowl with a long lizard tongue. The narrator tells the viewer that cannabis won’t do this, “but you can develop a dependency”

In another French-language commercial, a young girl comes home and removes her touque to reveal a bald head. “I took too much pot,” she tells her wide-eyed friend.

A narrator interjects. “It’s impossible that cannabis can do this, but smoking before 25 years old can affect your brain,” he says in French.

Screen capture from encadrementcannabis.gouv.qc.ca.

Screen capture from encadrementcannabis.gouv.qc.ca.

Quebec has been taking an abundance of caution in their approach to cannabis legalization. The province has made laws that contradict the federal Cannabis act’s guarantee of at least one plant being allowed for personal growth (they allow none), the sitting majority government intends to raise the age for cannabis to 21, and their public cannabis retail stores are closed several days of the week.

Screen capture from encadrementcannabis.gouv.qc.ca.

Peter SmithPeter Smith

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