From Something Weird Video: During the Great White Suburban Drug Scare of the late sixties / early seventies, parents, educators, and corporate sponsors banded together in an effort to scare American teens away from getting high. It might be argued that the weird and often hysterical propoganda films that emerged from this era created more drug abuse than they prevented. Nevertheless, here’s a handful of Classroom Scare Films from a groovy by-gone era that will fascinate and entertain you from beginning to end... Featuring Featuring Weed, Ups / Downs, and more.

Not a lot is known about this exploitation clip-collage which examines the classic marijuana scare-films of the 1920s through the 1940s. However, the year of release, tone of the narration, and the complete lack of credits indicate that The Devil's Joint may well have been some kind of underground film. After all, it was released around the time when vintage drug films like the 1936 Reefer Madness were being rediscovered by a new generation via midnight screenings at smoke-filled theaters and college universities. The tone here is cleverly set from the opening text which informs us that the film has been made without the cooperation of the Whit House, FBI, or local police authorities. In case you still didn't get the hint, The Devil's Joint then shows us a clip of TICHARD NIXON stating that he is here to tell us the truth despite his honesty and integrity being under question, before cutting to grisly newsreel footage of Chinese opium users being executed in the 1930s. What follow is essentially a series of extended clips from a number of the most notorious roadeshow drugsploitation films including Reefer Madness (of course), as well as a silent film from the 1920s called The Pace That Kills For the most part, the film wisely lets these clips speak for themselves, although a narrator does give us a quick rundown of all the propaganda clichés used in the drug scare genre, and during sequences which depict stoned people fighting, Batman-style "Pows!" and "Zaps!" flash across the screen. Occasionally, silent-movie-style text cards pop up displaying lurid pulp blurbs like "An Innocent young virgin under the spell of the Killer Weed! Will she fall prey to man's lust?"

During the golden age of the roadshow, no exploiteer returned to the drug theme more often that DWAIN ESPER. After the infamous short Sinister Menace and the feature-length Narcotic (both 1933), Esper and his screenwriter wife, HILDAGARDE STADIE, unleashed Marihuana, the first of the famous trilogy of anti-pot films of the 1930's which included Reefer and Assassin of Youth. Esper delivered on his promise to show "weird orgies, wild parties, and unleashed passions." "High spirited" Burma Roberts (HARLEY WOOD) is not only cursed with a dippy name, but a mother who doesn't pay her any attention. Since Mom is too busy making sure Burma's sister, Elaine, has her hooks into wealthy Morgan Stewart, Burma starts hanging with a fast crown. At a roadhouse where the debauchery includes balloon popping), she and her friends meet Tony Santello, the local pusher: "Where they're that age, they're not suspicious and easily hooked!" Tony invites the gang to his beach house where they drink, dance and sample his "giggle weed."" The shot of Burma taking her first puff of pot is alone enough reason to make Marihuana a must-see. But it's followed by one of the famous scenes in roadshow history: as a cackling Burma makes love to her boyfriend Dick, the girls peel out of the dresses and streak down the beach to skinny-dip in the surf, complete with shocking-for-its-time nudity!

Newspaper headlines denounce a rash epidemic of barbiturate overdoses. Even more shocking is that the abusers are juveniles out for cheap kicks. Responding to the rising public outrage, a prominent female judge sends young detective Sergeant Dave Kerrigan to uncover the source of the dangerous contraband. His dogged search leads to a crooked weight-loss "gym" where overweight women, desperate to shed pounds in a hurry, are supplied with addictive diet pills by the corrupt proprietors. The case gets more complicated when the gym owners conspire to have the judge's underage daughter photographed naked at a pool-side pill party. Facing blackmail, the girl's mother must choose between resigning from the bench to protect her daughter from public humiliation or turning up the heat on the drug pushers. Starring Charlie Chaplin's ex-wife Lita Grey and featuring lingering locker room dialogues, wild parties and carnal excess, The Devil's Sleep is a reactionary exploitation film filled with perverse thrills and pious outrage.