Mike Schmidt:

I felt the ad was very effective. It reminded me of myself when I smoked and my dogs wanted to play or go outside and enjoy the day and I would just want to 'get just a little bit higher' before I did anything with them, thinking I would have more fun that way. Ultimately, my guys would just give up and slink away to a nap as the sun went down and another weekend was wasted.

I don't do that anymore (got married and moved out my dead-end town, started college, etc - still have the dogs!), and I always feel a mix of relief and regret whenver I see that commercial.

Do I think I would have put down the pipe if I'd seen that commercial a few years ago? Not right away- but I would have had one more nagging doubt in the back of my mind about the 'fun' I was supposedly having. Definitely I would have factored that in while I wasn't high when deciding whether to do it or not.

I think it is pretty effective to use pets to touch the American public. So many people in this country have and cherish their dog or cat. I never had kids, and like a lot of people in their twenties, my pets were my roommates, my family, my friends. Look at the commercials for prescription drugs- they show how a woman's depression is affecting the dog, they'll show how a person's joint pain limits the activites they can share with their dog- if it wasn't effective, then you wouldn't see it in expensive commercials.

The ad appealed to me. Not all pot smokers are stoners who sit in the basement watching tv all day- that's a gross stereotype and it's the same kind of stereotyping that has spectacularly failed the anti-drug campaigns of the last fifteen years.