Reefer Madness, ‘90s Style : References to marijuana are showing up in records, TV and film, as adults deal with their ‘60s pasts and today’s kids wonder what all the fuss is about. A producer says it’s ‘a symbol of rebellion.’

Their baby boomer moms and dads called it weed, or maybe grass, back in the ‘60s. Now the preferred term is hemp. But whatever name you give dried Cannabis sativa, one thing’s clear: Pot is hot again.

Credit Bill Clinton, the first President to say the stuff has touched his lips, even if he didn’t you-know-what. Or chalk it up to the growing “grass roots” movement--led by groups such as the 23-year-old National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the upstart Cannabis Action Network--that’s out to legalize it.

It was probably only a matter of time before Hollywood took a toke too.

The scent of marijuana has been heavy over the music scene for several years. The South Gate hip-hop group Cypress Hill is the leader of the pot pack in pop, and they say the smash success of their “Black Sunday” album is solely because of dope. They smoke it. They rap about it. And they stump for it as official spokesmen for NORML. They even have a line of pot paraphernalia and clothing, which this year has sold $6 million at domestic record stores and another $2 million around the world.

Southern rockers the Black Crowes headlined at the Great Atlanta Pot Festival and have talked about their love of the drug in the movement’s magazine High Times. Bell Biv DeVoe’s recent song “Nickel” waxes fond about pot. Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors has also gone on the record for marijuana, as has Sinead O’Connor, who told Rolling Stone: “I think everybody should smoke it.” Even grizzled, grandfatherly Willie Nelson has long touted the benefits of hemp.

So it should be no surprise that the smoke is filtering out from the music world to Hollywood. It’s present in current films such as “Dazed and Confused,” “True Romance” and “Short Cuts,” whose 68-year-old director, Robert Altman, has said he enjoys an occasional puff. There are also skits and episodes on a growing number of network television shows, among them last Tuesday’s episode of “Roseanne.”

Pot in the movies isn’t exactly new, but it lay relatively dormant during the Just Say No ‘80s. There have been marijuana scenes in such films as “MASH,” “Easy Rider,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and more. Cheech and Chong’s 1978 “Up in Smoke” was probably the last major stoner movie, though.

Altman’s “Short Cuts,” an adaptation of the works of Raymond Carver, features pot in a number of its story lines. Several of the 22 characters smoke pot, among them two married guys who use smoking a joint as a ruse to get away from their families and go flirt with a couple of young women.

In Quentin Tarantino’s “True Romance,” Brad Pitt’s Floyd, a sort of Beavis (or Butt-head), walks around in a stoned daze.

Pot’s presence in those movies, though, is nothing compared to that in “Dazed and Confused.” Richard Linklater’s film about a bunch of high schoolers on the last day of class in 1976 centers on young women and men as they are hazing and partying, and pot smoking figures prominently among their activities.

Before the movie even opened, it drew attention. The press materials included a metal can adorned with a stoned-looking yellow smiley face and containing “Dazed and Confused” rolling papers and cannabis leaf earrings--not your usual press kit. (It was not the first time, however, that such a gimmick had been tried: Advance materials put out in February by Hollywood Records for the heavy-metal group Sacred Reich included bongs.)

The rest of the “Dazed and Confused’s” pre-opening buzz probably wasn’t planned. The Motion Picture Assn. of America nixed a 30-second TV ad and a print ad for the film based on a columnist’s quote from US magazine: “Deliciously accurate in its portrayal of the generation that fell between LSD and R.E.M.” The ad copy line that read “Finally! A Movie for Everyone Who DID Inhale” was also cited as being in violation of the MPAA’s policy against references to drugs.

But Linklater says he never saw his film as a “pot movie,” although he was aware that there might be some controversy. “When I first turned in the script, I asked immediately” if the presence of pot would be an issue, he says. But the producers “were like, ‘In the ‘90s, pot is the least of people’s problems. We’ve got bigger problems like crack.’ Personally, I haven’t felt resistance.”

Linklater, 31, mentions the marketing of “Up in Smoke,” whose slogan was “Don’t Go See This Movie Straight.” The MPAA did not restrict those ads. “I remember being in high school then,” Linklater says. “There was drug humor in the culture then. Then the country went into this huge denial.”

The denial of the ‘80s may be waning, he says. “It’s great to have leaders who at least know what marijuana is,” Linklater says. “We’re that much closer to having enlightened policies.”

Weed is beginning to crop up on TV too.

A recent “Saturday Night Live” skit featured a man who runs an African-American art store. When people came into the store, the proprietor would explain various objects’ historical or cultural background, then point out a small opening on each item and explaining that this was where the weed goes.

A sketch on “The Kids in the Hall,” shown twice on cable’s Comedy Central channel last Saturday, depicted a company manager sharing a marijuana cigarette with a prospective employee, then turning the man down for the job because “he slobbered on my pot.” And Homer Simpson, coming home from a swap meet on last week’s episode of “The Simpsons,” remarked that “I haven’t seen a bong in years.”

This week’s episode of “Roseanne” featured the main characters’ confronting the fact that they smoked pot when they were younger (a theme that HBO’s comedy series “Dream On” dealt with 1936029285t too old.”

Executive producer Jay Daniel says the two had to start with a believable premise. “Roseanne and Dan are children of the ‘60s,” he says. “To say that they never inhaled would just not have been the truth.”

Not surprisingly, the idea struck fear, although not resistance, in the hearts of network executives. “There are obviously certain taboos on TV,” Daniel says. “ABC is very anti-drug, and just to tread in this territory is a very delicate thing for them. They really wanted to be certain there was no way we would glorify the drug experience.”

At times, concern escalated into conflict. “I won’t deny there was some heated discussion, but in the end they said OK,” he says. “They shepherded it every step of the way. But they went way down the road with us on this episode.”

Ultimately, the result was in sync with the network’s anti-drug philosophy. “Even though we have a lot of fun, we do come away with an anti-drug message that doesn’t pound you over the head,” Daniel says. “For us, the pot experience was a catalyst to make our main characters evaluate that, like it or not, they’re grown-ups with responsibilities. The kind of irresponsible, escapist behavior that they allowed themselves is no longer there for them. The pot served as a symbol for those past experiences.”

The generational difference is something many baby-boomer parents are now experiencing. “We didn’t start with the message,” Ulin says. “What happens in our story could happen to a 41-year-old couple in 1993.”

Of course, pot is still illegal, and that is part of the reason the resurgence is controversial. In addition to ABC’s trepidations and the MPAA’s just saying no to the “Dazed and Confused” ads, MTV blocked out a pot logo on a cap in a Dr. Dre video. And there is still the perception in some circles, both public and law enforcement, that smoking marijuana is no different from using other drugs.

“It’s sending the wrong message,” says Glen Levant, executive director of Drug Assistance Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) America. “The marijuana that is being sold today has a THC content of up to 20%, whereas in the ‘70s it was maybe 3%. This is a very dangerous substance. I’m not espousing censorship, but if there is a trend developing, I don’t think it’s healthy.”

“Advertising marijuana by showing it in a picture can lead people to want to experiment with it,” adds Henry Hall, volunteer director of the Narcotic Education Foundation of America. “We’re all imitators, especially young people. It’s what’s called a gateway drug; it leads to experimenting with other drugs.”

Others beg to differ. “If there’s any evidence that the culture is prepared to be less hysterical about the occasional use of marijuana, it can only be applauded,” says UC Berkeley sociology professor Todd Gitlin, author of “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.” “The hard-and-fast view has been ineffectual. Most kids think it’s ridiculous.”

Marijuana on TV and in film may also just be a sign that the media are facing what parents are now facing. “There are baby boomers who are trying to figure out what their kids should know about what they did, and it’s about time pop culture faced that,” Gitlin says. “It may be more startling that it has avoided it to this point, with the conventional wisdom that casual marijuana use is the same as crack cocaine or regular injection with addictive drugs.”

But a few films and TV shows don’t necessarily equal real change. “This is hardly Arnold Schwarzenegger taking a toke,” Gitlin says. “I gather that Roseanne Arnold will do what she pleases. Maybe one should be curious why it took her so long to get to the issue. Official pop culture has been lagging.”

For Linklater, who calls the current pot resurgence “innocent,” “It’s just young people who had to grow up in the ‘80s’ own little healthy rebellion. Pot is a symbol of rebellion. If they made it legal, it would no longer be that symbol.”