Originally titled Tell Your Children, is a 1936 drama film directed by Louis Gasnier. Its cast was composed of mostly unknown bit actors. The story was written by Laurence Meade. The plot revolves around the tragic events that follow when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marihuana": a hit and run accident, manslaughter, suicide, rape, and descent into madness all ensue. Tell Your Children was financed by a church group and intended to be shown to parents as a morality tale attempting to teach them about the dangers of cannabis use. Soon after the film was shot, however, it was purchased by notorious exploitation filmmaker Dwain Esper, who took the liberty of cutting in salacious insert shots and applying the more scandalous title of Reefer Madness, before distributing it on the exploitation circuit. Some sources have also claimed that the film was financed by Harry Anslinger's Federal Bureau of Narcotics, or even by anti-hemp interests such as DuPont or William Randolph Hearst. The claims that Reefer Madness was produced as an exploitation film, thinly veiled as an educational piece to comply with the Hays code are untrue.[citation needed] Though it is true that lesser-known films such as Esper's own Marihuana and Elmer Clifton's Assassin of Youth were/are exploitation, Reefer Madness is merely a misguided (and highly inaccurate) morality tale. Such education-exploitation films were common in the years following adoption of the Code, and the subject of cannabis was particularly popular in the hysteria surrounding Anslinger's 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. After a brief run, the film lay forgotten for several decades. There was no concept of after market in those days, especially for films that existed outside the confines of the studio system, and were therefore considered "forbidden fruit." For this reason, neither Esper nor the original filmmakers bothered to copyright the movie, and it eventually fell into the public domain.

The Plot

The film begins with a High school lecture. The principal, Dr. Carroll, is attempting to warn parents about the dangers of marijuana. To illustrate his point, he tells the group the story of a group of innocent teenagers whose downfall was supposedly caused by cannabis, saying that he'll give his audience "the real facts" about the case.

At an apartment owned by Mae Coleman, and Jack Perry, her lover (supposedly, the couple is "living in sin," yet they sleep in separate beds as do all married couples depicted in films of the era), the duo sells marijuana. Mae prefers to sell reefer to customers her own age, whereas Jack sells the drug to young teenagers. Ralph, a former college student turned fellow dealer (and "addict," according to the film), and Blanche help Jack sell cannabis to young students. Young students Bill and Jimmy are invited to Mae and Jack's apartment by Blanche and Ralph. Jimmy takes Bill to the party. There, Jack runs out of reefer. Jimmy, who has a car, drives him to pick up some more. Arriving at Jack's boss's "headquarters," he gets out and Jimmy asks him for a cigarette. Jack gives him a joint. Later, when Jack comes back down and gets into the car, Jimmy drives off dangerously, along the way running over a pedestrian with his car (through the inept filmmaking skills, however, it is very clear that the man isn't actually hurt, as he jumps out of the way before the car hits him). Jack agrees to keep Jimmy's name out of the case.

Bill begins an affair with Blanche. Mary, Bill's girlfriend, goes to Mae's apartment looking for Jimmy, and accepts a joint from Ralph, thinking it to be a normal cigarette. When she refuses Ralph's advances, he tries to rape her. Bill comes out of the bedroom after having sex with Blanche, and hallucinates that Mary strips for Ralph. He attacks Ralph, and as the two are fighting, Jack tries to break it up by hitting Bill with the butt of his gun. The gun goes off, and Mary is killed (though in one of the camera shots taking place before it is revealed that Mary has been "shot in the back," the gun is aimed at the floor, one of the film's most revealing mistakes).

Jack puts the gun in the hand of an unconscious Bill, and wakes him up. Bill sees the gun in his hand, and is led to believe that he has killed Mary. Bill is sent to prison. The group of dealers hide low for a while in Blanche's apartment while Bill's trial takes place. Ralph, losing his sanity, wants to tell the police who is actually responsible for the death of Mary. Though the film attributes Ralph's insanity to marijuana use, it is far more likely that he is losing his sanity through feelings of guilt.

Seeking advice from his boss, Jack is told to shoot Ralph so he keeps his mouth shut. Meanwhile, at the apartment, Blanche offers to play some piano music for Ralph to keep his mind off things. They are both very high, and Ralph tells her to play faster. She increases her playing speed to a downright cartoon-like speed in one of the film's most famous and over the top sequences.

Jack shows up and Ralph immediately senses that Jack wants to kill him, so he kills Jack by beating him to death (with an object that is clearly no heavier than a plant leaf). The police arrest Ralph, Mae and Blanche. Mae talks, and the criminal gang is rounded up. Blanche explains that Bill was innocent, and he is released. Blanche is then held as a material witness for the case against Ralph, but rather than testify against him Blanche jumps out a window and falls to her death (a notable goof is that the window is clearly a painting in one shot, and when you see Blanche's dead body on the steps of the building, it is clearly a mannequin) and Ralph is put in an asylum for the criminally insane "for the rest of his natural life".

The movie ends with Dr. Carrol warning the parents he has been talking to that this scenario is likely to happen again, and then points to random parents in the audience and warns that "the next tragedy may be that of your daughter's... or your son's... or yours, or yours..." before pointing straight at the camera and saying emphatically "...or YOURS!" as the words "TELL YOUR CHILDREN" flash on the screen.

In 1971, Reefer Madness was discovered in the Library of Congress archives by NORML founder Keith Stroup, who bought a print for $297, and made it the darling of pot smokers and college campuses. For this modern audience the poor production values and overacting create an uproarious comedy that provides perspective on the current "War on Drugs". Stroup is also responsible for the notion that the film was originally created as a propaganda piece. Distributing Reefer Madness to college campuses of the 1970s helped bankroll the burgeoning film company New Line Cinema. In 1973, the MPAA gave the film a PG rating. Today, Reefer Madness is considered to be a cult classic, and one of the best examples of a Midnight movie. Its fans enjoy the film for the same unintentionally campy production values that made it a hit in the 1970s. The film was spoofed in a musical of the same name, which was later made into a made-for-television film in 2005.

The movie's title has also been adopted into some usage as a general catchall term for any anti-marijuana propaganda which is particularly over-the-top or fantastical.

The colorized version

DVD cover of the colorized Special "Addiction"20th Century Fox, in collaboration with Legend Films, released a colorized version of the movie on DVD in 2004. The original release date was April 20, 2004, a reference to the drug slang term "420." The term is also flashed briefly during the film, which is an effect added by Legend Films. The color version features intentionally unrealistic color schemes that add to the film's unintentionally campy humor. The smoke from the "marijuana" was made to appear green, red, blue, orange, and purple, each person's colored smoke representing their mood and the different "levels of ‘addiction’".

Comedian and former Mystery Science Theater 3000 host Mike Nelson provided audio commentary. Other DVD extras included a short film called Grandpa's Marijuana Handbook, and a new trailer for Reefer Madness, produced by Legend Films. Legend Films also provided their own color design commentary. Legend Films owns the copyright to the colorized version of Reefer Madness. While most have praised the new color version for its campy treatment of the cult film, some viewers complained that the color choices would better suit a film about acid rather than a film about marijuana. These complaints were minor, and the colorized DVD was a major success, mainly due to the inclusion of Nelson's audio commentary track.

Harry J. Anslinger (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) is widely considered to be the first United States "drug czar". He held office as the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, before being appointed as the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) on August 12, 1930. He held office an unprecedented 32 years in his role (rivaled only by J. Edgar Hoover), holding office until 1962. He then held office two years as US Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission.
Currently, many firmly oppose Anslinger's legacy against marijuana, fueling decades of misinformation about the drug. Some contend that Harry J. Anslinger was really just a representative puppet for a thriving political belief. In other words, although it would appear that Anslinger was a conservative who truly believed marijuana to be a threat to the future of American civilization, his biographer maintained that he was an astute government bureaucrat who viewed the marijuana issue as a means for elevating himself to national prominence. The responsibilities once held by Harry J. Anslinger are now largely under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy.
For his role in setting the trajectory of U.S. federal drug policy, he receives hardly any acknowledgement from the current Drug Enforcement Administration website, nor is he mentioned on the site's "Wall of Honor". Neither is there any mention of Anslinger at the Office of National Drug Control Policy website. Anslinger died at the age of 83 of heart failure in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.