If you’ve watched American television for more than five minutes in the last few years you’ve probably seen one of the ‘Above the Influence’ advertisements. The Office of National Drug Control Policy finally learned that cartoon mascots aren’t generally good at turning kids off drugs and started a new campaign. A large portion of their efforts seem directed at stamping out marijuana use. They’ve tried many approaches to convince kids of the evils of this popular drug, but it seems they’re running out of ideas.

Their newest advertisement doesn’t warn about alienating friends, failing out of school or even going to jail. Instead it warns kids that the deleterious effects of marijuana on your perception, hand-to-eye coordination, reflex time and memory will negatively affect your gaming skills. The website even has ‘interviews’ with two computer generated characters (one a generic female ninja and the other a pointy-eared Link look-alike) discussing how a gamer getting high affected them.

One of the general problems with a large body of psychological research is that it’s conducted on college campuses with most of the subjects being college students. A study has been conducted in the glorious state of Utah that claims to show that gamers are more likely to use controlled substances and make negative decisions.

When they surveyed 800 students they found that students who played video games regularly were 10% more likely to drink or take drugs then their non-gaming friends. Those who play daily were three times more likely to smoke pot, stop talking to friends and family or have low self-esteem.

Unfortunately for these researchers, college kids have been drinking since before video games were anything but a bar room novelty. Films like Animal House and television shows are much more to blame for the prevalence of teenage drinking and drug use than all the video games rolled into one. Conducting a study on how a generally irresponsible group with vast amounts of free time amuse themselves sounds like a bad idea, especially when you throw in the fact that BYU is a religious school.

Building up the hype train for the upcoming portable version of GTA that will let you sell drugs, British tabloid The Sun published an article Thursday titled “Fury Over Drug Deal Vid Game”.

The article had Darren Gold speaking on behalf of UK support group Drugsline, calling out the game for its “glamorization” of drug-dealing and “substance misuse”.

Ah, but it’s all a video game, right? Right? No one’s listening, and they obviously don’t care.

Rockstar will undoubtedly benefit from the free publicity GTA: Chinatown Wars will get from groups such as this. The game is due out later this year or early next year.

Citing the latest issue of Edge, CVG reports that the upcoming DS entry in the GTA franchise will let players sell a variety of real-life drugs for in-game profit.

Gamers will be able to traffic six types of drugs – heroine, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid and downers – to meet the demands of the market.

"We wanted to have a drug-dealing mini game in lots of the GTA games," said Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser. "We played with it a little in Vice City Stories, because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story."

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is set for release exclusively on the DS early next year.

Riding on the GTA hate train, a press release by parent gaming resource What They Play notes that parents are more scared of their children playing Grand Theft Auto than drinking alcohol or watching pornography.

This was the result of a poll of over 1600 parents who were asked what they would be most concerned about their children doing while at a sleepover. While marijuana topped the poll, playing GTA came in at a close second, with porn and alcohol rounding out the list.

“Although these findings seem surprising at first, they hint at fears parents have about video games,” said Grand Theft Childhood co-author Cheryl K. Olson. “To some parents, video games are full of unknowable dangers… Of course, parents don’t want their children drinking alcohol, but that’s a more familiar risk.”

The Grand Theft Auto series has been a scapegoat for politicians and other groups for its so-called “objectionable” content. A recent murder of a Thai cab driver is also being linked back to the game.