Local Reporter Goes Viral With Tweet of ‘Normal Teen’s Bedroom’ With ‘Shocking’ Signs of Drug Use. The Full Segment is Even Funnier.

Sarah RumpfJun 24th, 2021, 7:07 pm
 
KMOV reefer madness

Screenshot via Paige Hulsey on Twitter.

Sometimes a tweet teasing a news segment is little more than clickbait, but sometimes it leads to a truly high-larious payoff (pun fully and unapologetically intended). The latter was the case for Paige Hulsey, an anchor at KMOV, the local CBS affiliate in St. Louis, MO, and the above photo of an alleged “normal teen’s bedroom” who has fallen prey to the evil seduction of marijuana.

Hulsey and her team at KMOV apparently decided Thursday would be a great day to remake Reefer Madness, the 1936 propaganda film (sponsored by our very own federal government) warning of the dangers of “a new and deadly menace…marijuana, the burning weed with its roots in hell!”

“Looks like a normal teen’s bedroom, right? Think again,” tweeted Hulsey, exhorting parents to watch the upcoming KMOV segment to learn how to identify the signs of drug use. “I was shocked at what I found in this room!!!” she concluded, with three exclamation points because it was far too exciting for just one or even two punctuation marks.

For the viewing enjoyment of our readers, your friendly neighborhood Mediaite staffers have pulled the video for everyone who doesn’t live in the Gateway City. (To be clear, the only influence I was under as I watched this was a single-serving bottle of GreenWise organic peach kombucha I had with my lunch, which the label warns “contains a trace amount of alcohol due to natural fermentation (less than 0.5%),” so I’d call that darn near sober.)

“Drug enforcement agents are just pleading with parents to take a really tough look at your teenager’s bedroom,” said KMOV’s female anchor to kick off the segment.

“Deaths from overdoses are happening at a devastatingly high rate and the pandemic has seemed to contributed to the problem,” her male co-anchor concurred.

Then it was Hulsey’s time to shine, like a diamond in the sky.

Sadly, the “normal teen’s bedroom” she promised in her tweet was actually a “staged bedroom here at DEA headquarters.”

She then walked through all the “places that teens are hiding drugs in plain sight,” such as secret compartments hidden within otherwise ordinary-looking hair brushes, tampons, and extension cords that could be used to conceal pills or “even booze!”

The secret drug containers were ordered from websites that were “so easily accessible,” said Hulsey, “very popular, very common. I know that I use these websites and I’m guessing that you do, too, so that’s how accessible they are to teens.”

Congratulations, Paige Hulsey, you just told teenagers they should order stuff on Amazon so they can hide their stash from Mom and Dad.

Teens were also ordering prescription medicines online, continued Hulsey, introducing DEA special agent in charge Sean Vickers to explain the dangers of counterfeit pills, which might be laced with fentanyl or other dangerous substances.

We would never make light of drug overdoses (and if you or someone you know are struggling with substance abuse, Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) has a list of links that can help here), but this entire segment was so over-the-top. Even the design of the fake teen’s room: that looks far more like what a bunch of feds would design rather than an actual teenager’s room. And if a papasan chair and a bit of laundry on the floor are signs of drug use, well, then, I should have been arrested the last three years I lived in Austin.

Whoa, a “mile 420” highway sign and a tie-dye tapestry? [Gasps and clutches pearls!]

Twitter, predictably, enjoyed Hulsey’s groundbreaking journalism very, very much, mocking the obvious fakery of the DEA’s setup and the hysteria of the news station’s messaging.

Some of the critiques even came from a more serious place, pointing out the failures of the War on Drugs and the “false equivalence” between marijuana and more dangerous drugs.

Want to see more hysteria about the young folk snorting the marijuana? Watch the riveting trailer for Reefer Madness — or, if you have an hour to spare, the epic film is in the public domain and can be watched at the Internet Archive.

Watch the video above, via KMOV.

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Sarah Rumpf - Contributing Editor

Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.