On Tuesday, Ohioans decide if the state joins Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and the District of Columbia in making recreational marijuana use legal.

Yet it was only eight decades ago that the nation was sternly warned about the dangers of pot as “a violent narcotic — an unspeakable scourge — THE REAL PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE!” in the deadly earnest Reefer Madness.

That such anti-pot Hollywood hysteria has made campy cult classics of Reefer Madness and other Great Depression-era propaganda like Marihuana: The Devil’s Weed! and Assassin of Youth reveals much about our current attitudes toward marijuana.

That we routinely celebrate pot in songs, movies, TV shows, and books these days reveals even more.

Popular culture is now firmly on the side of pro-cannabis.

The times, they are clearly changed.

In the 1960s and 1970s, marijuana was anything but mainstream, but an icon of the counter-culture movement.

President Richard Nixon, the very personification of “The Man,” even rebuked his own Shafer Commission in 1972 for recommending that the possession of small amounts of the drug be legalized.

And while Jimmy Carter would later agree with The Shafer Commission — “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use” — Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs” crushed that possibility.

“I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast,” Reagan declared.

His drug war gave us the now-infamous anti-drug slogan “Just Say No,” which showed up in arcade games, TV and radio commercials, and as part of First Lady Nancy Reagan’s guest spot on a “very special episode” of Dif’rent Strokes in 1983.

It also attached a stigma to smoking weed, despite the rebellious cache found in much of popular culture: Cheech and Chong, the Abbott and Costello of stoners; movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and the Breakfast Club, which featured “normal” high schoolers getting stoned; songs like Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” Musical Youth’s “Pass the Dutchie,” Neil Young’s “Roll Another Number (For the Road),” and Rick James’ “Mary Jane,”; and the Bob Marley and pot posters and T-shirts found in every Spencer’s Gifts store.

In politics in particular, marijuana was a no-no: The Antidrug Abuse Act of 1988, the “three strikes” rule, which established the mandatory life without parole sentence for those on their third conviction, and Bill Clinton’s famous qualifier about his marijuana use during his college years — “I tried marijuana once. I did not inhale” — while on the campaign trail in 1992.

Even Baby Boomers were not ready to embrace the drug. At least, not until President Obama, who has quite open about smoking and inhaling pot as a teenager.

It was a watershed moment by our Commander-in-Chief, said Jeremy Wallach, a professor in the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, and it changed everything.

“The current legalization measures appear to be almost a continuation that started in the 1970s that was sort of interrupted by the age of Reagan and the conservative backlash that has lasted arguably until the election of Barack Obama,” Wallach said. “From 1979 to 2008 there was an inability to move forward, despite a block of activism. You really waited for the election of Barrack Obama for marijuana policies to begin to become as progressive as they were in the 1970s.”

A recent BGSU polls indicated divided support for the Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3 — 44.4 percent in favor, 42.9 percent opposed, 12.7 percent undecided — but pot is no longer taboo.

In August, Disney role model-turned Madonna shock protege Miley Cyrus, whose single “Dooo It!” includes the lyrics “Yeah I smoke pot, yeah I love peace/But I don’t give a [expletive], I ain’t no hippy,” lit up a joint backstage at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, telling the media:

“I’ve been doing this [expletive] for a while. Because you’re all my friends, and my song is kinda, sorta about the love of marijuana and the love of humankind, I brought a little joint if anyone would like any. Anyone?”

Justin Beiber also was quite open about his love of pot as part of his declaration of adulthood, as if there’s still a whiff of rebelliousness with getting stoned.

The appearance of pot on sitcoms like That ’70s Show, including an episode in which the adults accidentally eat their teenager’s marijuana brownies and sit around a table and giggle, suggests that the drug’s potency to shock the mainstream has diminished into a laugh track stereotype.

Then there’s the critically acclaimed Showtime series Weeds, the story of a middle-aged widow selling pot as a means of survival for her family.

“Weeds, I think it has had the impact of normalizing [pot] to some extent,” Wallach said. “I think some people underestimate the effects of popular culture in normalizing what used to be seen as beyond the pale of polite discussion in public discourse.”

But not everyone considers the increasingly permissive attitude toward marijuana healthy.

“The perception is this is a natural substance, so it’s safe and the reality is it’s not safe,” said Marsha Drees, director of Harbor Symmetry Wellness and a chemical dependency counselor.

Marijuana, she said, has far more carcinogens in it than tobacco, can affect the upper respiratory system, and can be psychologically addictive. A Mayo Clinic study also found that marijuana use by adolescents might lead to schizophrenia.

“There’s certainly a lot of myths about marijuana and how it affects people or doesn’t affect them,” Drees said. “I think it’s really good to do your own research and determine what is factual, what is true.”

And while the hysteria of Reefer Madness might be silly nonsense, she said the prevailing image in popular culture of pot as harmless fun isn’t accurate either.

“The facts don’t support that,” she said.

Still, Drees acknowledges that she and others against legalizing the drug are likely on the losing side of the Issue 3. If not Tuesday, then at some point.

“I hope not,” she said. “It seems as if more people who are opposed to it need to stand up and speak up about it.”

Contact Kirk Baird at kbaird@theblade.com or 419-724-6734.

First Published October 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.