The Terrible Truth is a 1951 American anti-drug documentary film created by Sid Davis Productions.
The film contained messages such as "marijuana has similar properties to amphetamines" and "the Soviet Union was pushing drugs in America".
[1] The film follows William B. McKesson (to become Los Angeles County District Attorney in 1956) who interviews a young woman about her use of marijuana as a gateway drug to intravenous use of heroin.
"[2] The film has been called "faux documentary ... ironic, naïve, campy",[3] and according to Edward Brunner in Postmodern Culture, one of the "scandalous examples of how thoroughly the media environment has been penetrated by schemes for social engineering".
[4] It can be found alongside famously bad movies like Reefer Madness on popular film lists, for example those found at thefix.com as one of the five worst anti-drug works of the past century, and The Atlantic where it is described as "hysterical" and "cartoonish".