As far as drug documentaries go this one was in my opinion pretty even handed. It gave the spot light to people on both sides of the argument while still leaving enough room for the film maker to put in their own spin.
Ive seen a few documentaries about weed, and they all seem to take the same stance: Weed is the best thing that's ever been discovered and its the evil corporations of America trying to hold it down. Well I'm in the boat that believes that weed isn't good for you, but neither is drinking alcohol. But even though it isn't good, that doesn't mean that its as bad as heroine or crystal meth. Which in our country it is categorized as being that bad, basically public enemy number one.
Its pretty obvious that its not as dangerous as they make it out to be, and that comparing it to the synthetic drugs of the last 20 years or so is crazy. The documentary focuses a lot on that, how weed isn't as bad as they said. It also spends a good chunk of its time dealing with the new drugs that have come about in the last few decades, the drugs that people can cook up in their own basements that is much more deadly and potent than weed ever will be. There were certain things they said it in though that was just plain wrong and a little naive, such as weed has never killed anyone. That's bullshit, there is no way that no one has ever gotten some form of cancer from smoking weed. If you can get it from inhaling any other type of smoke then that goes for weed as well. And on top of that, when people drive while high and plow into a brick wall, its the weed that impaired them enough to do that. Just like with alcohol.
The doc. points out that when the drug war in the US started they had a federal budget of 2 million dollars a year, now we are well into the tens of billions. If a persons job relies on getting rid of something for good, why would they ever do the job fully? If you do a job the requires getting rid of something then you put your self out of a job that pays well and gives you power over billions of dollars. The drug war as well as claiming lives also is a business.
There are agencies set up only to deal with drugs, there's the DEA, vice squads, and so on. As well as the majority of people who are in prison are there on drug charges, so now you have the companies building the prisons and the people needed to run it, it helps the economy and turns peoples lives into a commodity. Plus this commodity you can make work for you inside the prison, like a slave. Its a business unto itself, and if you shut that down you lose a lot of money.
It was an interesting documentary, seemed a little amateurish at times, but was overall very well done. It wasn't saying drugs are good, and wasn't demonizing all of them either. 7/10 stars.
Director: Kevin Booth
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