'The Culture High' is an engaging, important but undisciplined documentary. It details many important facts, namely, the relative harmlessness of marijuana, relative other other legal and illegal drugs; the use of prohibition to fill up a prison system almost as if this was its purpose, and moreover to do so in racially discriminatory way; the role of special interests in directing politics; and the banality of mainstream news coverage. So what's not to like? Fristly, I can quite believe the the cannabis plant has the potential to be used as the source of a number of potentially valuable medical products; but watch this film, and you'd believe it to be truly a wonder-substance, the most valuable ever plant for the benefits of human health. Secondly, the film spreads its scope too wide. So we get a familiar, shallow list of complaints about contemporary society: that democracy is imperfect, money corrupts politics, in capitalism everything happens for a profit-driven reason. Indeed, one thing that's interesting about current initiatives to legalise marijuana (but not covered here) is exactly the financial incentives driving the system to long overdue change. Which in this case, I feel to be for the best; but to believe that a new generation of Internet informed citizens are going to transform society over old vested interests, with the legalisation of the "wonder drug" marijuana as just the first step, is woefully naive. The film is much stronger when it stays on topic and looks at America's police state. The good news is that slowly, the tide seems to be turning; as participants in 'The Culture High' themselves tell us, eventually, the film itself will appear like an anachronism, the product of a less rational time.
Review of The Culture High
