The Culture High

I always love a good documentary and this one has made it to the top of my list. Although I don't personally smoke I still found this film very accessible and frankly I think everyone should see it. They provided a wide perspective on the prohibition of marijuana dating back to its conception. They took into account the perspective of the public, media perception, statistics, and some recent scientific based evidence. Many current issues were wrapped up and coherently tied together. I've never considered the vast web of influence marijuana has on public policy. I hope legalization causes a ripple effect that forces people to recognize the old system doesn't work. It is sobering to consider all of the indirect influence legalization may have on incarceration rates as well as prescription drug abuse. It made me somewhat hopeful for the future of politics which I wasn't expecting.

I also really liked how it addressed the internet as a open source of information and a place of discussion as well as a rallying point for change. At one point in the movie I was expecting it to jump into issues regarding online censorship and attempts made to restrict and control the internet. Perhaps that would have been too much of a tangent or maybe it was a simple matter of timing. Either way, I would certainly love to see another documentary of this caliber addressing current issues effecting the freedom once associated with the internet.

I watched this documentary last night. Wow, it nails the reasons why marijuana is illegal in the USA. There are two very powerful lobby groups at work - the pharmaceutical industry who stand to lose billions if the natural plant gets a medicinal foothold - and, surprisingly, the US private prison system whose profits are in serious jeopardy if possession is decriminalized. Some states in the USA have legal contracts with minimum quotas of prisoners to supply to these commercial prisons...

Few politicians are brave enough to tackle the issue, and Obama has turned out to be the most manipulated President in history on this issue.

Not just the subject material, this is a really well made documentary that has meticulously sought out relevant archival material and conducted many interviews with experts and retired law enforcement personnel who can now speak their minds. A riveting two hours that really held my attention. Seek out this film and watch it.

I enjoyed the documentary and liked how they managed to expand their topic from marijuana to a lot of the issues or society is facing nowadays, revealing shocking facts, some of which I ignored. I think it does a great job at informing people about the current state of the legalization debate and what social issues are in some way connected to it, how there has been a lot of manipulation, how it happened and how it continues to occur, after watching the documentary you realize that you didn't just watch a documentary about pot, that was just the starting point and it is just a example.

When I finished watching the documentary, I did what I usually do after watching a movie, opened IMDb, voted and checked out what other people had to say about it (my major is psychology and my minor is cinematography and took some documentary classes at the university). I was instantly amazed by the huge difference between user score and the metascore, so I continued to read some of the metacritic reviews and I was surprised by how unfounded and fallacy-based all the criticism was (reading some of the reviews I felt like they didn't even watch the full documentary or they were people with poor understanding of the subjects - cinematography, documentary and/or the topics discussed on the documentary).

Personally I rated the documentary with a 9, because I liked how they exposed their ideas in a fun and simple way, keeping it close to the public, sometimes laughing at a joke and other times feeling the pain and emotion from a heartbreaking story. Also I liked the footage they used, the only aspect I didn't like was it's length (I found it to be a little too long, extending too much on some topics) and that it was centered on the United States scenario (which I totally understand).

My personal conclusion was that those reviews are only more proof to what the documentary trying to point out.

Thank you for reading and please excuse my grammar since I am not a native English speaker.

First of all, I never usually write reviews, movie or product wise but having just finished watching this, I felt compelled to. I had no hesitation giving this movie ten out of ten! In order for me to feel like I haven't wasted 1-2 hours of my life watching a movie, I have one rule and at the end I ask myself a question. Did the movie I just watched make me feel anything. So many films that make the mainstream seem to be trying to stop us from feeling anything. The Cutlure High had the exact opposite effect on me. Despite what many might think, this movie is not just about pot legalisation. It is about personal freedom. Yours. Mine. Future generations to come. For when something such as a plant becomes illegal to consume, someone who doesn't even know you, who isn't even there, is taking away your right to decide what you may or may not put into your bodies. As explained in this movie, human beings only really learn from our mistakes. It's how we and Mother Nature have evolved. Trial and error. When the government takes away the trial, there can be no error and therefore no lesson. I am a live-in care worker. I look after a 92 year old man. When the doctors told him 2 years ago he had arthritis, they also subsequently told him there was nothing they could do but prescribe painkillers. I took to the Internet and started him on a regime of hemp oil shots twice a day every day. Since that very day, all swelling had disappeared. In the US it is illegal for just anyone to grow a plant like hemp just because it is too similar to its cousin. That is plain wrong. Watch this movie, I emplore you and once you have, care to share. It's movies like this that change the world! God knows we could do with some change. It's coming....

Like a big brother with more knowledge and wisdom up their sleeve, we all watched his little brother, The Union, take a swing as it taught us about the absurdity of cannabis illegality. Now The Culture High feels much like a big brother stepping in and helping to show the little brother how to really swing for the fences!

There are some amazing gems, some truly golden moments, quotes that will go viral from the amazing slew of people interviewed in The Culture High. I found myself saying things like this several times, "Oh wow, so powerful!" "Incredibly well phrased". There was also a few times I was quite surprised by some facts put forth... and I know a lot about cannabis. Once I even made that noise, you know where you lean forward, your mouth drops open and you make a shocked little "oh!" sound.

I wanted to acknowledge some of the people that blew me away so I started typing celebrity names here, but deleted them because there are so many who are just amazing. When I say celebrities I'm also referring to the doctors, scientists, et al, that just really deliver the goods in this profound documentary. The way interviews were done, filmed and edited together actually had me at one point really holding back tears, though there were several areas different people may find themselves doing the same, because all our stories are different and we all relate to that which hits hardest, home.

Don't make the mistake of watching The Culture High and expecting it to be "legalise weed" "legalise weed" "rah rah rah" or even just smashing you in the face with a million facts about the awesome cannabis plant. Not that those elements are missing from The Culture High, more just the fact that this time around they're of greater significant substance and work together to deliver a more important message.

In the two hour runtime The Culture High aims to be much bigger than The Union and to deliver a much more profound message to us all; humanity. The "Culture" High does just that. The pace fast, the strides long, but just slow enough to wait for those uninformed, so we can all get there together.

If you see one documentary this year, make it The Culture High! After all, humanity seems to finally be coming together on this issue, be unfair to let yourself miss out.... ;)