Grass

This documentary shows how scaremongering has influenced a generation of Americans, and how effective the power of hatred can be.

I don't smoke myself, so I cannot be accused of wanting the drug to be legalised for selfish reasons. The film gives a good argument based around how much money, and it's a ridiculously, comically large figure, has been wasted on the "War on Drugs". Because when you think about it, there would be no such thing as world hunger if even an eighth (no pun intended) of this money had been used all those years ago to better effect.

But we're skipping the film itself here. It's funny, fresh, fast-paced, has crazy visuals, and is entertaining aswell as education, and well worth your time.

It's a film paranoid parents and school-teachers should see, but they won't, it's up to our generation to make the change and to make more informative films like this.

'Grass' is a war documentary. From small beginnings, this war has escalated throughout the 20th century, costing billions of dollars, with no resolve in sight.

This sociological piece favors one side, that of legalization, and an end to the war on drugs. 'Grass' raises questions that, whatever your feelings towards the drug, are due for some objective debate. The subject matter is exclusively Grass in America, with only occasional mention of other drugs or countries.

Grass hurtles through a fascinating account of the social and political history of marijuana in the US. Important bills, social movements, and other events are documented in an appropriately mellow manner. The production is mostly stock footage with clever animations dispersed to signal a new law or time period. The soundtrack delivered the required music; 'One toke over the line', some Louis Armstrong and the Peter Tosh classic 'Legalize it'.

While largely focusing on the socio/politics of marijuana there is also an effort to dispel many of the myths of user effects. Humorous interviews and 'informational video's' from all eras show attempts by lobby groups to portray pot as Satan in a plant. It is made clear that there is no evidence that the drug causes insanity, perversion, and homicidal behavior. Just what the drugs effects really are, the documentary admits, is almost entirely unknown.

'Grass' is not a pot adventure; it doesn't advocate use. The focus is a condemnation of American belief that throwing people in jail will change individuals private practices.

Woody Harrelson narrates on a very interesting and highly informative documentary on the history of US law and drug policy regarding the highly controversial substance cannabis. Highly entertaining and witty with a vast collection of clips and videotapes of politicians, musicians and pot parties. Yet again, the US government has egg on its face as the amount of money spent on the war on marijuana rises, along with the amount of people using it. Exposing some of the blatant ignoring of government reports and findings, Grass moves along a good pace and doesn't get too carried away at any point with statements of how great cannabis, mostly just the facts. However, there is a lot more to the plant that has obviously not been included, as the film focuses around the efforts made by the US government only, and not cannabis as a whole.

Definitely an interesting film, with lots to learn from it, but by no means the definitive word on cannabis.

I find reviews interesting in that they tell us what the "reviewer" got out of the movie. I will try to give a true review, and I believe a true "review" tells what point the movie was making. Of course this would be what I got out of the movie, so is it a true review. Maybe the only way for a person to really know what a movie is about is to watch it and not worry about what someone else thought of it. I think this movie was written as a "documentary" and it documents the propaganda about drug from the beginning of the century. It attempts to show those of us who have seen the current propaganda our how it has been presented over the generations. I saw the point as being how serious the subject is taken now, and how we are told that the current law is based on the facts, when their facts came from a propaganda campaign. And if you look deep enough you will see that that propaganda campaign was perpetrated for the interest of Big Business. The purpose of the "war against marijuana" is not to eliminate the use. It is to prevent the growth of hemp which competes with the cotton industry, petroleum industry, paper industry, etc. It is also interesting that we continue to let the propaganda confuse the marijuana plant with the hemp plant.

I watched this right after completing a research paper on marijuana policy, and it was certainly a nice break after working entirely out of dry text. Much easier on the eyes than hundreds of pages of tiny type.

There certainly is a lot of stuff this movie left out, including some of the funnier things (such as the marijuana murder trials of 1938, or the 120-second Congressional hearings for the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act), but it definitely gets the point across in a colorful, often rather silly way complete with movie clips, weird songs, goofy video-game graphics, old-ranting-politician footage, and some of the more ludicrous public service announcements. The cultural bent makes it much less dry than most of the strictly historical, legal and political reading I've done, which is saying a bit as the legal history is pretty entertaining.

Just in case you somehow miss the point (or forget about it while watching Cab Calloway tap-dance), Grass makes a heavy point of repeatedly pointing out the escalating amounts of money spent on this unobtrusive little weed, and highlights the blatant lies the public has been subjected to over the past century by reiterating "The Truth" for every decade or so.

The only real downside to the movie is that it skipped over the disclaimer that every marijuana decriminalization piece really needs to have in it somewhere: There is no such thing as an entirely safe drug.

In conclusion, I would recommend this movie quite highly if you're looking to be introduced to the subject in a tolerably entertaining fashion, or if you're sick of reading and want something a little more audially/visually stimulating. For real information on the drug, however, I'd recommend reading "Marihuana: a Signal of Misunderstanding" instead.