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Online Documentary Review
The Principle of Pot, Parts I and II
Producer/Videographer:  Paul McKeever.
Starring:  Marc Emery, Ayn Rand and others.

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Online Documentary Review

The Principle of Pot, Parts I and II

Producer/Videographer:  Paul McKeever.

Starring:  Marc Emery, Ayn Rand and others.

While Canadian cannabis activist Marc Emery has been featured or appeared in almost a dozen documentaries—from indie creations to National Geographic episodes—the latest cinematic venture to include him is, for the first time, all-encompassing. Filmmaker Paul McKeever, a lawyer, videographer and leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario, Canada, released The Principle of Pot this year. It’s a dense, multi-part documentary chronicling Emery’s many activist endeavors.

Closely examining Emery’s incarnations as a capitalist, Ayn Rand objectivist, libertarian and anarchist, McKeever’s deftly researched look at Emery’s work and his philosophies is fascinating. Extradited to the U.S. in May as an international drug dealer for selling cannabis seeds via mail, Emery is currently being held in Seattle for sentencing in September. The former bookseller faces 30 years to life, which has many supporters crying foul and wondering why the Canadian government allowed the U.S. to take one of its citizens in the first place.

McKeever’s doc—available in segments on YouTube—should ignite even more public debate regarding the DEA’s actions, because no matter where you stand on the issue of cannabis cultivation, there is a definite stench surrounding this story. Whether Emery and his supporters will be able to make it dissipate remains to be seen. (Jane Mast)

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Fiction Review

Point Dume: A Novel

Author:  Katie Arnoldi.

Publisher:  Overlook Hardcover.

Bodybuilding-champ-turned-author, Katie Arnoldi, received raves from The Village Voice for her debut novel, 2001’s Chemical Pink, which laid bare the intricacies and drama of the female bodybuilding world. The book became so popular, in fact, that its title even ended up as a question on Jeopardy!. A few years later, she followed it up with a seething expose on the wealthy Beverly Hills set in The Wentworths. Point Dume, her third novel, is already poised to be her most poignant and profound.

A former surfer, Arnoldi sets her tale in the Malibu beach community of Point Dume, and fills it with surf culture intrigue and raids on Mexican cartel marijuana crops by the locals. It’s a counterculture clash that could be ripped from today’s headlines. Hailed by critics as a page-turner with “crisp pacing and acerbic satire,” this darkly comic fable also points a spotlight on the realities of marijuana seizures: More marijuana is eradicated at California grow sites than is confiscated at the U.S.-Mexican border. To boot, the cartel sites are not organic, says Arnoldi, and use the most toxic pesticides, “rodenticides” and fertilizers to grow the plants, effectively killing everything in the area and permanently polluting waterways.

Check out this fascinating thriller. (Jane Mast)

canna

Book Review

Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point

Author: Dr. Christopher Glenn Fichtner.

Publisher: Well Mind Books.

As a psychiatrist, medical school professor and former state mental health director for Illinois, Dr. Christopher Fichtner has witnessed firsthand the societal impact of cannabis prohibition. He’s seen veterans suffering from untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, witnessed drug cartel violence spill across our borders, families torn apart and untold tax dollars squandered—all in an ultimately doomed effort to eradicate a weed that grows everywhere. In Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point, Fichtner draws liberally from the well of these experiences, and in the process brings to light an unsettlingly crisp picture of America’s war on pot.

Citing real-world medical cases and surprisingly recent news developments (including events that occurred less than a year ago), Fichtner examines the cannabis debate from a standpoint of economics—the money game of prohibition, medical marijuana and proposed forms of legalization. While not a treatise or a polemic, Cannabinomics makes a powerful argument for reforming cannabis policy toward one based not on emotions or politics but cold, hard facts. It’s a remarkable book, released earlier this year without much fanfare but destined to take its place among the more influential scholarly works on cannabis reform. (James Lang)

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