Exploring “Marijuana Country”

n January 5, a new cannabis documentary aired on CNBC to define and
examine the burgeoning era of legalization all across the Western half of the
country. The documentary, Marijuana
Country: The Cannabis Boom focuses on the legal industry, as well as the black
market that still exists. It also covers some other hot topics that have come
up in the past year, such as medical cannabis for children, worker’s rights and
medical cannabis, as well as the controversy surrounding the use of edibles. CULTURE had the chance to speak to
documentary creator Harry Smith directly, to learn more about the thought that
went into creating this documentary, as well as what he discovered about the
industry while making it.

“I did one story on this back in February, and I thought ‘you can’t get
a story like this in just one hour,’” he relates. “So I thought, ‘Let’s go back
and see what we can see.’ From what I saw this time around, the people who are
really succeeding are the ones who are following the letter of the law, working
within regulations and with regulatory industry to make sure that everything is
within specifications.” He describes an industry much more organized and above-board
than the one he first observed in legal and medical states, and says he has
seen much forward-moving progress in the industry over the past year.

Overall, the documentary has a much less biased tone than a great deal
of the past mainstream journalism that has been done on cannabis culture. The
film shows the industry as a legitimate business that is growing and expanding
as new stores open and new contacts are formed. It also shows the relief
children are getting from low-THC cannabis in a very positive light and tells
some heartbreaking stories about children with seizures and the lengths their
parents have gone to in order to get them medicine, as well as showing how some
of the people being fired for using cannabis are people with terribly
debilitating conditions who really need the product to function.

“You’re taking something that people have been doing for years, and
pulling the curtain back on it,” Smith says in regards to the approach of his
piece. “As this becomes a part of day-to-day life, I think it becomes less
shocking for people. Legalization definitely played a big part in pulling the
curtain back.”

However, he also feels that the industry is still rough because
speaking on a grander scale, it is largely still in its infancy. “There is still this feeling of ‘is
this actually going on?’” he explains in regards to the newness of the legal
cannabis world. “‘Slow’ is the word that I would use for the progress of the
states following behind these legal states; there is still a bit of caution. But
they are all watching Colorado very closely, to see how this thing turned out.
And then back here on the East Coast, it is still totally different. Sometimes
you’ll hear talk of caregivers and that kind of thing, but it is really not a
visible thing anywhere around here.”

There are also a few sections of the documentary that show cannabis in
a slightly negative light, although even these sections are a vast improvement
over some of the sensationalized journalism that has taken place in the past. One
of the subjects interviewed regarding the illegal underground is a grower who suffers
from PTSD and seems fairly unstable throughout the interview. He discusses how
he sells his extra product on craigslist.org
and meets people in parking lots in order to make his transactions. While the
interviewee does make some good points about his legal rights, and the
documentary does steer clear of mentioning gang activity or any of the other
negatives that the industry is often saddled with, it does beg the question of
whether or not this person represents a good sample population of illegal
sellers. Someone who grows cannabis and sells quietly to a few friends instead
of posting on the internet is of course not featured, as that would not make
for good news.

There was also a bit of both the negative and the positive surrounding
the edibles debate in this film, which is fitting, since this has been such a
hotly contested topic over the past year. Smith speaks to officials who say
that edibles are dangerous and tempt children, and then to an edibles
manufacturer who says that like guns or alcohol, you should have your edibles
and other cannabis products nowhere near your children, and the parents are
always at fault in these situations. He also talks to a doctor who complains of
people “overdosing” by eating too much, and then a manufacturer who states that
people should be cautious in consumption, and that they make products with low
THC levels because they would rather have return customers than people who have
a bad experience from taking too much.

“The world of edibles surprised a lot of people,” Smith says regarding
that part of his documentary and the nation’s reaction to the industry at
large. “When issues occurred with edibles, the industry seemed to respond right
away, and they handled it very well,” he explains. “What is interesting about
the industry is their capacity to respond.” While the documentary does caution
against the use of edibles without regard to safety, it shows that if handled
correctly they can be just as benign as any other form of cannabis.

All in all Smith seems to be an impartial bystander who is now
convinced of the success surrounding the experiment of legalization. “I don’t
use cannabis, and I try not to even physically touch the stuff, in order to be
as impartial about the issue as possible,” he told us. “People said that when
[cannabis] became legal in Colorado there would be carnage on the highways;
that everyone would be stoned, but that hasn’t happened. We are just now seeing
the beginning of this thing.”