Documentary Movie Review: How Weed Won The West

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Kevin Booth's American Drug War was a good film about a bad policy. This sequel focuses on recent events in California's “Emerald Triangle” and the booming medical marijuana industry and the mentality of the government's “War On Drugs” viewpoints in an area where the people have spoken, and how the battle for de-criminalization is never really over.

We meet growers, distributors, and users to get the first hand accounts of how modern day “reefer madness”has affected them. The often touted opinion of “Stoners” as unintelligent couldn't possibly be 100% true, when there are more headshops in southern California “than there are Starbucks”

We find out that marijuana is very scientific. Breeding different strains together to get desired medicinal effects to help the customer, or by realizing northern California's “Emerald Triangle” being the prime area for growers, as it is the inverse meridian of Afghanistan's poppy regions. The Californian Marijuana industry is researched and optimized for maximum results.

The message of this film is straight forward, check out some of these people, and why they do what they do, and then show how government interferes. This film was pretty hard to watch for me, because while all of the information was good, it reminded me of MTV's documentaries. You still get the feeling that this is a cultural battle being disguised as a battle of fundamentals, when you can tell that Kevin makes poor attempts to show it the other way around.

Radio host Alex Jones features prominently in this film, being the naysayer against authoritarianism and control, however the only example in the film is one Medical Marijuana shop where the local government kept pushing the State anti-drug agencies and the DEA to raid the place. A business owner and his employees pushed around and security cameras broken, guns in their faces. Of all the tragic aspects of this raid, Kevin Booth focuses on the owners' Pit Bull injured by two bullets fired by agents during the raid.

What could have been a very sympathetic moment for the movement, became too personal to be taken seriously. The owner starts spouting off Common Law, and it's never explained, so the owner winds up looking like a kook and the only collateral damage that you wind up being sympathetic for is the dog.

The usual arguments about comparisons to Alcohol Prohibition and the mainstream pharmaceutical industry. We meet Sherry, a pro wrestler and actress who, after back injury, increased the dosage of painkillers to the point where I felt sorry for her liver. This beauty queen tells her story and her frustration with pills while sitting sensual in her bikini, and I swear there was a shot of her walking with crutches with her breasts hanging out the bottom of her tank top. Once again, a seeming compassionate victim comes across in the film as a wierdo.

This is the unfortunate truth about this film. We meet several persons affected by the drug war, however, when it comes to credibility, there isn't a whole lot of first hand interviews that the average person would want to relate to. But what Kevin lacks in the company he keeps, he makes up for in philosophy and science. When you feature scenes of former gang leaders making a purchase from a convicted Rastafarian, you had better find a way to make it look better than it sounds and Kevin Booth barely passes the smell test.

Information: The facts and philosophy are great research. The first hand interviews are based on life experience, which isn't as important. The information level is high, but you get the impression that Kevin intends the viewer to be as well. - 4 Stars

Source Documentation: Cameras are inside the industry. - 4 Stars

Presentation Method: If you've ever seen any of the MTV specials like "16 and Pregnant" or "True Life" it's that style where you follow the stories of a few people affected a scene at a time. This film would have been better served not inter-cut, but should have told each story individually, with the facts and figures told separately to show a difference between the valid information and the stoners. - 3 Stars

Visuals/Sound: While Kevin Booth doesn't add a bunch of flashy stuff, the camera work is amazing with the exception of one or two scenes. You can almost smell the Pineapple Kush through the screen. - 4 Stars

Political & Social Spectrum: American Drug War had drug opponents, this doesn't. This plays out more like a propaganda film for NORML than a semi-objective documentary, but that's the point. - 3 Stars

Solution, Constitution, or Pollution: Solution! Even though this film is all about the issues with California's law, it's clear by the end of the film that it is a freedom issue, and one that will be settled one state at a time through state legislatures and petitioning for ballot initiatives, and the power to decriminalize is within reach if you take action. - 5 Stars

Overall Wake-up-ability: Marijuana skeptics unfortunately will not be swayed very much by this film, so it will be preaching to the choir of the majority of the public who already agrees with decriminalization. The hope is that everyone can come away with a little more compassion and education when it comes to the medicinal use of this plant. - 3 Stars