• WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.THIS IS MERICA,THE BULLY BEAST OF THE FUCKING WORLD.HOW HORRIBLE FOR ALL THESE POOR UNFORTUNATE AMERICANS.DO YOU THINK GOD WILL FUCK THEM UP???? WHOSE SIDE IS GOD ON ANY WAY?

• You're absolutely right, "Mr Smith".... If you define "setting the bar pretty low" as 2,000,000 page views in the past 6 months.

• Mr. Smith who made you the judge on what a person considers achieving their potential as a human being? If Steve feels that working on this site is productive, who are you to judge otherwise. Do you know how many hours he spends gathering the information and distributing it?

• If running a website makes you feel that you've achieved your potential as a human being, you've got the bar set pretty low.

• Hey, "Mr Smith," would that loss of mental clarity and motivation and passion be a reason that you couldn't find a pothead with the mental clarity and motivation and passion to, say, run this site for instance? Hey, wait a minute... Guess your theory needs some work!

• Sounds absolutely great that you're helping those not in the U.S. receive a copy of your film for free. Keep up the great work.

• I believe this documentary to be a one sided view of pot use. Here's why: Where in this film does it discuss what years of pot use does to a person? I've known countless users in my life, including myself, that have lost not only time and money to their use, but mental clarity, motivation, also a passion for things that at one time gave a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Pot SLOWLY dilutes something within a person, call it spirit, lust, zeal, or whatever, but there is a gradual change in a person, I've seen it countless times. Everybody knows that old lazy stoner cliche you see in movies, well thats really not far off base. That spans all demo-graphs as well. Casual non-habitual pot smokers make up a small percentage of users, most users of the drug try to use daily. Where did it mention the children that are raised by parents that are high as hell 24/7 and fail to engage and socialize effectively with their kids? There's a big difference between "raising" and "maintaining" a child. A lot of young parents are guilty of that right now, you CANNOT be high and be a responsible and attentive parent, don't kid yourself. Drug abuse, no matter what drug, is abuse. It hurts families period. Also, throwing in statistics about how bad other drugs are is NOT an argument for legalization. "Oh, well this is so much worst than that, why not make this legal? People are going to get it any right?" Sorry folks, two wrongs don't make a right. If you caught you child with cigarettes over and over again, would it be o.k. to say "Well...their gonna do it anyway so I'll let them smoke in the house and buy their cigarettes so they don't get in trouble. At least their not drinking right?" I'm not comparing the substances in that example, but the situation and the school of thought that people succumb to. I've never met a person whose first drug was pot and NEVER tried another drug. I'm sure there is a small group out there but most do graduate (or at least experiment) to other (and harder) drugs eventually. What person who has never touched a drug decides one day to go buy some meth just to see what all the fuss is about? Pot IS the starter drug, like it said in this film, it's easier to get than alcohol. I just think there is another side to pot that people don't want to talk about, maybe it hard for some to take a honest look at themselves and what it can do to lives. Now that would be a documentary that could make a difference for the better.

• This is easily the worst weed documentary I've seen though. And I've seen every one I could find.

• Thanks man for sharing this post.

• Canadian mirror anybody? I think they're might be a few tokers up here lol.

• Watching 40 or so minutes in right now and this really angers me. How are drugs bad yet child abuse in anti drug youth agencies completely legal and looked up upon? Wtf is wrong with our culture?

• you should do a torrent of the movie. then anyone that wanted to watch it, could. regardless of their location.

• god damn you Hulu. Region blocking videos is not what the internet is about! You seriously suck massive, hairy balls.

• My only complaint is that the last two segments (about Dr. Heberle and his patients and then the closing segment) seemed out of place in the documentary as a whole. I kept expecting it to segue way back into "the true tale of American marijuana," but ultimately I forgot I was even watching a documentary on American marijuana. The last two segments were interesting, don't get me wrong, but they seemed irrelevant to the film as a whole without "coming back around" to what was viewed in the hour before it. I think if the segment on Dr. Heberle had ended with information about medical marijuana being superior to opiate-based medications in many ways (such as effectiveness on neuropathic pain, its non-addictive nature, limited adverse side effects, no lethal dose, etc.), and if the last segment had people fill in the sentence "Marijuana is..." rather than "Drugs are..." then it would have felt liked I watched the same film through and through rather than going onto a pain medication tangent without ever coming back around. So maybe that's something to keep in mind for your next project. Other than that aspect of feeling like I was no longer watching a "true tale of American marijuana" at the very end, I really enjoyed the documentary. Oh, and excellent fact-countering against the John Walters interview! In this "war on drugs" AKA "war on people" what we need is education and FACTS, juxtaposing the hackneyed false statistics with REAL scientific evidence! Keep on keepin' on!

• Please, tell me what you really think. ;-) I actually did have professional narration replace mine, but my distributor wanted it to be my voice on there because they felt it was more personal. I'm sorry my voice troubles you so. As for the production value, I'll be the first to admit there were shortcomings. It was filmed mostly in 2005 and it was just me and my producer traveling around the country interviewing people. We didn't have a crew and a lot of it was run-and-gun. I had hopes to include a great deal more news footage, more contemporary music, and better stock photos, unfortunately our minuscule budget prevented that, so I had to make do with public domain footage and music, along with whatever I could ask for free from various artists. Still, for the little I had to work with and the harried nature of how we got interviews and footage, I don't think I've done so badly, what with getting distribution and having it seen by countless people on DVD, Netflix, iTunes, and now Hulu. Having said that, my next project is a feature with a much higher budget, so you probably won't be hearing me narrate anything anytime soon.

• Good coverage on the pain physician cases and 'Straight' program but I wonder if the director has seen a movie narrated by Woody Harrelson called "Grass"... Basically the same stance and information especially on the wasted tax dollars on the war on drugs. OTher than that... HOLY CRAP this was a poorly done documentary. Take a film class one time at the learning annex, watch some good movies, hire a narrator, the voice is like listening to nails on a chalk board. It might have been a good idea to show a two person interview instead of asking questions behind a camera, make it seem like it wasnt just one guy with a camera, iMovie and a really bad animation program. Good content, even though its been done before, plus I would have liked to see some explanation for the DEA's actions with the physician's case even if they had to be assumed, I don't like leaving their intentions as some spooky unknown that we don't understand. You could have gone the easy route and blamed bureaucracy, or money, or the devil... Do they think they are the first documentary film makers to be turned down for an interview by an agency that they are criticizing???? But good lord... my ADHD 14 year old cousin could have made a stylistically more appealing documentary. Seriously.

• Check out the post I made below and I'll get it to you.

• Okay, this is the filmmaker: Everyone who is outside of the US with no access to it beyond paying ridiculous import fees, go to this page: http://synergeticdistribution.com/contact.html Fill out your name, email (I will use this to contact you), and in the message type what country you're from and I'll get back to you within a day or two with a link to download the film. Everyone in the US: it'll be much faster to watch on Hulu, trust me. ;-)

• As a Canadian I feel a connection to the west coast california scene. Best of luck to prop 19. Really am hoping to find this documentary in the future

• Why is there an above the influence commercial on this?

• So. I'm from sweden and I REALLY want to see this documentary. How do I get a copy? my email is: doterik at gmail dot com

• hi John - sorry to bug you but I am from Canada and I too cannot view the video. I'd be grateful if you could e-mail me a copy too. Thanks.

• Hey Michael, it's the director. If you get me your email address, I'll personally send you a digital copy of the film for free.

• I'll forgive you Steve, as long as you keep entertaining me and continue to provide such quality, cannabis inspired articles :) Though I did want to see the documentary :)

• Oh man, bummer, Michael! Sorry about that.

• Unfortunately you cannot stream this video if you live outside of the USA.. That includes me.. DOH

• I just watched this last night, it was awesome!

• I've got a copy. The prison sequence is pretty damn disturbing.

• great stuff.

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