YouTube Censors Powerful Scene In Cannabis Docu ‘High’

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High: The True Tale of American Marijuana

​High: The True Tale of American Marijuana, featured on Toke of the Town last year, has received lots of support and kudos from film-watchers, documentary lovers, and the drug policy reform community. So the film’s director, John Holowach, was understandably surprised on Tuesday when he logged into his YouTube account and discovered a notice from YouTube that one of his videos — a clip of one of the most powerful scenes in the documentary — had been censored.

“Yes, YouTube informed me that they have censored what is perhaps the most important and powerful scene in the documentary,” Holowach said. “Displaying a vicious abuse of power of prison guards, prisoners are made to crawl on the ground, strip naked, bend over, and all of this in front of other prisoners and caught on camera.”


High: The True Tale of American Marijuana

​”There was nothing sexual or provocative about this,” Holowach said. “Nothing lurid. Just horrifying. High is not about the sexuality in any way, and neither is this clip.
“Whatever mouth-breather at YouTube that decided that this clip — which comes from one of the most-viewed Netflix documentaries and sixth most-viewed documentary of all time on Hulu — deserved to be censored, I would like to speak with them and ask them what, precisely, was going through their heads.
“So, YouTube, I just have to ask,” Holowach said. “Precisely what about this clip (which was already restricted to be watched by people who were logged in and listed their age as over 18) made it worthy of being completely removed, censored, and deleted from the site?”

High: The True Tale of American Marijuana
Here’s the notice that “High” director John Holowach received from YouTube on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

Here’s the clip in question:

Prisoners abused and treated like dogs (WARNING: Nudity, disturbing content) from John Holowach on Vimeo.

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