The Lisa Ling / Explorer documentary “Marijuana Nation” re-airs tonight on the National Geographic Channel at 7pm ET.

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Today’s Stash features an interview with John Holowach, director of the documentary “High: The True Tale of American Marijuana“.  Then we get some Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine and a look at the “gateway theory” that says marijuana will lead to meth.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last night’s “Explorer” documentary on the National Geographic channel entitled “Marijuana Nation” did a decent job of exploring the issue of cannabis in North America.  However, it did leave unchallenged some drug war assertions about cannabis.

Drug warriors in the film, as well as Lisa Ling’s own narration, sounded the alarms about the “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” we’re using today.  One figure cited was that the pot most people smoked in the ’60s was about 3-4% THC while what we smoke today can be up to 20%.  That’s kind of like saying the alcohol of the beer we drank in the ’60s was 3.2% while the rum we drink today can be up to 75%.  There was potent pot back in the ’60s and there is schwag around today.  The government’s own figures on THC levels of seized cannabis show the average has only doubled.

The question never answered about the potency is “So?”  It was obliquely referenced by the Canadian grower who responded to Lisa Ling’s question, “So this bud would get you very high?” by asking “Sure, but what is ‘high’?”  He pointed out that it could never kill you, you can’t overdose on it, and that you could eat lots of it and you’d just go to sleep.

That’s a start.  But people who’ve never used cannabis, and especially those who’ve used alcohol, have a misperception about what being high is.  They compare it to alcohol, which has different stages of intoxication, leading from happy and fun through aggressive and belligerent and on to puking and hangovers.  So they may attach that same frame to cannabis, figuring that with the new “super-pot”, it must somehow be different, differently intoxicating, differently addictive, and will affect personality differently.  They don’t understand that Cheech & Chong smoked a whole joint to get high while we today smoke a couple of puffs to get high.  High is high.  If Cheech & Chong smoked six joints, they’d go to sleep.  If we smoke one joint, we go to sleep.  The pot is no different, it just takes less of it to get high, which is better for your lungs.  It’s like that concentrated laundry detergent – it doesn’t clean your clothes any better, it just takes less of it to do laundry.

Another issue I have is with the selection of interview subjects.  We had drug warriors telling the prohibitionist’s side, medical growers and dispensary owners telling the medical side, but where were the stories from the activist side?  Where were Keith Stroup, Rob Kampia, Ethan Nadelmann, etc.?  I would trade any one of the many shots of Marc Emery with his four-foot bong and attendant “pretty ladies” for just one activist.

As a result, the harms from the prohibition of cannabis get the short shrift.  Brief mentions were made about the prison population and marijuana arrests, but never were any of the other nasty effects of prohibition mentioned.  No mention of transplant patients being denied for the medical marijuana use.  No mention of college girls murdered in drug stings gone bad.  No mention of college kids losing financial aid.  No mention of losing child custody over pot use.  No mention of drug raids gone bad and the people who die from them.

Lisa Ling also never approached the subject of how much we’re paying for this war on marijuana.  She did note whatever figures the DEA gave her on how much the illicit marijuana market is worth, but never the multi-billions we’re spending in a futile effort to stamp out the marijuana market.  Again, something Keith, Rob, or Ethan would’ve addressed in an instant.

However, as mainstream marijuana documentaries go, this one wasn’t bad.  It avoided most of the reefer madness generalities and balanced its time between drug warriors and cannabis enthusiasts.  The Canadian marijuana “forest” was excellent – the more people see that it’s only a plant, the better.  The various shots of cannabis consumers were good, though, again, I could do with less Marc Emery.  I give Lisa Ling the benefit of the doubt by assuming that she had to make do with 45 minutes of content (with commercials) and trimmed the documentary down to “what’s happening in marijuana” from “what’s happening in marijuana and marijuana law reform”.

Overall grade: B-

Marijuana Nation is playing on the National Geographic channel right now… if you’re reading this at 10pm Eastern.

Tune in tonight, Tuesday, December 2 at 7pm to the National Geographic Channel (satellite or cable) for the premiere of “Marijuana Nation”, a documentary by journalist Lisa Ling that looks like a very reasoned, objective look at the pro- and con- sides to the war on marijuana.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bloomberg.com:
Arts and Culture
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — Here’s some holiday cheer: At least one U.S. industry is not only booming but avoids government intervention like the plague. When these folks need a bailout they call their lawyers, not their lobbyists.

“Marijuana Nation,” which airs tomorrow on National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. New York time, is an intriguing look at the U.S. marijuana business, estimated to turn a tidy $65 billion annual profit despite an often perilous sales environment.

Anchored by Lisa Ling, former co-host of “The View,” this hour-long show presents enough market stats to make an analyst salivate.

Marijuana, first used as an intoxicant in China some 5,000 years ago, is now the most widely used illegal substance in the world, according to Ling. About 200 million people use pot in one form or another and the market is growing steadily, with 2 million Americans projected to try it for the first time this year.

California is also benefiting from sales of medical marijuana, which brought an estimated $3 million in tax revenue to Oakland in 2003.

Ling dons a helmet and fatigues to join a bust deep inside California’s Sequoia National Forest, where she rappels from a helicopter like a special-ops warrior. Public land is popular with pot farmers; in 2007 more than 250,000 plants were seized in this forest alone.

Yet these efforts seem futile. Law-enforcement officials say growers often plant five plots, assuming two will be seized by police and/or “pot pirates” while animals will eat the equivalent of another. That leaves two plots that can produce millions in profits.

Remember that Alcohol Prohibition ended not necessarily because there was a recognition of Prohibition’s failure.  That was widely understood, but it was the economic desperation of the Depression that finally nudged Americans to repeal Prohibition – we just couldn’t afford it.

I don’t think the drug war will end, but I do think it will shift.  As the Mexican border becomes more dangerous from cocaine, heroin, and meth trafficking, and as US cities and states begin to see these drugs as a bigger scourge (especially meth), I think the attitude will change to reflect that we can’t afford to aggressively police marijuana when resources are scarce to fight those other drugs.

Allen St. Pierre alerted me to this upcoming documentary on the National Geographic Channel this Tuesday, December 2, called “Marijuana Nation“.  The trailer makes this film look very promising as an objective look at the ridiculous failure that is marijuana prohibition.

Click here to view the embedded video.