Grass (1999)

Synopsis: Using snappy, comic book-like graphics, great newsreel and film footage, stills, and music, GRASS chronicles the history of the American government's relationship with marijuana and marijuana... Using snappy, comic book-like graphics, great newsreel and film footage, stills, and music, GRASS chronicles the history of the American government's relationship with marijuana and marijuana users. A slick, entertaining, witty documentary narrated by known grass activist Woody Harrelson, the film is a fast-paced, coherent (if somewhat biased) illustration of the absurdity of drug laws and the untruthful coercion tactics and propaganda campaigns the government has used since the 1900s to convince the public that pot causes everything from insanity and murder to rape and Communism. The film tells how marijuana was traded by migrant workers over the Mexican border in the early 1900s, and how laws passed to control the drug were also used to control immigrants. Soon, a series of "truths" were set loose on the public by the government to deter people from using grass (shown in the film as hilarious, but true, headlines deemed "The Official Truth": If you smoke it, you will kill people! and, If you smoke it, you will go insane!) More importantly, perhaps, is the film's examination of how drug laws and the drug war were first formed. Rather than passing the problem of drug addiction on to the Health Department, it was relegated to the Treasury Department, which formed the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which imposed taxes on marijuana instead of implementing rehabilitation programs for users of the more serious heroine and cocaine. [More]

Director: Ron Mann

Director: Ron Mann
Screenwriter: Solomon Vesta
Producer: Ron Mann
Composer: Guido Luciani