The Culture High

I'll spare you the details about why pot should be legal. If you've found this movie then you probably already know. And that's where this documentary has been such a delight to view. It briefly goes into those details and focuses more on the big picture. It posits the question, why did our culture make it illegal in the first place and more importantly why does it continue to keep it illegal by waging a "drug war" that is a clear failure.

From politics, to the media, to the prison industry/asset forfeitures, to drug cartels, to pharmaceuticals, to big corporations, it all boils down to making money. Each has a stake in keeping the status quo and in keeping marijuana illegal. And that's where this documentary is so much more different than so many other legalize pot docs. It looks at our society as a whole and asks those big questions in an objective manner in spite of its advocacy to legalize pot. Instead of preaching about why pot is so groovy, it focuses on how money corrupts our culture's institutions and how people are controlled to think a certain way.

Irregardless of the hopelessness and powerlessness one feels when watching how money corrupts almost every aspect of our society, this documentary at the end left me with some feeling of hope that things just might change. Not just in regards to legalizing pot nationally, but that the internet and the flow of information might some day open more doors than those in power keep trying to close. That our society and the world can become a better place.

Rather then get more preachy I'll just say this, in my humble opinion I would rank this as one of, if not the best documentary on legalizing pot. It's an all encompassing informative documentary on the topic well worth two hours of your time.

I've seen their first film The Union, many other pot and drug documentaries and read books by Gabor Matè and Tom Feiling etc. but still Culture High managed to blow my mind.

Like the director Brett Harvey said, Marijuana touches pretty much every issue that is wrong in the world. It's not that legalizing pot would solve all the problems in the world, but it's all the injustices in the world that are actually keeping pot illegal.

And it's not just the topic and the content that makes this film so good. It's technically and storytelling-wise pure gold. These guys aren't really pot activist, they are film makers and at least in the field of documentaries, they are one of the best at the moment. I guess the only reason they aren't more known is because you can't really get critical acclaim in this world by making a movie about pot - yet ;)

This documentary really has potential to inspire change in the world. So thanks guys for incredible work!

I enjoyed the documentary and liked how they managed to expand their topic from marijuana to a lot of the issues or society is facing nowadays, revealing shocking facts, some of which I ignored. I think it does a great job at informing people about the current state of the legalization debate and what social issues are in some way connected to it, how there has been a lot of manipulation, how it happened and how it continues to occur, after watching the documentary you realize that you didn't just watch a documentary about pot, that was just the starting point and it is just a example.

When I finished watching the documentary, I did what I usually do after watching a movie, opened IMDb, voted and checked out what other people had to say about it (my major is psychology and my minor is cinematography and took some documentary classes at the university). I was instantly amazed by the huge difference between user score and the metascore, so I continued to read some of the metacritic reviews and I was surprised by how unfounded and fallacy-based all the criticism was (reading some of the reviews I felt like they didn't even watch the full documentary or they were people with poor understanding of the subjects - cinematography, documentary and/or the topics discussed on the documentary).

Personally I rated the documentary with a 9, because I liked how they exposed their ideas in a fun and simple way, keeping it close to the public, sometimes laughing at a joke and other times feeling the pain and emotion from a heartbreaking story. Also I liked the footage they used, the only aspect I didn't like was it's length (I found it to be a little too long, extending too much on some topics) and that it was centered on the United States scenario (which I totally understand).

My personal conclusion was that those reviews are only more proof to what the documentary trying to point out.

Thank you for reading and please excuse my grammar since I am not a native English speaker.

The film's opening sequence of a man's house being raided, his dog being shot, and his family being terrified, by a SWAT team sent it for a weed bust aptly set the tone of this film. This film does not hold back in its attack against the forces that oppose the legalisation of weed. Naturally it's enemy is the Federal Government of USA. However in a broader perspective it looks at the influence of the prescription drug corporations and also the media.

Most of the points made in this film have been publicised before in other documentaries, articles, podcasts and interviews. However the academics and scientists interviewed manage to reinforce these ideas in an extremely compelling way, such that one can not feel like decriminalisation is an absolute necessity for the social wellbeing of our nature. The insights from other stereotypical "weed celebrities" such as Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa offer little to this film.

Where the film lacks is in its limited discussion of the most recent policy changes in Colorado and Washington State. If we want to look at the need for policy changes nationally, surely a longer conservation on the reform in these two states would give weight to decriminalisation. In a similar vein, this film pays no attention to the legalization of weed in foreign countries.

Worth a watch if you're at all interested in the subject of legalisation.

I really cannot put into words how amazing, powerful and moving this documentary was. My girlfriend and I watched it not expecting a lot, but we were very pleasantly surprised. In fact, those words do not even do it justice.

I don't really have much further to add to the other 2 reviews, except that the score can only have been influenced by anti-drugs campaigners, so if you are generally swayed by that type of thing, please make aan exception in this case.

It's another eye-opener into how our higher powers have manipulated and continue to manipulate and steer us. It shows us how those days might be coming to an end as we enter the next phase of the information age, and leave the dawn behind.

If you have a brain and an even half-open mind you WILL find this extremely interesting.