Thursday, April 20, 2023

Grass is Greener

This is a 2019 Netflix documentary which is being discussed tonight for obvious reasons: 

Yes, I literally watched this on Netflix once 4:20 hit lol. What my history of cannabis use is (or isn’t) won’t be discussed here; for certain, people I know personally and online smoke The Devil’s Lettuce so usually I talk about something appropriate around April 20. 

In this case, it’s a 2019 documentary from legendary visual artist Fab 5 Freddy-who told me that everybody’s fly-which discusses marijuana’s ties to minorities in the United States, especially Black people. Indeed, weed has not only had an obvious connection to hip-hop music & reggae, but also jazz… and that starts like a century ago. After all, I’ve known for ages that an old name for joints is “jazz cigarettes.”

How cannabis became criminalized is explained-a lot of it was known due to other documentaries. From there this is in fact quite political as the disproportionate number of minorities who have been incarcerated due to pot in the War on Drugs is discussed, along with other similar topics. One person in particular was covered as he was jailed for years due to an accumulation of several minor ganja arrests. Even once Mary Jane has become more and more decriminalized, white faces are the predominant shade of skin in that booming business. Various black artists were interviewed, alongside academic types.

Besides the educating scenes there are plenty of moments which should infuriate people due to sheer injustice. That was why the occasional moments of levity-such as Snoop Dogg revealing the first time he had bud. Sure, it’s funny to talk about this on the official holiday for all stoners but this is actually worthy of serious, sober viewing on any day if you want to learn much more about how a plant has been used as a weapon against certain segments of the population.

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