The Culture High Interview

This New Documentary Might Seriously Change Your Perspective On Getting Stoned

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In light of the sweeping drug reform that has transformed states like Colorado into havens for marijuana use and sale, along with the increasingly tolerant attitudes toward the drug worldwide, it can be tempting to say that the tide is turning — that the Wild West is finally being tamed.



However, in talking to Adam Scorgie, one of the filmmakers behind The Culture High — a documentary that uses marijuana as a lens to examine the underlying societal issues that keep prohibition going strong — I learned that legalization is further off than many of us may think. Whatever is happening in Colorado, the sale of marijuana remains a federal crime. Period. So even if you live in a decriminalized state, federal drug enforcement agents can still prosecute you despite state law being on your side. And it is happening — according to a June 2013 report published by Americans for Safe Access, the DEA has carried out more drug raids under the Obama administration than in the previous twelve years combined.



Scorgie is well-versed on the topic of the marijuana prohibition machine. In 2007, he produced and released The Union: The Business Behind Getting High to critical acclaim and great success. Where that doc detailed the way the marijuana trade grew in spite of legal obstacles in Scorgie’s native British Columbia, this year’s follow-up, The Culture High, examines the cogs in the machine that are designed to keep prohibition laws on the books despite growing evidence that they do far more harm than good.

There are still a number of serious obstacles to decriminalization. Here are the ones that Adam Scorgie pointed out to us.

A Broken Campaign Financing System

In our interview, Scorgie was direct in his characterization of the campaign finance system: “Being a politician and changing laws is a business in itself. A politician is only going to run on a campaign that gets him elected.” What wins elections? Money. “The guy with more money wins 95% of the time." And where does this money come from? Lobbying. The Culture High paints a simple, if sinister, picture of how modern political lobbying works. Special interest groups with something to lose — a pharmaceutical company with a drug that could compete directly with marijuana, for example — are all too happy to cut an obscenely large check towards a politician’s election campaign as long as they maintain the status quo on prohibition.

Big Pharma

There’s a reason Big Pharma - a term popularized by UK author Jacky Law, which refers to the pharmaceutical lobby - spends billions of dollars every year buying political influence to keep drug laws from being changed. The top 10 best-selling pharmaceutical drugs of 2013 generated $75.6 billion in sales. Scorgie suggested to us that, if people were free to grow their own alternative, organic medicine for pennies on the dollar, those sales numbers would plummet. And Big Pharma knows it. That’s why in the U.S., TV viewers are bombarded with ads for drugs that are sure to relieve at least one of the dozens of symptoms they can recognize in themselves with some gentle prodding.

“There are several billionaires that are involved in drug testing and pharmaceutical companies that don’t want you to go any other way. Because people are starting to wake up and say ‘Hey, if I don’t eat like sh*t seven days a week and I get some exercise and sleep properly — I can cut out a lot of f*cking medications I don’t need.’”

The pharmaceutical industry that we know markets drugs directly to consumers on TV — but this is a practice that’s only allowed in the United States and New Zealand. As Scorgie points out, “You’re even seeing TV ads now for pharmaceuticals saying, ‘You think diet and exercise are all you need to maintain your health? Get real. Look at the facts and use this prescription drug.’”

Private Prison Systems

The Culture High focuses on a fatal societal flaw of the for-profit prison system: it encourages the persecution of low-level, nonviolent criminals in order to maintain a state-mandated minimum level of occupancy. Otherwise, they stand to lose their funding. Here's how Scorgie summed it up:

“Even if crime goes down in that state, they still have to maintain that occupancy — so what’s the easiest way and the easiest conviction you can get? Simple possession. Easy. A little paperwork. You’re caught with it on you. Boom. Done. Any other charge is very difficult. Murder, rape, you have to get DNA testing, forensics, lab investigation — it’s very hard.”

Giving prisons a financial incentive to maintain a minimum prison population puts the focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation. This is, after all, a system that values "return business." From Scorgie's perspective, this is a significant barrier to the national legalization movement.