I’ve enjoyed CNBC documentary reports like “The Age of Wal-Mart,” which explored not only the business of Wal-Mart but also its effect on small business, how it saves low-income families much-needed money, and both the positive and negative effects on our culture.
Compare this to “Marijuana Inc.” This new report fails to explore the impact of marijuana use on individuals, families or communities. It also ignores the crime created by prohibition of marijuana and fails to draw the obvious parallel to alcohol prohibition.
Instead, this piece reports banal factoids, like how even “normal people” in California are learning how to grow pot because it’s very profitable. I can’t help but think that this sort of verbiage is evidence of a anti-pot bias on the part of the producers that kept them from asking hard questions or exploring some of the complexities of this issue—the very stuff that would have made this report even somewhat compelling.
I would be willing to excuse a one-sided, non-comprehensive look at the marijuana industry if it illuminated any aspects of the industry or the policy debate that I was unfamiliar with, but “Marijuana Inc.” fails on that front as well. Somehow I had already heard that California has marijuana growers and dispensaries.
In conclusion, FAIL.
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