Running Head: THE BUSINESS BEHING GETTING HIGH

The Business behind Getting High
Alanna Kis
Analytical Review

The Business behind Getting High In the documentary, The Business behind Getting High, Adam Scorgie explores the illegal marijuana industry in the United States and British Columbia. It gives arguments as to why marijuana should be legal and the positives uses of the drug. The film takes a look at the business and economic sides of weed by speaking with dealers, growers, users, and politicians. The author proves to have sufficient and appropriate evidence to sustain his case. The arguments are portrayed well and make one think why we are not capitalizing on such a wonderful plant. In the beginning of the documentary Adam Scorgie explains exactly what the drug marijuana is. For those that are not aware marijuana is product from Cannabis sativa, which is a hemp plant, and it refers specifically to the plant’s leaves and flowers. Marijuana has a variety of alternative names, including pot, weed, bud, and grass. What most people would find odd is that at one point marijuana was very much legal. In the documentaries it explains that hemp from the cannabis plant was among the largest agriculture crop in the world up until 1883.( Scorgie A) Hemp is one of the most durable, natural, softest fibers in the world. It has been used for paper, fiber, medicine, and lighting oil. The first two copies of the declaration of independence were actually written on hemp paper. The first marijuana law ever created was actually to order farmers to grow hemp.( Scorgie A) In 1948 the U.S government realized that marijuana was made illegal for the wrong reasons, not because of the violent crimes that result from marijuana uses but because people were becoming pessimists.( Scorgie A) The believed communist would use cannabis to make America weakened to fight. The prohibition against marijuana that is pointed out in the documentary is said that it is meant to fix us, but does it really work? The mayor of Vancouver Larry Campbell says “Prohibition has never worked.( Scorgie A)”An estimated 7.7 billion dollars is spent annually by the US government to enforce marijuana prohibition. Whether marijuana is legal or not, it really does not affect the rate of the users. There are said to be fifty million marijuana users today in the U.S. The biggest question is how a massive market survives while being illegal. It is estimated that in British Columbia marijuana is estimated to bring in seven billion dollars annually and about 80% of the trade heads south to the United States. But still as it stands cannabis is as illegal today as it was seventy years ago. It does however remain to be seen whether attitude and consequently laws will shift again as result of the ongoing debate over marijuana. One of the most effective reasons given in documentary pertaining to why marijuana is legal and why it shouldn’t be is that most people including the government believe that marijuana kills brain cells. This theory resulted from a study that was conducted by Heath Tulane. Tulane used monkeys to show the damages of marijuana to the brain cells. The monkeys were pumped full of marijuana through gas masks without any additional oxygen. It is reported that the monkeys received the equivalent of thirty joints a day and began to deteriorate and die after 90 days (that's 2700 joints, or an average of 1.25 joints per hour 24 hours a day, for 90 days!) (Scorgie A )There is no possibility that human beings could ever be exposed to that much marijuana. Studies since have shown no signs of any brain cell damages. Another reason marijuana is legal is because it is believed that it can cause lung cancer, although there is no known case in the world that is caused from smoking marijuana alone. Not one University or medical center has ever reported a single death attributed to marijuana. The number one killer in America today that beat out