The Union: The Business Behind Getting High

I'm not a pot smoker. In fact, I've never even tried it. People tend to always assume I'm a complete pothead; especially when first meeting me. My good friends and I now just all agree that I must have a pothead's personality or something, heh.

Just maybe about a year ago, give or take, I was completely against the good stuff. I still believed what I had "learned" in D.A.R.E., telling me that you could overdose from your first puff (seriously, our police guy told us this, lol). I thought it was more likely to cause lung cancer, proved to kill braincells, would make me mentally disabled, become self-destructive, etc. I thought that weed was as bad as heroin, simply because I was constantly hearing about how bad it is and how it'll screw your life up. I mean, I honestly thought that people who wanted medicinal marijuana just wanted to get stoned - thankfully, I know better now.

My opinion starting changing about about a year ago, when I read an article that suggested that weed could actually help treat a physical disability my mother suffers with. This made me curious, and I quickly began doing a ton of research. Eventually, I decided to watch "The Union" after seeing a few people comment about it being a great documentary to get information from.

By the time I watched it, I was already turning towards pro-marijuana legalization, and this documentary helped me get over any doubt. They give a lot of information, and information that is worth knowing. Looking back to a year ago, before starting my research and before watching the documentary, I can't believe how ignorant I was. I can't believe the stereotypes and judgements I held while completely misinformed.

Now, I know better. I'm not a pot smoker; I've never even touched it, but to me, that just shows that it doesn't take a complete pothead to realize that it should be made legal. Now, when I get the chance, I correct people's statements and misinformations about marijuana and I've provided several people with better information and I've recommended this very documentary to a few people.

I think the main reason I held such hatred towards the plant before being properly informed was because when my older sister was a teen, she became very self-destructive and caused a lot of drama and pain within the family, and at that time she did get caught smoking weed, and I associated her behaviour with it.

My mom, who also used to be completely dead-set against weed, is not as against it as before since I've given her information. Although she's not willing on trying it yet and still a little sceptical, she's much more open to the possibility of trying to get a doctor's recommendation for it than she would've been otherwise. She would qualify for it, and it's legal here if you've got a doctor's recommendation. I want to get her to watch this (and a couple other documentaries, but mostly this one) in hopes that she'll at least give it a go and hopefully be able of decreasing her medication intake (She needs to take a lot on a daily basis, some of which seem kinda sketchy.)

So in conclusion, I recommend this to anyone and everyone; it's a real eye-opener and very informative.