Code of the West

Code of the West was well-received at its world premiere at the Austin's SXSW Film Festival. It is an excellent film that sheds quite a bit of light on the complex debate over medical marijuana in one small state, Montana. The film demonstrates the complex and emotional debate that has emerged over its medical use and points to a variety of complex issues around the War on Drugs and the conflict that occurs when Federal and State laws contradict. This issue is slowing bubbling up through the American political system so that some point there will undoubtedly be a full-fledged debate over both the medical and eventually the recreational use of marijuana. I think this film could be particularly useful for classroom use to engage high school and college age students in discussions specifically about this issue and more broadly about the functioning of the American political system.

This documentary was screened at the 2012 New Hampshire Film Festival in Portsmouth, NH. It is a well rounded perspective on the issue of medical marijuana laws in the state of Montana. It shows both sides of the emotional debate over legalizing medical marijuana. The pro and con forces got equal time as the story unfolded over a several year period. Whoever sees this is going to have their own opinion going in and I think the film makers while not completely hiding their bias do give fair treatment of the issue or at least it seemed so to me and the film was well made and I applaud the multi-year effort which required a lot of patience and foresight. One statistic that I would like to have seen is how changes in drug use in Montana compared to the rest of the country. The stat used in the film shows marijuana use among high school students in Montana declining by 4-6% after the law to legalize medical marijuana was introduced. While interesting, I think this stat would be even more interesting if shown in context with the rest of the country, perhaps contrasting those states with medical marijuana laws and those without. Another question that the film raises is whether it is preferable for patients to use morphine and other opiates to treat chronic pain or if marijuana might be a better, cheaper substitute that is less addictive and has fewer side effects. The explosion in the use of prescription opiates begs the question of whether pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in prohibiting the use of marijuana when it competes with their products. After the screening, a local representative of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a non-profit organization that is calling for an end to drug prohibition, said that it is his understanding that pharmaceutical companies do in fact actively lobby against medical marijuana for precisely this reason. The human side of the story is that several of the people involved in the medical marijuana trade in Montana have been convicted for violating federal law including one for a 90+ year sentence. Again, the film begs the question of the constitutionality of federal drug laws (alcohol prohibition required an amendment to the Constitution), states rights and Federalism. The film makers did an excellent job raising these questions and it is perhaps a testament to the quality of their work that it left me wanting to know more about this issue.