'GRASS': ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE OF FAIRNESS

Grass

- -- A one-sided documentary on America's obsession with marijuana. --
Rated R for drug content; 79 minutes. -- Opening today at the Tower
Theatre.

"Grass," a fast-and-loose accounting of our nation's marijuana laws by
Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann, is an activist documentary that undercuts
its pro-legalization case with its own one-sidedness.

The nation's first anti-marijuana ordinance was passed in 1914 in El
Paso, Texas -- not to battle dope, the movie states, but to control
Mexican immigration. Cracking down on marijuana became a catch-all for
any societal ill, as officials claimed pot led to homicidal behavior,
insanity, heroin addiction, communism and a lack of motivation among
America's youth. When studies, like one commissioned by New York Mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia in 1944, suggested the ill effects of marijuana
were exaggerated, the reports were ignored or suppressed.

The villain of the piece is Henry J. Anslinger, the first director of
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger is depicted as a
crimefighter in the J. Edgar Hoover mold, using racial prejudice,
red-baiting or Hollywood scandal (like pot busts on Robert Mitchum and
Gene Krupa) to further the drive for stiffer prison sentences.

Mann jumbles together news footage, tabloid headlines and anti-drug
propaganda movies like "Reefer Madness," along with kicky animation,
to demonstrate how much tax money has been spent on the anti-marijuana
crusade. Much of the footage points out the hypocrisy of the anti-drug
forces -- like the '50s cop decrying addicts as "a menace" as he
chain-smokes, or a '70s public-service announcement by an apparently
bombed Sonny Bono.

Narrated by hemp activist Woody Harrelson, "Grass" underplays the
harmful effects of drug use and makes paper tigers of the anti-drug
movement. But Mann makes one point loud and clear: After billions of
dollars and thousands of people put in prison, marijuana is as
plentiful and accessible as ever -- so if prohibition isn't working,
why not try a new approach?