MARIJUANA DOCUMENTARY A DRAG FOR FILMMAKER

Ron Mann senses that the forces of temperance are mobilizing against him as
he prepared to unveil his latest effort, Grass.

Ron Mann still remembers the scorched-earth rejection letter he received
from Herb Alpert. For the sake of decency, Mann, the soft-spoken Toronto
filmmaker, offers an edited account of Alpert's written reply, which went
something like: "I hope you burn in hell, you $%%*!!"

Mann had asked the former leader of the Tijuana Brass for permission to use
his hit '60s song, Tijuana Taxi, in the soundtrack to Grass, Mann's
spliff-sized opus on the history of marijuana prohibition from the early
1900s to the present.

"Yeah, he didn't like the idea," Mann smiles, his eyes glazed from
squinting, frame-by-frame, at Grass's 80-minute medley of cannabis-fuelled
image and sound.

It is just days before his pot documentary -- four years in the making and
distilled from more than 400 hours of archival material -- is scheduled for
its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Mann is
still at it.

In a downtown editing theatre, Mann and a technician tinker with the volume
levels on narrator Woody Harrelson's voice. It is 5 p.m. and they will be
here until at least 3 in the morning, with more wakeful nights stretching
through to the Sept. 15 premiere.

"I honestly don't know if we'll make it," says Mann, who has never had an
easy relationship with deadlines.

"No one in their right mind should do what I do," he says later over coffee
and a bowl of French onion soup at a downtown restaurant. "I am not a role
model as a filmmaker."

Widely regarded as Canada's greatest living documentarian, the 41-year-old
is noted for his obsessive regard for detail and for editing up to the last
possible second. Twist, his 1992 documentary on the Chubby Checker-induced
dance craze, also went to the wire before its unveiling at that year's
festival.

"There are over 200 contracts on this film, which is an unbelievable
nightmare," says Mann, referring to the procedural wrangling involved in
obtaining permission for song rights, movie footage, newsreels, comic
books, posters and other artifacts used in the film's dazzling narrative
collage.

The good news is that for every Herb Alpert, there have been countless
strokes of luck. After seeing a rough cut of the film, the famously
unco-operative Bob Dylan gave Mann permission to use his classic Rainy Day
Women #12 & 35 (with its chorus of "Everybody must get stoned!") for
"practically nothing," says Mann.

Harrelson, the Hollywood actor and hemp activist, "donated his time for
free," Mann adds. "We went down to L.A. in June and did the whole
(narration) in 61DA2 hours. Woody and I played ping-pong between takes."

Coolest of all, perhaps, was the fact that Mark Mothersbaugh, the former
lead singer of new wave legends Devo, agreed to contribute an original song
for Grass's opening and closing credits.

As it stands, the film's 40-song score runs from Cab Calloway's Reefer Man
to John Prine's Illegal Smile to Merle Haggard's redneck classic, Okee From
Muskogee.

Meanwhile, the stoner-culture graphics that swirl and turn through the
opening segment were designed by Paul Mavrides of Fabulous Furry Freak
Brothers fame.

Mann, it would seem, has marshalled a counter-culture Who's Who to support
his exhaustive chronicle of drug laws, government propaganda, social
upheaval, cool tunes and cultural themes on the subject of marijuana.

Still, he is scared. A father of four, he senses that the forces of
temperance are mobilizing against him. You could joke that Mann's
misgivings betray the paranoia of someone too well acquainted with the
mood-altering capacities of pot, but he's certain Alpert isn't the only one
who will find Grass objectionable.

In certain jurisdictions, mere possession of a "joint," never mind
trafficking, can send people to jail for years, Mann points out.

In one wrenching scene, the film revisits the case of former Vietnam
soldier Don Crowe, who was sent to prison for 50 years for selling an ounce
of grass.

"I think it is a little severe penalty," Crowe's distressed mother says in
an obvious understatement.

"I made the film for the kid in Nebraska who smokes pot," says Mann. "To
tell him he's not a criminal."

He adds that Grass "is an American narrative that tells the globe a
universal story. It's really not about pot. It's about a temperance outbreak.

"It shows how there's a cycle of how people impose their way of life, how
they want us to walk the same line and go to the same church.

"I'm very resistant to repression of any kind. More importantly, I don't
believe pot smokers should go to jail for a victimless crime."

All along, Mann has said he wanted Grass to be a "pot version of Atomic
Cafe," the 1982 film that recycled archival footage from America's Cold War
past.

Grass is chock-a-block with similar siftings: the piano scene ("Faster,
faster!") from the 1936 "warning" film, Reefer Madness; newsreel footage of
U.S. troops inhaling marijuana -- literally through a shotgun barrel -- in
the jungles of Vietnam; and a heavy-lidded, stoned-looking Sonny Bono
advising against the pitfalls of drug use in an ancient public service
announcement.

In another archival segment, junior narcs are urged to be on the lookout
for telltale signs of marijuana when they search a suspect's home.

"Ashtrays are logical places" to find the stubbed end of joints, a narrator
advises, before shouting the film's recurring slogan, "Use Your Eyes!"
(Shades of the "Duck and cover!" refrain from Atomic Cafe.)

If there is a through-line to Grass's helter-skelter content, it is the
story of anti-pot crusader Harry Anslinger, a hard-ass temperance man and
America's first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger used his
influence to put marijuana use on the books as a criminal offence. He also
suppressed the findings of a study by 31 independent scientists
(commissioned by renegade New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia) which
concluded that marijuana was a relatively harmless relaxant.

The film also examines how racism played a role in the anti-marijuana
crusade. First, in the early part of the century, when Mexicans were
suspected of smuggling the weed north across the U.S. border, and later, in
the 1930s, when reefer was the cigarette of choice for black musicians in
New Orleans.

While maintaining, as best as possible, an ironic distance from his
material, Mann nonetheless lets it be known that he hasn't much time for
double-dealing American politicians. Bill Clinton, he says, is just as bad
as his Republican predecessors.

"It's worse now than ever before, under Clinton. He'll pay lip service to
the left, but this is someone who, well ..." Mann's voice trails off.

"I saw a T-shirt that says, 'Clinton doesn't inhale, he just sucks.'

"I don't think people today realize how bad it is," Mann concludes with a
frown that gives way to a smile. "I told my crew that after the film comes
out, they'd better all hide their stashes."

After its Toronto premiere, Grass will be screened at fall festivals in
Halifax, Sudbury and Vancouver.