TOKIN’ LOOK: Discovery’s “Weed Country,” airing tonight, is a six-part series that tries to cover all facets of the marijuana industry. (
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Just because it’s legal to buy pot in 19 states for “medical” purposes — and legal in Washington and Colorado for recreational purposes — doesn’t mean you won’t go to jail if you buy, grow, sell or ingest weed in those states.
Huh?
Believe it or not, while it is legal under state law, it is still illegal to do any of the above under federal law.
And the feds can make the state and county law-enforcement officers enforce the federal law.
Who knew that pot, of all things, would be the smoking bong in the issue of states’ rights versus federal law?
I mean, abortion, sure. Gun control, definitely. But pot?
Tonight, Discovery Channel tackles the issue from the growers, sellers, buyers and law-enforcement side with a six-part series, “Weed Country.”
And if you’re not too high to watch it, it’s an eye-opener.
It begins with a grower in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle — the largest pot-growing region in the US supplying most of California’s marijuana.
Four of the rising — and fallen — stars in the medical marijuana wars are Nate Morris, Mike and Tawni Boutin and Matt Shotwell.
Morris, a scientist, is in it to find cures for things like epilepsy. To that end, we watch him help a mother who happens to be a scientist herself, at Stanford, and whose little boy has up to 12 seizures a day. Marijuana can help him, but it is strictly illegal to administer it to anyone under 21.
Meantime, without it, the child could die of a seizure.
Then there are the Boutins, who are growers for both medical purposes and recreational use.
Periodically, Mike Boutin travels hours delivering pot to clients — some like a retired NYPD cop who has a rare bone disease and was in a wheelchair, but who can now walk with his daily dose of high-grade pot.
They are like old-time hippies, but under constant threat from armed bandits and SWAT teams loaded for bear.
Finally, there’s Shotwell, the former owner of the biggest legal dispensary in Northern California — until he was shut down, all his product seized and his bank accounts frozen.
On the other side of the law are the SWAT teams from towns like, (I swear) Weed, Calif.
No, it’s not called Weed because its major industry is weed, but because the founder of the town, a timber baron, was prophetically named Abner Weed.
So why-in-hell would these guys put themselves in harm’s way — not by growing and selling — by exposing themselves on national TV?
Hello? Do you see what people are willing to do to be on TV? There’s some of that here, sure, but it’s also because these guys are positively evangelical in their quest for what they believe is a given American right.
That right, of course, is the right for any person to cultivate, grow and profit from the pot crops — especially if your state allows you to do it.
The characters are not as colorful as the “Gold Rush” or “Deadliest Catch” guys, but what is going on here is more important.
Do states have the right to overrule federal law?
Most of “Weed Country” is quite good, but when it comes to Mike Boutin, the producers made the bad decision to make it all more dramatic than it actually is. They show a cop in a car, for example, who says he’s going after Boutin — when in fact, he’s going after someone else entirely.
This kind of stuff comes off as phony as the pot laws.