Marijuana documentary: Northwest Trees (2016)

Northwest Trees (2016) is a documentary by 19 year old Ben Grayzel about marijuana, made during a 6 week break from University. We have talked about some other documentaries before on this site, but this one for sure breaks the record with its production speed.

But this doesn’t mean that it’s a bad documentary, on the contrary. Northwest Trees is a pretty interesting film that investigates the results of recent legalization changes in the states of Washington and Oregon.

Ben Grayzel asks some interesting questions that might be burning on many peoples mind after the first few years of legalization:

What effect does legalization really have on actual cannabis use? How did it affect culture in these states?

Ben sets out to interview the youth and find answers. He talks to teenagers that were already using cannabis long before the ban was lifted. He also talks to people that believe that marijuana is still serving as a gateway drug to more powerful drugs, even though the raise of drug abuse has stagnated in these two states compared to states where cannabis is still not being legalized in any form.

So what has changed? And what can we expect from the future? It might be too early to answer all the questions raised in this documentary with a definite answer, but Ben Grayzel makes a good beginning with his first film.

He is planning to produce a second, more thorough film in the future, but for now this one is absolutely an admirable and worthy documentary to have a look at.