Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/29/25: Saagar Reviews REEFER MADNESS 'Most Important Film of the Century"

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

As everyone enjoys the holiday break Saagar and Griffin have reviewed the propaganda film turned cult phenomenon 1936's REEFER MADNESS. We analyze the film's successes, failures, and if smoking weed really makes you jump out of a window. The answers may surprise you... To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.locals.com/support    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you at breaking points.com. Hello, everybody. Happy holidays. Griffin and I are very, very happy to present you all with a review. I will remind you all that Griffin himself was an attendee of NYU Film School. We have a real film critic here with us, in addition to just an amateur, an amateur attour like myself, not a tour, an amateur author appreciative. Cinephile. Cinephile, like myself here. going to conduct here a review of Reefer Madness. This is Griffin, to make this a true and a proper movie review, why don't you break us down for us? This film, what year came out, a little bit about it and some of its cultural legacy, because we're almost certain almost 100% of you have not seen it.

Yes, I bet some people in the audience have. Hopefully. Pleasure to be here. Happy holidays to everyone in the audience. I will have to note here at the top that we're, recording this now it's coming out over the holidays but recording this on the eve of trump's rescheduling of marijuana that's right uh which is kind of a personal 9-11 for saga and jettie saga in this moment how are you feeling and does that bring any context to the

film it brings a lot of context to the film this film has never been more relevant um it's never been more important personally i think this is one of the most important films of the last hundred years and i think that's a really funny thing uh maybe that people will say uh and And maybe even as we get into the movie, but that's because this movie has almost become like Star Wars. I mean, it's one of those things that's entered the cultural lexicon where even people who haven't seen the film know about the film. The very term Reefar Madness itself became a moniker in the 1970s, which we're going to get to here in a little bit, where people who were stoners at the time would screen the movie while they were getting high. And I think what's really important about the movie is that the name itself has taken on, to be almost be derogatory to anybody who raises concerns about the dangers, in my opinion,

of this drug of marijuana. And one of my goals here throughout the review of the film, beyond just appreciation, I think, for the filmmaking or for the way that it's all done. And we'll get into some of the problems, I think, with the messages here of the movie. But it is striking to me almost 89 years later of watching this movie, how many of the core claims of the movie are unambiguously true. And it really just gets to some of the wisdom of some of the filmmakers that were behind this. We can get a little bit more into that.

But yeah, I think at this moment, this film has never actually meant more to me because it shows culturally what we're up against is that people think that this movie vastly exaggerated the effects of marijuana. when in fact almost every single thing that they claim in this movie is unambiguously correct. And we will get through what I think, why I think the film has become what it is, especially unfortunately throughout the 1990s and 2000s, when people in the DARE program were ridiculed for bringing up, quote, Riefer Madness and all of that. And this film is far, far ahead of its time. And I think that's what really struck me about it.

So Sagar will be covering some of the facts. and I will be covering the feelings I am going to be tackling this film from a creative standpoint. Did the film make me feel something? What did it make me feel? Did it accomplish its goals as a piece of art?

And so that's how I will be tackling the film. I did want to get Saugger's general reaction to having watched the film. I've actually watched it just for the first time and I do want to kind of maybe seed something that it will be a big surprise later in this podcast that there is a heavily meaned moment that I knew as a meme

that in the context of the film is completely different. I don't know if you know which one I'm talking about. We'll keep it a secret for now. But it was a total aha moment where I was very fascinated. There's a whole other context to this popular meme.

But yes, before we get into any of those reactions to the film, audience, for those who aren't as familiar, let's get into a little bit of the history behind Reef for Madness, which was originally titled, Tell Your Children. Now, the film was produced in 1936 by mainstream independent filmmaker George Hurleman. It was financed by a church group and intended to be shown to parents as a morality tale about the dangers of cannabis use. Directed by Silent Era Pioneer Louis J. Gassnier, it featured a cast of mainly little-known actors.

In 1938, exploitation film producer Dwayne Esports, Purs purchased the film and recut it for distribution to exploitation houses, catering to vulgar interest while escaping censorship under the guise of moral guidance. Esper retitled the film, Reefer Madness. Now, Reefer Madness was rediscovered in the early 1970s, and it became an underground hit on college campuses. It gained new life as an unintentional satire among advocates of cannabis policy reform. Critics have called it one of the worst film.

ever made and it is gained a cult following within cannabis culture it is in the public domain in the united states due to the film carrying an improper copyright notice which is which is definitely to our benefit so that we can show you we'll be playing some of the clips today which is which is exciting yeah i mean what's your reaction to i mean any of the history react to that but also like have you watched the film before i'd never watched a film before me neither I've seen clips of it. This is my first time, too. Well, this is my first time sitting with this film, right?

Like, the whole thing. And here's the thing. It's a short movie. The runtime's only 68 minutes. It's not a long movie. And actually, reading the Wikipedia like you were earlier, originally, it's tough for me. So this is just pure, like, in terms of cinema. Watching older movies is hard.

Not just in terms of the pacing, but a lot of the things that we all take for granted are a product of the post-1970s, like cinema, you know, that most, especially driven that you. You and I are very, very used to. So putting it in the context of a silent film director is really important. This film is told almost exactly like a silent film. I'm sure you probably notice that. It's a chapter by chapter film, as in we don't have a lot of different scenes that cross-cut in terms of time.

Each thing is kind of told in its own vignette. Each vignette is actually very, it's tightly composed, as in like the scene itself, the way that it sets out, tells one portion of the story, goes on to the next one. Each one is kind of its own type thing that doesn't necessarily connect. Some of the jump cuts can get a little bit confusing. The accents are hilarious, you know, some 80-89-year-old. Yeah, they're vernacular and the way that they talk. I am, by the way, wearing this jacket in honor of our Tatular main character, Bill, who has a big redemption arc, Bill, who was a victim of marijuana and was pressured into this as an impressional teenager.

So he is our main character, the hero, if you will, of our film. I'm wearing a suit because I believe that you should wear a suit when you go to the movies. I'm kind of like Sean Duffy for airports. Like, I think you should be wearing a three-piece suit when you're going to see five nights at Freddy's two. Absolutely. So, all right. Well, on that note, you know, we want to get into a little bit of the plot of this film. My general reaction, having never seen it before and only knowing it through memes was,

and unpacking this is just from an artist's perspective, is, you know if i'm tackling and of viewing the film as a dystopian universe where there is a drug known as marijuana that has with very specific spelling with an h that has almost a zombie infection uh level of intensity to it that sweeps over a small town and it is ultimately a tragedy well then i found the film kind of kind of fun and interesting on that level if i'm approaching it from there. Now, I don't know about extrapolating that to the, to the real world lessons, but just maybe as a as a silent film era, but there's talking. It's a talking film. But, you know, I think I found it a little boring at times, but ultimately effective as almost a zombie film. Yeah, it drags definitely, which is kind of crazy to say for a 68 minute film. But there are a couple of scenes, which don't really make a whole lot of scenes. sense and easily, it could have been tighter.

I actually think it could have been a 45-minter if it really wanted it to. There's some fat. There's a cup. I mean, look, for its accomplishment, we have our main character. Our main character is Bill. Bill is this impressionable teenager. He has this quasi, like girlfriend, I guess he would say, Mary. And him and Mary are, like, I really like that scene, the Romeo and Juliet scene where he's playing Romeo and Juliet to her.

And it's very sweet. and it's like young love in 1936 and they share a kiss and Mary's mother walks in he gets all embarrassed and he follows her that was they accomplished that in like two minutes and I was like I get this guy

it's Bill right he's this really nice jocular guy and he's got this crush on girl named Mary and like very quickly kind of what we learn is that Bill is kind of ensnared in this plot by one of his friends is his name Jimmy is that right Jimmy his friend well

Bill and Jimmy are both victims semi the main i guess the main the main evil there's two evil adults that run a flop house named may and jack and then they have two bad kids under their semi employ named ralph and blanche and they're sort of the bad kids that ensnare young innocence like um bill and jimmy but but but and we'll get to that scene that that's that romeo and juliet scene but yeah the imagery to me was adam and eve before the apple oh that's smart Yeah, you're definitely right. They're in a garden.

It's idyllic and they're angelic, and it's before they've consumed sin. Yes. Oh, that's very smart. You're really hitting it. You're absolutely right. I didn't pick up on that. And I was wondering, I said, yeah, why are they? Because at one point in the scene, he falls into a fountain, like of water.

And I was like, oh, that's a very interesting courtyard, you know, kind of design for a house in the 1930s. You're absolutely right. That is what they were getting at, you know, this. It was just the picture of innocence. That was the picture of innocence. before being corrupted. And water represents a transformation or change. So him getting wet means he's about to change.

So let's get into, we're going to bring you guys into the plot of this film, but it starts with an opening scrawl, sort of like a Star Wars, like you said earlier. So Sager, could you prepare your best trans and Latin, like 1930s accent for us here? I've got it all for you here.

Give us a read. How does the film open? Here is the opening scrawl of the film. The motion picture, you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible otherwise to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace

which is destroyed the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marijuana, with an H, is that drug, a violent narcotic, an unspeakable scourge, the real public enemy number one. It first effect is sudden violent, uncontrollable laughter.

Then, come dangerous hallucinations, space expands, time slows down, almost stands still, Fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances, followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions, leading finally to acts of shocking violence, ending often an incurable insanity. In picturing its soul-destroying effects, no attempt was made to equivocate. The scenes, the incidents, while fictionalized for the purposes of this story, are based upon

actual research in the results of marijuana addiction. If their stark reality will make you think, will make you aware that. something must be done to wipe out this ghastly menace, then the picture will have not failed in its purpose. Despite the dread, marijuana may be reaching forth next for your son or daughters, or yours, or yours, or yours. Or yours. Reberman's, 1936.

Incredible, bravo, yes, applause, applause. Riveting, much like Star Wars. And again, I'm going to make this comparison a lot, a lot like a zombie film, describing the infection that spreads across the nation. So we open with our character of Dr. Carroll. Now, Dr. Carroll is sort of a Greek chorus character in this film. He opens at this PTA meeting, which I'll just play a few sections of here. But he is the one who is telling a parent-teacher conference about the evils of marijuana.

Let's take a quick listen. It must be stuck. You and all are the school parent groups about the country. And you must stand united on this. and stamp out this frightful assassin of our youth. You can do it by bringing about compulsory education on the subject of narcotics in general, but red marijuana in particular.

That is the purpose of this meeting, ladies and gentlemen, to lay the foundation for a nationwide campaign by you to demand by law such compulsory education because it is only through enlightenment that this scourge can be wiped out. Okay, so that's Dr. Carroll. For those just listening audio-wise, I would describe him visually as like

the, he looks like the bad guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like, give me the artifact, Dr. Jones. Oh, you're muted, Sager. Sager, unmute. Yes, that's a good comparison. He's got a double-breasted suit, very stern, small, like, rounded pair of glasses

on the face. And he's looking directly into the camera right and he's lit do you see the way that he's lit there too uh i don't know if that was intentional necessarily on their own part but he's very uh yeah it is that classic kind of staring into the PSA uh in a stern way and that's immediately kind of how the film starts off which i i don't know about you uh i definitely thought it was necessary narratively it does make a little bit of sense but it is kind of jarring to go from the scrawl directly to this before jumping into the plot

of the movie. It becomes more relevant when we see him later on and his interactions with the cast which makes sense why he's doing this PSA and I think it could have been accomplished a little bit better. It's like a double expositional address but it ends up paying off later because you realize he's actually a character

in the story as well. So he goes on, he talks a lot about other drugs too and then he talks about marijuana and he says, don't believe me. Well, actually, one point he makes is really important is he makes a point where he says, it's not the government that's going to save you. It's the parents that are the last defense. What did you make of that, Sagar, as a policy?

Because, you know, I feel like you would want weed to be illegal or what? Well, okay, so this is the difficulty of all of this. When do you say legal, what do you mean by that? And when I say illegal, that's also kind of me. So to presume that I think people should go to jail for smoking marijuana is ridiculous. But also for people to presume that saying legal, legal has all kinds of different definitions. Is it going to do the Canadian model, at least in some places, where it's nonprofit and state run? Even saying alcohol is legal is not really the same, right?

So I live in the state of Virginia. We have state run liquor stores. Whereas in Nevada, for example, you can literally go to a gas station. and buy whiskey. And so just like with gambling, everybody thinks I think that gambling should be completely illegal. I've never said that. I said that if gambling is going to be legal,

people should have to go and to do it in person, and it should be highly regulated. Now, presumption here is that by, quote, keeping it illegal or descheduling, this is much more of a policy question, Griffin. My objection is that the way this is being rolled out is the Wild Wild West, where we have number one, no societal norms, which is what Dr. Carroll is correct.

This does come down. to parents and to education, we'll get to some of the detriments, especially to teen and to children in a little bit when we're talking about how the claims of the movie are obviously correct. But from a pure policy level,

Dr. Carroll actually nails it in the beginning where he's like, this ultimately is a plant that's grown in all 50 states. He's like, there's not a lot that we can do to keep it out of America. So he's trying to educate people about this story for what we eventually learn is his knowledge of Bill and the downfall of Bill and yeah and Jimmy as well and using their

story to show his shocking descent into violence into murder there's rape involved it's a very it's very emotional film actually uh so were you expecting that you know just a side note i was shocked by the rape scene i was like oh my god i mean this is this is harrowing so the sexual assault scene came out of nowhere yes it was it was it was harrowing and there's a there's a lot There's like multiple crazy things that happen in that sexual assault scene that we'll get to. But there's also sexual assault mentioned as a side effect of marijuana in the middle of the film. There's a story and anecdote told about a woman who's loose with men. Okay, so he does the doctors here, he's at the PTA meeting.

And he's like, don't believe me? Well, I'll tell you the story of May Coleman. And we fade into May and Jack's, like, jazz flop house. So it's, it's like a flop house where they're like, they're very random. They don't really seem like a couple. They kind of seem like feds, to be honest with you. It was a bit strange. This was a weak point for me.

I was like, who are we opening on? Who are these people? And this is actually Griffin. I come to understand this is much more of the moment. The people who were watching this at the time, they got it instantly. Ralph is a scumbag. She's putting on her stockings, quote unquote, loose woman. They're not married, right?

Like, these are all not scandalous things that immediately hit home to you and I. But in the time would have immediately clicked and made sense. And so I thought that was kind of interesting. The film refers to them as unmarried and living in sin. Yes. Which is how they refer to it back then. Yeah, this idea of like a weird house you go to to kind of like do these proclivities that it's like not semi, it's like semi a business, but it's not. It's like under the table kind of stuff. So anyways, these really weird couple talk about bringing more people over to the flop house. Now Jack wants to ensnare children. And May says, why can't we just get adults into the flop house? And he says, well, kids are better. Kids are easier to trick or what have you. And then we're introduced to our, our protagonist and what, what Saugger is, is dressed like

Bill and Jimmy, uh, here who are, uh, let me see where I can get them. But they're, they're like, they're like two nice boys. They kind of look like, you know, like little nerdy dweeb. Yeah, exactly. And they're high school. One is in high school and one is in college. And so that, what I've, what, so Rao or Jack, I mean, yeah, there he is. That's our, that's our boy uh so jack is almost like a cartoonishly evil drug dealer um but i think we'll get to this in a little bit but what we eventually find out is that he kind of has this boss right and his boss is pressuring him and others to sell to children or at the very least he has no qualms about selling to children and what i like about this is this captures two things kind of the

evil of the individual store uh may that may sell marijuana but also the industry, the boss itself, which is indifferent entirely as long as we're making money while peddling this. And ultimately, you know, the core claim here about marijuana use amongst children and how it's skyrocketed since legalization is correct. And in fact, many of these products that they sell at these cannabis dispensaries, you know, like weed, soda, lollipops, handy, but I mean, this is obviously targeted towards children. Like many of the claims they used to make about Jewel being targeted towards children, this is by 10 to 100 times X being used by the marijuana industry.

They have very few safeguards or anything like that in place, and they know that children are using their products. And so, you know, if we look at it thematically, the drug dealer working for the man like his boss, their lack of compunction selling to children, They're driven by greed representing the marijuana industry that captures it nicely, I think, together. And see, I guess my only pushback there, and I have, I want to double, I want to kind of stretch this point out over the course of the film, but to me, it read as the dangers of if we don't legalize it, then you're going to have random drug dealers in flop houses who put your kids in dangerous positions where those kids could have just gone to a store and bought weed. And then a lot of the events that occur in the film wouldn't happen.

And I think it's actually the individual enterprise of drug dealers that is actually the real threats that I view from this film. But we'll get more into that. Yeah, that was that's, look, those were claims that were made pre-legalization. They're just not true. Marijuana use amongst children has gone up, especially in states where there's been legalization. So this theory of legalization and how it would put more regulation and make things safer is just not true. Marijuana is more dangerous than it's ever been before. It's much more, it's much more potent in terms of THC.

It's causing all kinds of crazy illnesses. This, there's just been too much evidence now at this point that legalization has increased the amount of use and has, there's been no regulation in terms of potency. There's been very little scrutiny. People, then, of course, the pushback is always like, well, then that's why I need to federally legalize it. And it's like, well, that will only create more of a permission structure for use. I'm just saying in the context of this film, the dangers are sexual assault and murder, which I think are avoided by multiple murders, which I think are a product of the individual drug dealer system as opposed to having stores. I don't think that you would be assaulted in the store. We will get to marijuana users and their links to violence, to mass shootings, to murder, to psychosis, to suicide.

We forgot to mention suicide. Suicide warning here. There is also a suicide, marijuana-induced suicide here in the film. Well, I would argue it's actually not marijuana-induced. Oh, oh, it's a guilt-induced. Yeah, it's guilt-induced. That was blew my mind because I always thought that it was marijuana-induced from the meat. I think that we'd made her go crazy at that point, once you've gone crazy.

We'll get there. A lot of people are about to go crazy like any good horror or zombie film. Yes. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is gentleman's cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older.

Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hi, Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, which is why my podcast is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need. This year, we're taking part in the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. And it's not just the Happiness Lab.

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Head to give directly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and make a contribution. And if you're a first-time donor, giving multiplier will even match your gift. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way.

It's not only about what we can do to improve our. health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type two? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to rest of the world that your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride.

So tune in. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. So you said there's these guys that are kind of these like creepy drug dealer. I'll pull up again. On the left here is Jack, who's like the adult drug dealer. And on the right is Ralph, who's kind of like the bad kid and snare. And you know, not only is this film, you know, warning about.

weed but it's worrying about people like Ralph who are college dropouts that still hang out with the high school kids you got to stay away from those guys those guys are bad news okay and i'm a hundred percent agree with the filmmakers on that they're they're not good so they go to the they take the kids back to this jazz flop house or what have you people are like having fun and and oh this might actually be at like a restaurant or something yeah that was it was like a restaurant yeah they're trying to like ensnared the kids and like bring them back to their apartment um and then you know eventually it takes a while but i noted here 1340 it takes 14 minutes almost for the first weed to be presented on screen yeah and it's from the piano man at uh at this restaurant and

and he is he's he's making him it makes him wild uh but he doesn't he doesn't kill anyone or anything He just like, he just has a good time and is kind of starts just shaking and kind of like sneaking it. So that's our first instance of weed. Right. That's our very first view of weed here in the film. What it does capture is the long fetishization of musicians of marijuana and how they're always claiming that it makes them better at music. And so in fact, this is one of two piano weed sequences that we've. will see here in the film, uh, in which it seems to enhance their musical performance.

Uh, so I would say, that's a trope. Yeah. That's a trope that carries through the film. Yes, something like almost as if like it's the devil's, uh, siren call or music that's draw, pulling them in. So this is where we're starting to see people smoke for the first time. And it takes kind of a long lingering time of them like trying to ensnare these teenagers. We get a little bit more here of this, uh, of the piano man. just kind of tweaking out. And then we get our first kind of like time cross-cut scene where we have both are both our good boys,

Bill and Jimmy, are in different areas and are about to both smoke weed for the first time. Yes. Now, Bill smokes weed and like ends up like making out with a girl. And then they just kind of have fun and dance around it seems okay. With Jimmy, Jimmy is, at in his car and he asks jack the drug dealer for a cigarette and jack gives him a marijuana cigarette and it makes him high and then what happens saga after that it's a very unfortunate

and in fact in one of the most important messages of the film high driving kills high driving kills and what unfortunately happens is that he drives away he loses control of his faculties and he unfortunately ends up killing a pedestrian, which is one of the dangers that we have right now. My God. Oh, wow, you'll kill somebody. Wow. Tragic. tragic tragic very very tragic little did they know little did they know what would the horrors that we would live to see in the year 2025 actually griffin yeah because i want to put up some of the stuff about the film that's correct i have in the links that i sent you about deadly driving can you put my tweet up there on the screen just so we can show all of you unfortunately not nearly enough data is released because they don't want us to know the truth uh everybody talks about drunk driving

driving. That's great. I mean, there's nothing wrong with warning about drunk driving. But as you guys can see there, new study out of, I think it was the state of Michigan, showed that 40% of drivers who died in motor vehicle collisions tested positive for THC in their system. And the average blood levels for exceeding those were considered to cause impairment. Now, a lot of people have said, oh, they could have smoked in the last 30 days. Those people lack reading comprehension, including amounts that could have caused. impairment nearly 40% of the people who died in a mortar vehicle crash now 40% of people dying with a level of THC in their blood that could cause impairment that fundamentally is one of the core one of the core claims of this movie is that it impairs your judgment that it makes you go crazy that it causes violence specifically can also cause violence and impairment that will harm others. And that was the first instance I think that we see. You can correct me if I'm wrong of a death related to marijuana on screen, which again, you know, this became ridiculed in later

years. But as I just showed you all from the data, unambiguously a correct claim. And so that was the first of many horrors that we would live to see. I agree and disagree with you on this point because I think that it is true that people are smoking more weed and driving and becoming worse drivers, but in the movie, it makes him speed up, weed drivers are slowing down. I think that's a meme. I think that's a meme. They're in the left-hand lane, like in the fast lane, going like 50 into 65. But like they're still getting in crashes and doing bad turns. Like they're still doing bad driving.

And I hear him in L.A. I'm actually Waymo-pilled now. I think people are so bad at driving, they've lost the privilege. Like there's no, should be no more driving allowed, should just be Waymo's because everyone's on their phone or high. And I'm sorry, but I'm losing too much of my personal life to poor driving out here. That's fair. I mean, look, at the very least, they may not, they may have showed it incorrectly by going too fast, but their core claim that it will cause death, especially behind a motor vehicle,

is correct. It was absolutely correct. And I wish they presented it as, because he's secretly drugged. I think the sin here is you shouldn't drug someone before they drive, like unknowingly. And it's like, this happens multiple times in the film where someone asks for a normal cigarette and then they're drugged with a marijuana cigarette, which I think was also like a big fear they were trying to push at the time. You've got to really check your cigs. So that happens. The hit and run happens.

and then Jimmy kind of has his first moment of like being dementedly high a week when we cut back to him I've got it right here at the time code 26 minutes but the film starts to have these

ghastly demented faces when people are high to kind of show their transformation oh wait sorry this is Jimmy coming home so Jimmy's coming home and he's paranoid because he just hits someone and he's kind of high.

And Mary, the sister, the angelic innocence, is worried about him and can tell something's wrong. So then we're treated back to our Dr. Carroll here, who returns again in the middle of the film. And he is talking to someone else about the horrors of marijuana, essentially. There's a few different horror stories, and he mentions one woman who was caught having sex with five men. That's essentially this scene.

Any thoughts there? This will be one of the few. So I did look for that. I did look at whether it causes sexual. You play it, play it. All right, all right. Let me show you something. In 1930, the records on marijuana in the Washington office of the narcotic division

scarcely filled a small folder like this part's good too today they filled cabinets yep look at the cabinets he's got cabinets of wheat chunks it's shocking it used to be a folder devoted to marijuana records they're being the system is overrun overwhelmed

a 16 year old lad apprehended in the act of staging a holder 16 years old and a marijuana addict here is the most tragic case Yes, I remember, just a young boy. Under the influence of the drug, he killed his entire family with an accident. Then there is the most vicious type of case. Here, in Michigan, a young girl, 17 years old, a reaper smoker,

taken in a raid in the company with five young men. Here is a particularly flagrant case. Yes, I remember the newspapers make far as a place. Ah, yes, of course. I'm a real head. Dr. Carroll's a real head. He's seen every one of the. these stories. Look, that was one of the few claims in the movie that was not correct. It does not cause sexual primacy, which is obviously it was a moral panic, I guess, at the time. But the axe murderer one that tracks, that tracks, going crazy and killing your entire family. That's definitely something which marijuana induced psychosis and violence, particularly causing a violent schizophrenic break. It's exactly something that could happen. And we've seen certain instances of that already here in the year in the 2020s.

especially post-legalization. But yes, I will admit that one thing, the film does seem very obsessed with sex, Griffin. And I think that was the Christian funding. And also because that was obviously it was something that they were trying to hammer home at the time, the history that we learned about the film, too, about how they were trying to play it

in the exploitation houses and others as kind of a draw for titillation almost. you know for at the time I did think it at a few instances I'm like this is kind of a risque film for 1936 you know I've seen uh what I'm trying to think of there's that film the best years of our lives for 1946 that's probably the oldest movie I've seen that I actually really love and I do remember thinking I'm like oh wow you know it's very conservative even there were a few scenes even in that but this was a much more risque film and this was made 10 years earlier than that one but it does make sense given the Christian funding, and eventually how it ended up playing in some of these places, not just for titillation, but for entertainment. So it did kind of make sense in that way. The film is obsessed with sex in a very weird way. I think a lot of that is rooted back to, and again, something that this film doesn't really take a swing on.

Like, I thought this film was going to be a lot more racist because ultimately, like, a lot of the, a lot of the anti, well, I mean, and that is kind of racist in its own sense. but like the anti-marijuana stuff in the early days was like don't let your like white daughter smoke weed with black or Mexican guys because they're going to be loose with them is like a pretty popular was that yeah you never heard that before no yeah I I think we grew up in Texas like 40% of people around us were we're Latino you know it's right and I don't imagine your parents telling you that but but I but that is that is a trope and there was all Also, this, if I'm not mistaken, then putting the H in and changing from marijuana to marijuana was some sort of attempt to make it sound Mexican or Spanish. Really? Because there was a large attempt to associate marijuana as all coming from Mexico. Well, to be fair, at that time, that was true. All right.

The vast majority of actually was coming from Mexico. So they were trying to connect even just the actual phrase, the wordology of it to Mexico in those senses. And I have heard about the other stuff, the sex stuff. But again, this film doesn't really take a ton of swings in that, in that racial direction that you're going to impurify your white daughters or what have you. So then we get to, after this, Dr. Carroll enters the plot and sits down Bill because he's worried about Bill. And, you know, I had to say, I wrote down to my notes here, I was like, I kind of got some respect for Dr. Carroll after the scene. He's looking out for his pupils. He's looking at for his pupils, and he says the right things here.

Oh, Bill. There seems to be something wrong. What is it? You were always a fine student. You always had excellent grades. Well, I guess the work is getting a little harder, Dr. Carroll. No, no, it isn't that. Bill, I'd like to help you.

But, of course, I can't unless you let me. You're undermining your help. Well, there's nothing, Dr. Carroll, really. there isn't. I'll study harder. Honest. If you were being honest with me and honest with yourself, I'm afraid you tell me an entirely different story. I'm going to ask you a straightforward question, and I'd like to have a straightforward answer. Yes, sir. Isn't it true that you have, perhaps unwillingly, quite a certain harmful habit

through association with certain undesirable people. Well, no, sir, I haven't, Dr. Cal. Well, that is, you see, I'm worried about something at home. All right, by boy,

we'll just have to let it go with that. But remember, if you ever want to confide in me, no one will ever be the wise. See, thank you. That was really nice. nice it was sweet that's great he's being a great adult role model figure in his life he's trying to be honest with him and he says you can come clean and then he has a lot of grace and says you know

what my door's always open to you yeah i think that uh look it captures again it captures marijuana behavior correctly uh griffin you and i at the very least you'll admit this we all know a guy who was normal started smoking weed weed became his entire personality or a girl whatever it's It's definitely both genders. And they just, you know, they completely drop. They become demotivated, lazy. All the tropes are true, you know, sitting around. Yeah, I mean, it can be running around with an old, with a bad crowd, right?

I mean, that's ultimately what happens to our hero, to Bill, who was unwittingly drug. And it can be that with any addiction. I think that I feel just as bad for Disney adults who go to Disneyland 15 times a year. Well, you know my G-Hod on Disney adults. I agree. It honestly could be even more expensive It could be even more expensive It's sick and I'm ready to reschedule the drug of Disney

I'd be there with you brother I'm fine with that So we keep moving on And now we're getting to another famous meme moment So you know Bill doesn't take Dr. Carroll's advice Goes back to the flop house And we get some of our

A big first demented smoking weed And they're having sex Yeah it's crazy Everything's getting wide And then we've got His crazy laugh I think he does a crazy laugh here Okay, this is the

This is the shot Yeah It's almost a pain's laugh It's demented It's a tough laugh Yeah It looks like he's in pain But he is getting laid

He's getting chicks So you're kind of torn You're like he's getting chicks but it seems like he's in physical pain and then we get another meme moment here another famous moment I wrote with Ralph in the chair in the piano here

so they're both playing the piano it seems like they're on crack and then here's he going he's paranoid in the chair just blasting it's tragic it's tragic yeah

now have you witnessed these behaviors from someone smoking weed soccer Well, I mean, Griven, I unfortunately am in the era where I just had to witness a bunch of men playing FIFA all the time. But, you know, I could imagine. That's even sicker. That's more than that. By the way, way, way worse. Way worse.

I would have much rather been enthralled by piano dancers. The flop house. In a flop house. But look, I mean, what it captures this part of the film, which again, is. it's obsessed with sexual promiscuity this is a setup for impairment for sin which will lead to our first tragic death or sorry a second tragic death and a marijuana induced violent death unfortunately and which ensnairs are beautiful what how did you call our eve character yes and are unwashed our are like untainted character innocent lamb who is killed

in an unfortunate marijuana-related accident. So this, I'm going to skip forward to that scene because it's crazy and there's a lot to break down. But essentially, it's a crazy scene. Essentially, all of the kids are at this party now. All of the, everybody's there. And Ralph is very clearly flirting with the innocent Mary here. And once again, when someone asks Mary,

asked for a cigarette and she's handed a marijuana cigarette instead and doesn't know it's weed so once again like i think it's like yeah it's bad it's bad to drug people it's bad to drug people and i almost wish i almost wish the characters chose to smoke weed uh as as opposed to being secretly drug again though that that is a metaphor for the marijuana industry uh for the industry which is constantly pushing this stuff on you um all of the advertisement all of the You know, my wife and I, we watched Knocked Up recently. Great film. Great film.

Love the film. But the weed propaganda is unbelievable, just like the stoner worship. And it's shocking to think, like, we were all just taking that in in 07. Be like, oh, look at. Yeah, Pineapple Express. We're like, oh, just look at these chill, hilarious, fun, stoners. Nothing ever goes wrong in their life. By the way, if you watch it, it's a very subversive pot.

film if you're looking for it. I actually think that's one of the most anti-weed and pro-life films ever made. Like, by far. Next holiday season. It's shocking. It's shocking to watch it. It's actually, wow, I think it has been almost 20 years since that movie came out. It was

an 07. But what does she immediately do? This is a huge pivot to knocked up. She's like, you need to stop smoking weed. He had to stop smoking weed to become a father, to become a good companion to grow up. Um, and so, but anyways, the point of it, uh, around this is about the propaganda kind of

that surrounds convincing you that smoking weed is cool. And that is what both that film and this film kind of combined together. So it's a string of nearly 70 years, uh, that, that you could see. Wow. From Reefer Madness to knocked up, spiritual sequel. Um, so, okay, we got to, we got to break down this scene. I don't want to show a lot of the, a lot of the, a lot of imagery, but essentially what happens is Ralph starts to trick Mary into smoking weed, Mary gets high, and then

Ralph begins to sexually assault her on the couch here. Like, violently, too. Like, out of nowhere. Yeah, like, truly, it's crazy. He's, like, fighting her. And then it gets even crazier, because Bill comes out, and Bill comes out, Bill comes out after that, and Bill misinterprets

the sexual assault as consensual, because He's so high, which is like a crazy extra layer I didn't think I needed for the moment. But so he's misinterpreted as consensual, but he still breaks it up because he's jealous. Exactly. And he's like, get off of her. Even though he just cheated on her with Blanche, who has not been. Blanche has.

You're right. Oh, my God. I didn't think about that. Yeah, I know. I mean, that is the very 1930s of it all is that even though he just cheated on her, he's very upset that she's cheating on, well, he thinks that she's cheating on him, even though she is being, like, violently sexually assaulted.

But it leads to one of the climaxes here of our film. Yeah, he's, he's honestly, like, his, him having sex with Blanche is kind of like how in Midsomer, the boyfriend gets drugged and, and everything. It's great comparison. It's, it's kind of like Midsomar. It is, that I didn't think of that.

You're absolutely right. So, he pulls Ralph off of, uh, off of Mary after misinterpreting his consensual. Then Jack comes in to break up this fight that's going down, brings out his gun, hits him over the head here. Let's take a watch. Wow. Now, I have to say here, on the cinema angle, I did right here, why didn't they have any music for any of these action scenes? Oh, great call. You're totally right. There's just no music here, and you can really feel it. Let's take a listen. Oh, my God. No, it's Mary.

That pan shot, that killed me. When I saw that, I was like, oh, my God, when that happened. They got me. I was shocked. I was totally shocked when she was killed. So she was tragically killed in this scuffle when he pulls out the gun. And so, yeah, we had, I mean, a violent sexual assault just lead to a misunderstanding, lead to a murder all within a minute and a half.

And it just shows you how things can quickly spiral out of control when you're on weed. And again, I would say that I think the part that that is the most connected in the film is somehow that he smoked weed and then became kind of rapy. I think that part's connected. But again, I think the murder has to do with the fact that they are in an illegal storefront for weed. Well, people smoke weed everywhere now. It doesn't, like, this could lead to, this leads to violence out in public as well as in private.

But because of its illegality, they're resorted to being around unsavory characters that have guns and can kill them. And so I think that the murder is related to independent drug dealing, which is what happens when it's illegal. So that all happens. And then it's about to get way crazier because now Jack is going to try to frame our protagonist Bill for the murder. And Bill is so high He thinks he killed Mary Marijuana-induced psychosis Yes

So forgetful memory So he like pour some water on him And basically is like You kill her And he totally buys it Tragic Very tragic What happened?

you killed her. Oh, okay. All right. So now they have framed poor Bill and there is this whole long thing with this trial. During this court trial, Dr. Carroll shows up and rats on Bill. And all of my goodwill that Dr. Carroll had earned in the past scene where he said, you can come to me. You can tell me anything. He breaks his doctor's oath of confidentiality and rats bill out in court for being addicted to marijuana. He was killed. He didn't know. He was protecting her legacy. He had to speak up.

He saw the evil. This drug had rot. This woman of an innocent life was taken. And he had to speak up for her. And he did. He didn't know what he was doing was wrong. I think Dr. Carroll did the right thing. Okay.

Wow. That's a good t-shirt. And so now there's a lot of drama, you know, there's some, there's some jury stuff. It's all kind of boring at this point of the film. Yeah, it was a bad stretch of the movie. The trial didn't make a lot of sense, especially the jury part where they have this part where we won't bore you with it, but there was a reluctant juror. Yeah.

And it wasn't really explained why. It's like 12 Angry Men in like 15 seconds. Yeah, exactly. It was just a bad part of the story. Like it didn't, it didn't fit. And he ends up caving. and voting anyways. So anyway, yeah, we get through the trial

where Dr. Carroll reveals bills, marijuana use and kind of his distrust. But then it takes us back to our unsavory characters who are continuing up their shenanigans. Yes, and we're about to get to that. I did have one question for you in the jury scene, Sager. Did you notice the noose imagery in the jury scene? I did not.

Okay, I'm going to play for you right here. But here's what happens. They're talking in the jury scene. and then there's this hangar for a light, like a pull-down string light here, and it turns into a news. That wasn't the first time he was there. Oh, wow.

You see that? Yeah, I did. It's the most artistic. It's creepy, isn't it? That is creepy. It's the most, like, avant-garde moment in the film, and I was struck by it. I was struck by deeply.

You know, that, I noticed it, but it didn't, it didn't even stick. Like, I wasn't like, oh, yeah, it's it. But, oh, it makes sense. Makes sense. Well, I think it shows you the stakes of the jury decision there of finding him guilty, which they were going to hang him. They're going to hang him when they do find him guilty.

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That's give directly.org slash happiness lab to donate. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I Have Scurvy at 3 a.m? On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living.

Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know.

You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you your podcast. Okay, so now we're getting to like the dark night of the soul part of the, of the film, uh, here. Uh, essentially, you know, the bad kids, Ralph and Blanche are still

hanging out at the flop house. They're worried that they're going to get called into court or what have you. And the drug dealer, Jack is talking to his boss and his boss essentially is saying, hey, why don't you silence and kill? all these kids so that no one can talk in court. Is that essentially what happened? Is that fair to say? That's a good good. Yeah. So there there's again I wrote

I wrote no music in these scenes which is weird but there's also two iconic moments here that are constantly referenced there is this like more demented paranoia like

Ralph is really losing his mind here as we can see. I've got to see. We can't like that kid hang They do more piano And this is the famous piano scene Yeah, this is a wild scene He goes, faster, faster Which again, not something you typically hear a stoner

Say like again now Listen, I've been on Psychosis hits people in different ways Yeah, I just, from my own experiences This reminds me of some more cocaine-related incidents Now that is probably one of the most iconic images in the history one of the memes that you see

is this guy so high covering his face freaking the fuck out you'll just see that all over the place all over the internet he's grabbing his face he can't he can't he doesn't even know what's going on anymore um and then of course we get to the drug dealers who are coming in it gets really it gets really convoluted so we're not going to hit every moment of it but the drug dealers come in they try to silence ralph and then ralph ends up beating uh one of the drug dealers to death with a stick yes he beats jack to death with a stick um which is like a moment of karmic justice because jack was

actually the person who shot mary and ralph wanted to rat jack out and didn't want bill uh ultimately to swing but it was pretty violent like it was a violent death um that he beats him there on the camera and it tries to find redemption ultimately with um what's her name is it may with may the police all bust in after the death and may decides to tell the police that actually bill did did not kill Mary, that it was Jack. And she has a tearful kind of moment where she confesses the truth. But then as she's consumed by her own guilt. Should we just play the moment?

Yeah, we'll play the moment. All right. She's consumed by her own guilt and begins walking down a hallway in probably one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. Let's take a watch. The good times are flashing by Just going through the whole film again I think it's pretty beautifully shot. Yeah, the window and just how we get to that window is crazy.

Wow. I love the reaction from the lady there. The two hands up. Ah! A little ham-fisted, but, you know, very of the moment for its time. thought, now my entire life knowing the film only through memes, I thought that the film was insinuating that she got high and it made her jump out a window. Right. No, exactly right. It's not true. It's the guilt. Although, as we've said, I do believe it was a marijuana-inducis.

A residue. A residue. She had gone crazy. And because of that, she could not handle the consequences both of her actions. And she had marijuana-induced psychosis, which caused her to commit suicide, Which, by the way, tragically, and we can get to this later on when I put up some of the links is actually something that has been medically and scientifically proven to be real. Marijuana-induced psychosis leading to suicide. Tragic. By the way, you know, suicide hotline and all of that if anybody is struggling right now. Do not use chat GPT as we cover on our show. But yes, I would say what? That's the real. That's the last big moment before. the film ends. Yes, and it's book ended by Dr. Carroll as the end of the Greek chorus where he gives the final line and breaks the fourth wall.

Let's take a final listen to that. My favorite part of the possibility of averting other tragedies like it. We must work untiringly so that our children are obliged to learn the truth because it is only through knowledge that we can safely protect them. Failing this,

the next tragedy may be that of your daughter or your son or yours or yours or yours tell your children tell your children we're telling them we're telling them right now

I think our audience is children should tell them yeah if you guys have kids you should tell them so I want to get into your facts my big picture takes from this are it was a little boring at times but it was also I felt like if I'm approaching it as a sci-fi zombie horror movie I think there are some beautiful shots I think there were some bizarre acting befitting of a horror movie of like a zombie infection that fits for that time period so on on those merits I kind of enjoyed more of the elements of the film than I expected but ultimately I think the argument the film accidentally makes and maybe it was just for its time but that to me, the criminalization and the lack of a, of a storefront or government operated space for people to safely purchase and use marijuana leads to murder, sexual assault, and, and all the other things.

I think that's a fair point. First of all, let me just wrap. Like you said, it's 68 minutes of short film. It's kind of crazy to have a 68 minute film, which drags. But I think also, again, though, I want to be fair. People cannot conceive of how pre-phones, a lot of movies, were long. Or they just included stuff, which made not a whole lot of sense. Have you ever watched The Deer Hunter, Griffin?

Yeah. Yeah, I watched The Deer Hunter recently. Oh, my God, man, it tracks. Like, for a classic film, there are some long, lingering scenes, which I'm like, yo, this easily could have cut. I think it would have been two hours and 20 minutes. would have ripped but that's not that's not the point of the film and that's fine my point is just that you know in especially at this time when a lot of the reason people even went to the movies was just a kill an hour they didn't have television all they had at home was books they had nothing

radio right and so they wanted to be visually entertained the stuff that drags for us doesn't necessarily drag for them but yeah in its time i think it was probably better at its time more appreciated but for us in the moment there are definitely times when I wouldn't say it's nearly that successful capturing your attention, which is ultimately, you know, to be entertained. Like, that's the purpose of a film. Now, again, and I want to put some of these facts up here. You already put the one up there about driving, but let me...

Which one you want next? I think they deleted. I got them. Which one you want next? Okay. The next one that I wanted to put up here is... So one of the central themes about it was Billy. his he becomes stupider he becomes less reliable let's put the one up about marijuana reduces iq i just want to say that every every claim that i'm making here is backed up by multiple

scientific studies it is empirically and statistically now proven uh that long term marijuana use especially uh when started young dramatically by almost five points reduces iq uh it's in the middle to uh middle to long term and as they say there in middle a lot in midlife you can see it um whenever you're controlling even for other factors the second thing what just on this article right here important point the average content of THC in smoked whole plant products has risen from 1% to 4% in the 1970s to 15 to 30% today's cannabis dispensaries and that I think is like actually a pretty for lack of a better word potent argument yes I mean this this is look the film may have dramatized

you know, what would have been smaller reactions. You wouldn't have seen it as much at the time. But in the age of high potency THC, that's why I'm like, this film is more relevant than ever. Almost everything they say is actually even more relevant to our lives today in relation to societal use of wheat. The second thing I do want to show you is about the crazy behavior. Can you put the one about high THC products and ER visits?

So there's this new thing called scromitting, scromiting, which I haven't tried it yet. Yeah, so you can see ER doctors sounding the alarm on a fast-growing cannabis illness. Cannabis induced violent vomiting. It can lead to multi-day stays in the hospital. This is absolutely a result of high-potency T.C. But also of teenage youth, which again is up, especially in state. where legalization has happened. The next one that I do want to put up here

is it causes violence and suicide. So put the Scientific American up there just about the link between cannabis and psychosis and teens is real, which, you know, one of the reliance of this film is that it does cause people to go crazy. It's literally in the name, Reef or Badness. Yeah, it's empirically correct.

Like Reefer Madness is a proven phenomenon, a medically proven, no now phenomenon where it can induce not only psychosis, like temporarily, but it can cause literal psychotic breaks and especially induce people to become schizophrenic. The suicide and mental illness rate, of course, or violence rate, of course, also with that population, is dramatically higher than the rest of the general population. I've got the suicide risk one there. Next, Griffin, if you want, the suicide risk that it's labeled. This is a PubMed study, which came out about the increased risk of suicide. suicide, especially with high potency, THC marijuana use. So, yep, you can go and you can see it in first episode, psychosis.

You can go and you can read all of these. We'll put links down in the study to all the studies there for yourselves. And finally, this is one where about the cause of, like, mass violence that this is a drug has induced upon us. You can put my tweet there. I mean, you can go and fact check this, if you would like. Put the one called mass shootings about all of the mass shooters. in the last five years, who are linked to Merrill, or seven years, I guess, I should say. So the Parkland shooter, Nicholas Cruz, I will remind you all, he testified in open court

that he was, quote, smoking a lot of weed at the time that he conducted his shooting. The Texas church shooter was not just positive for THC, positive for very high levels of THC. The Minneapolis shooter, who we saw recently, this was the transgender one, what blamed vaping weed in their own journal and also worked at a weed store and then finally this most recent ice shooter was a self-professed weed and gaming addict okay so i just want to show again some of let's leave leave gaming out of it please leave oh we will not leave gaming out of it because weed and gambling or sorry wheat i say gaming yeah yeah you know i said weed and gaming go together like this as i noted about the FIFA comparison earlier it's all about numbing the same

about cheap dopamine um but ultimately i think that uh yeah i mean the core film like as somebody again who's so who's who's dug so deep into all the dangers of wheat it other than the sexual promiscuity every single claim that they make is backed up by science and if if anything is even worse today than it would have been back in the 1930s and that's That's why ultimately it's a tragedy what happened to this film, because this film became satire, right? As you said in Wikipedia, it became, Reefer Madness became a joke. Anybody warning about wheat, I can't tell you how often I get this. If you warn about weed, oh, Reefer Madness, I'm like, well, we all just went through it.

Reefer Madness is correct. Like, its core claims are correct. Now, Griffin, I think you have a fair point about legalization and about regulation. But, and by the way, even my, our good friend Ryan Grimm will admit this, Ryan was a decriminalize all drugs guy. Ryan agreed with me that the way that legalization has rolled out, especially in a place like Oregon, where we had decriminalization at one point of even hard drugs, was a enforcement and societal disaster. It led to. For what reasons? Well, because all of the promises of legalization did not end up happening.

People said we would have more regulation. False. Instead, what's happened is the Wild West, high potency THC advertising linked and targeted towards children, no societal norms that exist around alcohol. And instead, you know, what's the message? It's chill. It's not chill. It's just simply not. This is a drug with a lot of tradeoffs. We don't have any societal enforcement, like even around cigarettes. If you smoke cigarettes around children, universally, Everyone's going to say you're an asshole. For some reason, though, in any public park in this country or on the streets of, excuse me, in New York City or anywhere else, if you smoke weed, it's chill. You're such a prick if you say anything about it. And that's why our cities wreak of weed. And, of course, weed is also leads to antisocial behavior, which is why it becomes even more and more normalized and you end up smelling it everywhere. It also smells bad.

That's a subjective thing, but it does smell bad. Wheat smokers should be more courteous with... But they're not. It's inherent to their condition. It's inherent to their condition that they're not. People used to smoke cigarettes and restaurants. Now cigarette smoking is kind of something you do off in the corner. 100%.

No, you're right, Griffin. But that gets to my point, is that juxtaposition is that everybody treats it as not that big of a deal. And unfortunately, this film, was a big part in its revival from the 1970s, 1980s. I remember hearing this in Dare. Like, oh, my God, these are all lies. You know, this is just reaper madness.

This is just reaper madness talking points. And, yeah, I mean, one of the goals in my review was just to show you, like, no, everything they said was right. Almost everything that they said in this movie was right. And so now that Trump, this gets kind of to the policy, perhaps part of our show. Trump wants to reschedule marijuana, Schedule 3. This just is going to pour gasoline on the fire of everything that I, you know, there's going to be, everyone's like, oh, then we'll regulate it.

Nope, not happening. Instead, he's giving massive tax rates to multi-billion dollar companies which sell weed all over America. Venture Capital, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, they're salivating, salivating over the rescheduling of marijuana. they want to pump billions more into this industry, sell you as much as possible, make you addicted. Right now, daily weed use outpaces, daily alcohol use. That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, and listen, again, to get to society,

if you drink every single day, you're an alcoholic. Everyone agrees with that. You have a problem, dude, or gal. If you drink every single day, if you cannot go a day without having a drink, you have a problem if you smoke weed every day it's fine oh that's chill normal just taking the no you have a problem you are addicted to wheat uh and unfortunately again like all vice industries the everything every single thing i'm saying here can be fact check marijuana in particular

its users the highest amount of users are daily users that might make sense but what i'm trying to say is it has a much larger portion of the marijuana user base are daily users than people who are quote unquote casual drinkers. There is something about this drug, which in particular leads to a heavy reliance on it by the people who use it and who end up consuming it on a large basis, which is very profitable to these companies. And that's their ultimate goal. And Trump's ultimate goal now is to vastly enrich the, The scum who, it's not just weed, it's gambling, it's all vice, you know, related industries. And, you know, to get back to the alcohol point, we do not have the same norms around weed that we do with alcohol, or even cigarettes.

I mean, you can't advertise, and yet you can advertise, you know, you can't advertise or, you know, the Marlboro Man commercials and all that stuff that existed, but you can do it for gambling. But not for weed. No, no, but part of what I'm getting at here with weed is that even today, you know, what we're seeing is this billion dollar industry just create as many ways as possible to make you high all the time. Weed soda, weed gummies, weed this, you know, lollipops, it's different strains, all of the craziest. I mean, at one point in Colorado, there were more weed shops than McDonald's or something. subways, right? There was like a weed shop on every other corner. And this is actually the case where in more rural areas, downmarket areas, we talk about the dangers of dollar tree or any of these, you know, payday loan lenders, alcohol, you know, but yeah, it's funny people

think I defend alcohol. So alcohol in a poor neighborhood, you're a scumback. I'm happy to say that. But also if you sell weed in a poor area, you're also a scumback. Okay. or lottery tickets or any of these other deeply exploitative things but the thing is is that with almost all of those most people can agree that those are bad behaviors it's only weed that we seem to have this carve out on so if anything like i that's my major goal is to stigmatize it um is to restigmatize weed porn gambling i want these things to be thought of in the same same way that we think about all other vices that we know are horrible

for you. I'm not saying you should be locked up. Without disagree on any of the individual negative things that you are to connect to marijuana, like I think part of the reason why people have a more negative view of heroin or alcohol is because people get drunk, come home and beat their wives. People

like drink and drive and crash their cars probably at a higher rate than they smoke weed and drive. Well, that's not yet proven, Griffin. Unfortunately, it's not statistical why data on that. People are drinking less, too, so that actually might shift. So high driving might actually be more dangerous than drunk driving. So I think societally, it makes sense that, like, people have experienced larger negative effects than some of the more invisible things, like, oh, he's depressed and doesn't work as hard now or whatever.

Yeah, but that's not the only thing I just noticed. So you talked about people. And it's also, and the lethality of the drug. So, for instance, you can drink enough to die. You can start to get there with, like, the article you brought up where, you know, it is having people. go to the hospital yeah we're getting there with like a few cases but those are like those are not the the large majority in the terms of science that okay but let's be fair then you like but anytime you drink like x amount you know you're going to the hospital that's not necessarily

true for everyone with week yeah that's true uh you can get alcohol poisoning it certainly can but the number of people who drink themselves to death is a statistically very very small portion of the people who drink right so that's the same type of argument i mean if you line it up i've just showed you it can lead to mass psychotic it can literally lead to millions and millions of people not literally lead to it already has led to millions of people going crazy and fight and create uh committing violence like this is happening it already is happening on the shooters you pulled up so you named the four shooters there and my instant thought was okay that's four people it someone there's a shooting every day like yeah but i said mass shooters specifically okay first of all right well okay let's let me borrow

from your left frame is everyone's like yeah but nobody ever wants to talk about young white men who commit these shooters no don't make me woke okay i'm not woke i'm just saying i'm just saying the leftists always like to do that when we're talking about crime statistics to look well there's something in particular about young white i'm just pointing you out it's not just that they're young and white it's a lot of them smoke wheat okay look it's not just that i can find you um four of them we don't have a huge sample size of mass shooters there's so many shooters what are you're talking about. Okay. Well, no, no, no.

I said mass years. But what's my, what's mass? Like Las Vegas? But fine, fine, fine. Fine. Let's then. Because to me, I'm like, oh, they all also had cereal that morning. Okay. It's like, okay.

But, but that's not causal. That's not causal, especially whenever it comes to violence and to, uh, to that. But if we want to go down that road, let's go look at crime statistics that involve marijuana. It is a huge, like every, like in the same way that you said alcohol can lead to beating their wife. marijuana is involved in an unbelievable amount of crimes. 20 to 25% just of drug-related crimes are involving marijuana. Now, drug obviously is usually connected to violent.

They don't release the violence statistics. That means it's in their blood system. Like, it's in their body. It's hard on how they classify it. What they're saying is like it's related? Because it sounds like this is like an anti-Semitic incident in New York. But then what's alcohol related? Then what's alcohol related, right?

So this is what I mean. If somebody drinks and beats their water. wife. Maybe they were an asshole who was going to do it anyways. Are we going to blame it on alcohol? I'm happy to, okay, especially if alcohol is involved. I have no problem with that classification. But then I'm going to borrow that same classification over here for myself. Unfortunately, we don't release it whenever it comes just to violent incidents, but we definitely know that with drug-related incidents, it's going to be connected. Now, the same thing, though, gets to, you know, what you were saying there about shooting. I mean, I just gave people the statistics about

psychosis. And it is an empirical fact that people who unfortunately are going through psychotic episodes are dramatically more likely to commit murder and violence. I mean, we've more recently had the stabbing of that girl that was on the train by somebody who was schizophrenic, all right? I mean, this is unfortunately, you know, is a characteristic in some cases of violent schizophrenia. This is something that is a well documented thing. Now, if we're going to have a drug. I'd agree with that. And I think our main point of agreement that is that weed has changed. Like, I don't, I don't think that, like, the level of THC and weed when this film was made was important enough to do a scare campaign.

And I don't think they knew that it was going to be, like, five times as powerful back then. But now I do think that they're, like, the weed is probably too strong. It's, like, almost like a different drug than even what I did back in, like, high school and college or whatever. So I do buy that there are, like, new cases of psychosis. and that the conversation, like, is evolving and changing because of the strength of the drug. But then I think the question always comes to, like, what are what should be done about it? Like, what are your solutions that are, are fair? And is it really just like the sense of the film to just tell your children?

Like, is that as far as you would want to go? No, absolutely not. Again, I'll meet the liberals halfway. You guys want legalization? You're not ready for the regime under which. going to live under then we are going to live under a capped amount of THC per product we are going to live with none of these bullshit products uh which peddle to children lollipops drinks and all of this other ridiculous nonsense we are going to live with taxpayer funded funded specifically

like addiction clinics and others which is going to monitor anybody uh yeah no no but but this no You may. The people who buy weed bitch and moan anytime somebody actually taxes it. They don't want it. Like at the end of the day, what we've witnessed with weed and gambling legalization is ultimately the way that it all falls is no regulation, Wild West, and that the users themselves become so addicted, they turn into lobbyists for the industry. So for example, and you know, I guess I'll call out bar stool here, but I saw multiple personalities, even though I have some friends over there, who were lobbying against gambling taxes. The whole point was, yeah, we were going to legalize gambling so we could tax it. But no, even taxing it is something that they began to revolt against. And this happens with weed. If we moved to the regime that I just talked about where, and also, if you smoke it in public, you're getting a ticket. If you get a couple more, just like with drunk driving, you get a couple, you're going to jail.

I support that 100%. You should get an infraction. You cannot disturb the public peace by constantly just going around and smoking. And then we need the societal stuff on top of that either. But that's what I'm trying to say is. And I think when people hear criticisms like yours, they think of the war on drugs.

They think of like all of those failures and they think that you kind of want to recreate it. But that's not what I'm hearing? No, not at all. I'm saying I will meet you all halfway. I've even said this about drugs, hard drugs. I go, okay, fine. But if you get shot, if you're shooting up,

If you have a needle in your arm outside of my house, which happens, you're going to jail. You are going to jail. If you have a needle in your arm. If you are on a public bench and you're causing problems. What about a rehab center? Well, but no, but that's kind of what I'm getting at is you this is like the Portuguese model. You are going to mandatory rehab and not the bullshit rehab we have in America where it's only 30 days. I'm talking about one to two years.

You are going to rehab. Wow. In this case, I'm talking about heroin in fentanyl, which has one of the highest recitism rates of all time. Really? Two years. That's a long rehab. It's a long time to rewire your brain. It's unfortunate.

That's why you shouldn't use this shit. But what I'm getting at is fine. We can legalize it if you guys want to. But we are going to live under a very strict regime about how this all works. And unfortunately, what we have seen with the mass libertine culture that we live in is that what ends up happening is, legalization with none of the enforcement. And that's why I think we're living in the worst of all worlds. And by the way, this is what I want to say, the public is on my side because it was only three years ago that we had almost 80% for support of legalization of marijuana.

The most recent Gallup polling shows a 13% drop just in one year for legalizing weed from last year just amongst Republicans and already falls with Democrats and with independent. As we continue to see what I think the hellscape, you know, that we all live in, you're just going to see that number continue to go down. You're seeing the same thing with sports gambling. I mean, and this is why, again, people think I want to ban all gambling. I want to ban weed. I've never said that. I think if you want to smoke weed in your house, as long as that smoke is not going into other people's homes and is not, you're not violent and you're not psychotic. I'm roommateing with saga. I'm roommateing with saga and I'm blowing it on. under the door. If you're a truly private experience, so be it, I guess, although I still think it's bad. But, you know, it's a free country. I think those people wouldn't disagree with a lot of that. But they do, though.

See, this operationally, they do. People riot when you say, no, you can't smoke weed in public. No, you can't smoke weed around children. That's the other thing. Designated things around children, around where children gather. You know, where I live, oh, my God. You'll walk your kid. You're going to smell wheat down at the park.

It happens all the time. You and I know that national parks, I love my national parks. There's always some of smoking weed out on a trail or something. It's just one of those things where for some reason we all seem to think it's fine. So I would want massive enforcement, massive regulation, and changes to our society. But I know the country that we live in. It doesn't even seem like the regulations that you're asking for are that massive. if you're essentially asking for us to treat it like cigarettes,

where you can buy cigarettes, but there are warnings, kids can't do it, it can't look like a candy lollipop, and it can't be advertised to people, and there's a social taboo or illegal to actually smoke in parks. Is that as far as you go?

Yeah, that's not as far as I go. That I really don't, that I think the battle is overwroth. I forgot, I forgot the last part, nonprofit. It has to be nonprofit or and or government controlled, state controlled, like we do here about liquor in Virginia.

You cannot allow for-profit industry, which is the backstop of all of this. Or we can, but then the profit margin is going to be capped and there's going to be price control completely across the board. Non-profit is the only way to keep the grubby hands of Wall Street, venture capital, which is what's happened right now. Like I said, this is a multi-billion,

one of the things that weed people like to say is that big pharma and all these people are lobbying. No, they're not, you idiots. They will do anything to get you addicted. If you're so dumb that you think that medical marijuana is a thing, they'll sell it to you at a high price. Oh, should we go into that one? That's the last one.

This one that just came out. Massive new study, I'll send you the link, about medical marijuana, which, of course, we've been hearing for years about all of the... Medistinal aspects. And one time we heard a story about a guy, with seizures and weed

just happen to stop it. Well, everyone, there's this thing called evidence. There's this thing called evidence. I want to be in the room where they're like, let's, like the guy's having the seizure. And they're like, let's get them high. And unfortunately, you know, for people,

what has now come out from JAMA, one of the most respected medical, medical, what's it called? One of the most medical journals that exists. let's go and put this up here on the screen oh oh review of medical cannabis use finds little evidence of benefit researchers found a chasm between the health reasons for which the public seeks out cannabis and what the gold standard science actually shows about its effects for those who say i need weed to sleep false weed makes your sleep false weed i use weed to make my anxiety go down False. Weed increases the amount of your anxiety. By the way, can I say this about alcohol, too?

The amount of people who are always talking about, I just need a drink to take the edge off. The evidence is in now. Your anxiety that you're trying to cure with alcohol will actually increase beyond where it was previously as a result of you using alcohol. Drowning or trying to smoke your problems away or shooting up your problems away is a fool's errand

and it doesn't work. And that's, look, you know, know there's a lot there's so much evidence about like different lifestyle things that you can do you don't have to turn to medication i don't even want people to turn to medication you know me um exercise alone is dramatically more proven to decrease anxiety to even uh more so than SSRIs for depression so what i'm just trying to show you all is that this culture that we live in is just all about make multi-billion dollar industries they're trying to sell you something they want you addicted. The more anxious you are, the more weed you smoke, which more

anxious you are, which is the more weed that you smoke, and they're the ones that profit. And that's why, you know, the solutions that I laid out, I would love to live in a country like that. But I just don't think it's going to happen because operationally in America, that's not how it goes. We legalize. We legalize. We make it a for-profit business, massively exploitative. This is what happens with gambling. This happens with weed. happening with pornography happened with alcohol for many years before we did anything about it happened with with cigarettes you know as well and it took i mean jesus it took decades you know really for the public and for uh for laws to all kind of come together and actually try and move

in a different direction so yeah i mean i think we will get there yeah go ahead i mean sit like into the culture point or what have you i think this this might be a rise for optimism for you but I think that in cinematic media culture around weed weed weed is actually not as cool now like the like the early days of like the stoner comedies are kind of like lame now and it's like if weed is your whole thing like it's actually kind of kind of lame like it's not like

if you're obsessed with weed and have like a Rick and Morty bong and like it's what you're all about like that that has a that has kind of like a cultural shelf life I in my opinion currently like there used to be like you know on broad city they used to be smoking weed all the time you don't really see that in like the the more current um modern culture so maybe that's a sign uh that like once it became more legal it became less cool i specifically remember on an episode of bill mar uh it was either bill mar or like CNN or something but zach alfenakis like pulls out a joint and like smokes it on tv and it was like a big crazy moment that was like a big crazy moment that was

like, whoa, he just did that. If he did that today, I think people would stun on him. You're a losing. They would make fun of him for doing that. So that is a sign that culture changes. Perhaps it's changed me as less rebellious. But Stephen Colbert, when he just quit CBS, did a splashy magazine cover where he was smoking a joint at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

We can both agree that guy's smoking too much weed. Yeah, he's smoking too much weed. He's in a psychosis of some sorts. my final plea. Stay off the weed. That's the point of this movie. I'm surprised. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I'm surprised that I think after sussing stuff out, I think a lot of the audience would probably agree with you that it should be regulated close to the cigarettes that people shouldn't do in the parks and that it's preferable for it to be heavily regulated than illegal like we see in the film and have there be drug guys lurking

around high schools. Yeah. Well, I think that's ever present, unfortunately. I think that will always be there will always be an undesirable element at high schools so what do you what how do we rate the film let's let's end this movie review what what would you rate this film purely as a film on you on letterbox what are you given it maybe maybe for because you know films are aren't just the the content itself but it's impact i get three three point five out of five okay i've three point five out of five only because of the impact if i was grading it purely like as a movie, I'd probably give it like a two, two out of five. Just because so many of it, so much of it drags. And it can be a little bit convoluted. But I guess we have to grade it on a

curve. Like I said, I mean, this, like learning that it was done by a silent film director actually made a click where I'm like, oh, that's why it's so choppy at times. You know, it doesn't flow necessarily. But, you know, you got to cut people a great break. This was almost a hundred years ago that this film was made. So, yeah. But that, you know, in the modern era, I don't think it holds up as a film necessarily but it definitely has it definitely gives us something

to think about like in terms of the themes and the problems that it tries to highlight and its major cultural impact. Okay. And I didn't know what star to give it so folks if you've made it this far at the end of this interview

this one is just for the deep cut fans I'm giving it one big bong rip for Sager All right. All right. I like it. I like it. Not that I know what any of that means. Thank you guys for watching. Whoever watched this. Seriously, thank you. At the very least, we're doing this for us because we enjoyed the hell out of it. Griffin, we should do more, we should do more movie reviews. Knocked up next year. I'm excited to do knocked up next holiday season. I'm telling you, it's a good film. It's good. It holds up. Yeah. After 20 years. Folks, all the links to soccer studies will be in the video description here,

and we hope that you are all gathering around the correct tree, the Christmas tree, this holiday season. That's right. Happy holidays. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

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