The phenonemal new documentary, Code of the West, has its Boston-area premiere on Thursday April 26, 2012 at the Somerville Theater as part of the 10th Annual Independent Film Festival Boston. Details are available here.
The Cyberlaw Clinic is honored to have had the opportunity to work with filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen on the film, which follows the 2011 Montana State Legislature as it debates the fate of medical marijuana.
As the director herself says:
My team and I have tried to capture the human story behind the legislative process of state-level marijuana policy reform – a messy, tangled affair that has implications for policy reform in other states as well as the democratic process in the nation at large. Though the federal government considers marijuana a Schedule I narcotic (with no accepted medical use), an increasing number of states disagree. Today sixteen states and Washington DC have legalized medical marijuana use for people suffering from debilitating medical conditions including cancer, epilepsy, severe nausea, multiple sclerosis, and chronic pain. But the way in which we regulate a drug that is also widely used by adults and teenagers who don’t suffer from these conditions – and which has become a powerful symbol in a much wider debate about cultural values – raises the sort of hard questions that drove me to make this film.
The Clinic congratulates Rebecca on the film’s success and encourages everyone to see this thought-provoking take on an important and timely issue.