Educational Media Reviews Online

Never before has an issue pitted brigades of concerned parents and teachers against gaunt, cancer-stricken grandmothers as medical marijuana. This contest only becomes more intriguing in Montana, when conservatives repealing an existing medical marijuana law, amid an even more preposterous bid to revive John Wayne's Code of the West, face off with a governor who vetoes bills using a branding iron on the steps of the state capitol. Showmanship and antics aside, the film delves deep into fundamental problems related to the wording of the law including difficulties facing law enforcement and unintended consequences, including hideous and tacky dispensaries and billboards popping up all over small town Montana. The film does such a wonderful job of presenting the natural and architectural beauty of Montana, that even those who come down clearly on the side of medical marijuana would have to mourn the skyline. With a few exceptions, the opposing sides are refreshingly reasonable and civil, but those opposed to medicinal marijuana often resort to long bouts of emotional hysteria that clearly contradict the CDC's statistics related to marijuana use among Montana's teens. Similarly, some of the employees at the model grow operation appear to also really just like to get high. At the end of the day, the most powerful argument in favor of medicinal marijuana is clearly the perspective of Tom Daubert, a long-time lobbyist who only began to represent this cause late in his career. Despite having left the grow operation long before the repeal of Montana's law, at the end of the film, he is living in horror of an impending Federal indictment.

Code of the West opens and concludes with an overly sanitized, almost robotic narrator, waxing philosophical as to whether people should obey laws they do not agree with and what the consequences should be. It is an unfortunate editorial choice seeing as how the film makes a compelling case on its own. The closing remarks in defense of subversion only become more ridiculous as the screen displays one of the more aggressive copyright statements I have seen in a documentary film. Nonetheless, the film is highly recommended for legal studies courses as well as political science classes as much attention is given to the actual process of repealing the law. It would also make an excellent addition to public library collections in communities engaged in debate over medical marijuana.