I thought this was a decent documentary. To the reviewer above mine he says can you take cannabis without smoking. The answer is yes. They have vaporizers so you get no carcinogens. You can also make it topical and cook it into foods. They have tried to synthesize these chemicals and put it into a drug called Marinol, but it doesn't seem to work. Also another called I believe Sativex. Not sure how well that works, but if the American Government is saying it doesn't work why are they asking Big Pharma to synthesize it? Because Big pharmaceutical companies want to make money off of a plant that can be grown just about anywhere. So they lobby millions of dollars to politicians to keep it illegal. Which is don't just that. If anyone is curious the Shafer Commission has done the most extensive and thorough review on Cannabis ever. It was appointed by Nixon along with the people who were on the commision. Nixon wanted them to come back with a view that it should be illegal to go along with his tough war on drugs. When they didn't he called them soft headed republicans who were probably smoking it themselves. Most people at that time who smoked cannabis was against the Vietnam War so he wanted to purposely target those people. Don't believe me look it up.Anyways this movie is about how a law abiding man Charlie Lynch went through all the required laws to get a Medical Cannabis Dispensary. He had found that medicinal cannabis worked for him and wanted to help other potential patients. So where he lived in California there wasn't a dispensary. So after getting a business license that stated for Medical Marijuana on the license. After calling the DEA several times to find out the proper laws with constant run around. When he finally opens his dispensary on opening day the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor were there to open his Dispensary. So after following all the laws provided this Rogue sheriff (imo probably running for a Political career) starts an independent investigation. After a year of investigating and not being given a warrant he calls in the DEA. I recommend everyone watching this documentary. It shows the hypocrisy of the American government on his Medical Marijuana trial they wouldn't let him bring in any Medical Cannabis evidence. They wouldn't let him bring in his patients to testify for him. The man who was charged with Child porn got a better defense.I had cancer when I was 18 years old. For over a year I was in and out of the hospital. Through chemo and radiation I couldn't keep anything down so I went from 160lbs to 80lbs. I have never ever taken drugs in my life except what was prescribed for me. I can tell you from personal experience that the Big Pharma drugs for pain was probably the hardest drug I had to try and come off of. The withdrawal symptoms are the worst I have ever had. However when I was taking medical cannabis during the time when I cancer I was able to eat and to build up my strength. I was able to fight and continue to survive only because of Medical Cannabis. There were times during that time I wanted to give up. The pain killers they gave me sure took away the pain however it made me a drooling vegetable. Medical Cannabis helped me to survive and when I decided to stop using the medicine there were NO withdrawals symptoms. I also need to make this point that a lot of people have no idea about. There have been absolutely No deaths. None, zero, zilch, and nil associated with Cannabis. I mean directly attributed with it. I do believe it should be regulated and controlled like tobacco and alcohol. But I had cancer when I was 18 years old I am now 36 years old now and a cancer survivor. I believe if it wasn't for cannabis I would've died back then.

The outrageous contradictions swirling around the medical marijuana business in the USA are explored in this penetrating documentary which focuses on the 2010 Federal prosecution and conviction of dispensary owner Charles Lynch from San Luis Obispo, California by a rogue and relentless local sheriff.Clearly this documentary is one-sided, being strongly in favor of medical marijuana (and presumably marijuana legalization in general). There are some attempts to show how crazy some marijuana devotees are (the ones in the "cult" of marijuana). But basically, there is one message here.I would like to have seen a discussion about the difference between marijuana and the chemicals inside it. Can marijuana be taken in other ways than smoking it? Can the chemicals be isolated and made into a pill or vapor? Critics of medical marijuana would be less opposed if they saw it as a real medication and not as a drug. (And, really, it is hardly healthy to smoke anything...) One person does say it should be FDA tested, to which I would agree.