American Weed: National Geographic Channel, starts tonight 8MST

American Weed chronicles Colorado MMJ on National Geographic Channel - Denver News - The Latest Word

[align=left]​The Colorado medical and recreational cannabis communities are put under the lens of reality television tonight.Tonight, National Geographic Channel will air the first episodeAmerican Weed, the latest weed-themed reality TV show to hit the mainstream. See a preview below.The first episode (and from what we can tell, most of the season) seems to focus on Budding Health owner Josh Stanley, who's listed as a Fort Collins dispensary owner. The show details his outdoor (outdoor?!) grow facility in the mountains and his role in the unsuccessful fight against the Fort Collins dispensary ban.The series also gives some time to the law enforcement side of things. According to producers: "Sergeant Jim Gerhardt and fellow officers on the North Metro Task Force continue to find illegal grows by residents claiming to be growing medical marijuana. Is the pendulum swinging back to curb the ten-year proliferation of medical marijuana in Colorado?"Though the plotline of the series seems to hinge on the ban in Fort Collins, the preview video National Georgraphic has released (see below) has quite a few clips of Denver and Boulder events like the 4/20 rally and the High Times Medical Cannabis Cup last April -- events that took place several months before the Fort Collins ban proposal was made public.And that might be the biggest issue I have with the series. The footage and personalities might make compelling television for anyone outside of Colorado, but I'm wondering just how relevant (or accurate) it will be to those of us living here.From what I can tell from dodging the NatGeo cameras at public events and hearings for the better part of last year, the channel sent production crews here for months to film anything and everything they could, hoping to find some sort of plot line to cull from the footage. People I've spoken with who participated in filming say they were under the impression that it was being made into a documentary and were somewhat surprised to see it became a television series. I'll watch it, but I am predicting that every episode produces a reaction similar to passing a car wreck on the freeway.Without a doubt, the series is going to stir up some controversy among the Colorado cannabis community. We'll have a full recap of the first episode tomorrow morning.American Weed airs tonight at 8 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel. That's channel 273 for you Comcast digital subscribers and channel 186 for those of you with Dish Network. Here's the preview:

video preview: Video -- American Weed -- National Geographic

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interesting to see Stanley in there fighting against the regs he helped create... that shut down so many others.

kinda crazy the puritans in Ft Collins considering the massive amounts of booze that go down there (and celebrated!).

Interesting show for sure!

We worked with the first production crew that was here in April and May of 2011. Everything they filmed was real, no drama was added or re-shot for the camera. We were actually very impressed with the crew and what they were asking for. It was definitely more documentary style than reality TV style. The head of production the first time around was Matthew Akers who is making quite a name for himself on the international film scene with his newest release that was the talk of the town at Sundance. The film is called , "Marina Abramović: The Artist is Watching." When the 2nd production crew came back in late June, we saw a noted change in the production style and chose not to continue cooperating. Should be interesting to see how it all turns out.

yeah, I watched this last night it was good. fair and balanced. it made the prohibs look just like the morons they are. :jointsmile: they always assume they know more than doctors, what a crock hu? pretty impressive documentary, I thought. I missed the end tho, what happened in Ft. Collins?? did they ban dispensaries or not? I can't remember what happened in Cali when some cities tried to ban dispensories, I think they were over ruled by State law, but I really can't remember now.

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Originally Posted by DenverRelief

The film is called , "Marina Abramović: The Artist is Watching."

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OT: I will definitely see this. I went to her exhibition at MoMA a couple years back. The exhibition entry is a doorway, in which two nude models are standing facing each other. To get in the show, you have to turn sideways and squeeze between them!

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I have to say, as a fairly white bread person who never even considered doing marijuana until a few years ago when I got sick, I was really disappointed by the one episode of this show I watched, the one where they were trying to close Fort Collins. I thought that the dispensary owners that they focused on the most typified everything that makes it impossible for medical marijuana users to be taken seriously, guys getting high and riding dirt bikes, etc.

And while I fully realize that 90 percent of people taking legal prescription drugs are just using them for recreational highs, the fact is, medical marijuana is never going to be taken seriously with documentaries like that.