About the film:

Ten years after California voters legalized marijuana for seriously ill patients (the first of currently 11 states with medical mariijuana laws), the federal government still classifies it as an illegal Schedule One drug, with “no accepted medical use.”

RxCannabis zooms in on San Diego, ground zero for the recent medical marijuana backlash. In July, 2006, the Feds, invited in by sympathetic San Diego county officials, closed down all marijuana dispensaries in the county. Suddenly thousands of registered medical marijuana patients were driven to the streets to get their medicine. 

A story of patients turned activists, RxCannabis follows people afflicted with cancer, hapatitis-C, serious burns, spinal injuries, and other conditions, who refuse to be treated like victims . All of them are learning to fight for their right to an herb used for 1000’s of years medicinally. The characters in RxCannabis assert that the high quality marijuana they use not only combats the side effects of conventional treatments like chemotherapy and interferon, but can replace hundreds of drugs that make the pharma companies billions of dollars in profits yearly. 

RxCannabis is a metaphor for the entire War on Drugs, a story of ordinary people rising to the occasion. It is a an entertaining and provocative look at a complex plant, originating in Central Asia, that Pope Innocent VIII declared, in 1484, was an “antisacrament”; that in the 1930’s, at the start of our current era of marijuana Prohibition, Harry Anslinger, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, termed the “assassin of youth.”

About the filmmaker

Harvey Stein

"Currently I'm working on a documentary on medical marijuana and marijuana in general, called "RxCalifornia". It's been an amazing project so far. I've been filming in California, filming patients with conditions like cancer, AIDS, and serious back injuries, who get great relief from marijuana. I'm also learning about the incredible destructiveness of the WAR ON DRUGS, which is basically the longest War the U.S. has been fighting. Keeping marijuana illegal wastes billions of dollars a year, and puts 1000's of people in prison for no reason. But we live in a moralistic, Puritanical country, and besides the $billions$ provide jobs for lots of prison guards and police. Hooray! I've also written screenplays, which usually focus on political issues too: "McWorld" is a satire on the consumerism and the media, and "Scuzzy" is about the tough life of illegal aliens in New York City."

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