Grow Dutch II

Part travelogue, part pop culture exploration and part marijuana legalization screed, this video picks up right where its predecessor, Grow Dutch (VL-9/97) left off. First comes a tour of lovely old Amsterdam with its quaint architecture and myriad coffee shops (the helpful narrator explains that one way to find a pot-selling shop is to look for the English spelling of “coffee”). Inside these shops we find the usual assortment of tourists, partygoers and ganja devotees, most of who seem to be willing to opine about marijuana and society at the sight of a microphone (reminding us once again that stoned people are every bit as scintillating on camera as drunks). The second half of the video is something completely different, however: a highly organized, no-nonsense disquisition on producing the evil weed, from sprouting through sexing the plants to harvesting and hash making (with an incidental visit to the cannabis culture museum). The visuals are very good, but the clinical drone of the narrator and the extreme attention to detail mark this as an educational piece, not a mere dope travelogue (and despite the smattering of coffeehouse clowns early on, this really is a serious program about marijuana and its place in society). The production values are, for the most part, high (no pun intended), especially compared to previous videos on this topic. Given this program's detailed pro-choice source of information on the debate over marijuana's legal status, and the fact that a one-sided debate is no debate at all in a nominally free society, this is a recommended pick for libraries with the intellectual freedom moxie to acquire it. Aud: C, P. (M. Tribby)