If you want to get high on documentaries, why not pick something from our list of 11 best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube? They are great educational pieces and you will have a chance to learn more about the cannabis, its medical use, and issues that surround its legalization.
Weed, marijuana, cannabis, ganja, pot, or whatever you call it, is a plant that is mostly used as a recreational drug due to its psychedelic effects. It is also used in medicine for treating some diseases or symptoms and for religious purposes. When we talk about its recreational use as a drug, weed occupies the 4th place in terms of popularity behind coffee, alcohol, and tobacco (technically also a drug). It is estimated that there was close to 200 million people consuming weed on a regular basis in 2014. Now, the surprising thing is that these numbers didn’t change drastically when compared to 1998. It may look that now everyone uses weed and that it is popular and what not, but the truth is that use of marijuana was always popular. The views about it changed and now we have the opportunity to speak freely about it. Also, we are discovering now that marijuana can have multiple positive effects on humans, including already mentioned health benefits which soften the views of governments on the matter. If you want to know more about how weed can help your health, make sure to check out our list of 12 Health Benefits of Medical Marijuana According to Publicly Traded Weed Companies.
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Weed is one of those things countries can’t seem to agree upon. The views about the recreational use of marijuana drastically change depending on the region. Personally, I think everyone should make it legal. It is a completely unnecessary fight with the windmills. Countries that have legalized marijuana in some form are already seeing the benefits from it. It is always better for the country to get the profit through taxes than to let the black market flourish. So far, only Uruguay has made cannabis completely legal. Spain made it legal for use in private objects, and those who use it in public areas risk a fine. There are other countries that have decriminalized recreational use of marijuana like Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, and Slovenia, among others. This means that possession of small amounts of weed isn’t a criminal offense. In a couple of countries like Turkey, Poland, and Italy, marijuana is only legal for treating medical conditions. When it comes to the United States, the question of marijuana use is transferred from the federal level to state levels. In some states like California, Colorado, and Nevada, weed is legal for recreational use. In states like Oklahoma, North Dakota and Arizona, marijuana is legal for medical use only. In others, marijuana is decriminalized or represents a misdemeanor. This brings us to the countries where weed is illegal. In most of the countries where marijuana is illegal, you won’t have a bad time and you’ll risk a fine, but in few of them, you should better watch out. If you are caught with even small amounts of marijuana in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, or Indonesia for example, you could end up in prison from six months to four years. So you better be careful.
To get our list of 11 best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube, we took recommendations from multiple sources including Herb, Mass Root and Sun Times, among others. The first thing we did is checking all the titles to see whether they are available to stream either of the previously mentioned streaming services. Those that were available on one or more were then ranked according to their IMDb rating. Now, let’s roll with it and see the best of them.
11. Super High Me
IMDb Rating: 6.1
Available On: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Youtube
Let’s start off with one available for everyone. This documentary is a bit of a parody on Super Size Me, a documentary where a guy ate McDonald’s for 30 days straight to see the effects of fast food on his body. In Super High Me, the premise is the same, only instead of McDonald’s, the comedian Doug Benson decided to smoke weed for 30 days to see the effects. He undergoes various tests to track his condition and conducts interviews with experts on the subjects.
10. High: The True Tale of American Marijuana
IMDb Rating: 6.6
Available On: Amazon Prime
This documentary will reveal you everything you need to know about amounts of money and effort the politicians in the United State spend fighting against legalization of marijuana. Although the documentary can now be considered outdated, it still can produce a good insight into the state of thought that preceded legalization.
9. Following Sean
IMDb Rating: 7.1
Available On: YouTube
Ralph Arlyck did a student film in 1969 where he filmed four-year-old boy named Sean, who shares his thoughts on marijuana, police, and life with the camera. The boy also admitted that he occasionally smokes pot. Thirty years later, with this documentary Arlyck takes the viewers on a journey to find Sean and see what happened to him.
8. How Weed Won the West
IMDb Rating: 7.2
Available On: YouTube
This documentary explores the growth of medical marijuana industry in California but also investigates the subject of marijuana legalization and the nation’s ongoing war on drugs. The documentary covers the social, economic, and other aspects of marijuana through interviews with various legal and medical experts including a narcotics police officer who had an epiphany and doesn’t think that drugs should be illegal anymore.
7. Evergreen: The Road to Legalization
IMDb Rating: 7.5
Available On: YouTube
The documentary that ranked 7th on our list of best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube talks about legalization of weed for recreational use in the state of Washington but also covers the broader aspects of the decision. You would think now that this is just one more documentary in the sea of those covering the same subject. Well, the interesting thing about this one is that it goes in depth and explores the relationships and tensions between two factions of people supporting legalization, each with their own ideas and ways to implement the decision.
6. CannaBiz
IMDb Rating: 7.5
Available On: Amazon Prime, YouTube
Although a TV documentary, CannaBiz doesn’t lack in production or ambition. This exciting piece leads the viewers behind the scenes of the growing marijuana industry. From the ’60s, marijuana has been a part of peoples’ lives in Grand Forks, a small border town in Canada. They cultivated some of the best marijuana that ever entered the U.S. black weed market. You would think that weed being more acceptable would only do well for them? Well, it looks like that isn’t the case, and that problems are just started piling up. Let’s see what’s next on our list of best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube.
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5. American Drug War: The Last White Hope
IMDb Rating: 7.9
Available On: Hulu, YouTube
Although this entry on our list of 11 best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Youtube, doesn’t talk just about weed, I think it can give a great insight into the problems that surrounded legalization movements and use of marijuana in the past. The documentary talks about how the “war on drugs” is perhaps among the longest and most expensive wars the country has ever led and points to the fact that this war is destined to failure from the very beginning. To prove this claim, documentary makers build a compelling case and conduct interviews with former CIA agents, members of Drug Enforcement Administration, lawyers, activists, and celebrities, among others.
4. In Pot We Trust
IMDb Rating: 8.0
Available On: YouTube
Ok, I understand there are people who don’t believe that something like weed could have health benefits. Even the science isn’t all clear on that question. But there are plenty of examples that show weed can make a positive difference if nothing. This documentary that ranked 4th on our list of best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube follows five people who are using medical marijuana to treat their chronicle illnesses. They all speak about their experiences using weed, describe how it helps them to overcome symptoms, and how it changed their life.
3. 420: The Documentary
IMDb Rating: 8.3
Available On: Hulu, Amazon Prime
We already talked in the intro about the fact that you can peacefully enjoy marijuana in some parts of the world, compared to the places where that can destroy your life. This documentary, next on our list of best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube goes along that premise, exploring the cases where marijuana was freely used on festivals compared to the cases of marijuana consumption that led to people being arrested or even murdered.
2. The Culture High
IMDb Rating: 8.5
Available On: Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube
I think I will dream former President of the United States Richard Nixon, who appears in almost each of these documentaries on our list of best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube with his “war on drugs.” This is another take on that war but with more focus on weed. It also examines both good sides and bad sides of legalization, the history of legalization attempts and tries to predict the future of weed.
1. American Drug War 2: Cannabis Destiny
IMDb Rating: 8.9
Available On: Hulu, YouTube
The latest entry on our list of 11 best weed documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Youtube is also a sequel. After making a highly successful American Drug War: The Last White Hope, Kevin Booth figured there were lots of things left to say about cannabis in the United States and the conspiracy related to it. The documentary is a collection of stories that confirm health benefits of marijuana, stories about the cover ups and sabotages of legalization attempts, accompanied by interviews that connect all of these stories into one compact whole. If you want to see how hard the fight was to even begin talking about marijuana legalization, this is a good place to start.
