Film Review: Super High Me

You can probably hazard a guess what this is about. Stand-up comedian Doug Benson saw Super Size Me whilst stoned and decided to get stoned for 30 days on the trot. A minor flaw perhaps, was he already seemed to spend his entire life stoned, so had to go cold turkey for a month beforehand. Slightly unscientific considering he gave up booze too, so perhaps any health benefits could be attributed to that as well. Although to be honest, there weren't that many. No, actually that's not true; a the start of the film he looked like he could barely open his eyes he was so stoned, and his skin did look a lot better after three weeks off it.
The film ripped off quite a bit of Super Size Me, from the visits to the doctors, the psychiatrist, and the dope shop (oh, that bit was different). I was quite surprised that medical marijuana is actually legal in California (although what Doug's excuse for getting it was, I had no idea). They had a dope shop like in Amsterdam, although federal law beats state law (and dope is still illegal according to federal law) and they kept coming and raiding it. There was a serious point to be made here, that cannabis does have some pain-relieving value and some people genuinely do use it for that reason (and why shouldn't they, it is a plant after all, it's natural). I really don't understand all the legal wrangling about dope- it is fairly harmless (unless you find sleepy zombies threatening, I personally like my zombies very sleepy) and would make a fortune for governments if they legalised it (a billion dollars a year in America). Maybe the economy would collapse because everyone was so stoned, but I doubt it.
The film was also interspersed with Doug's stand-up comedy which was quite hit and miss but has some funny bits. There was something mildly tragic about this man clearly approaching middle-age acting like a 16 year old stoner, but there was something kind of admirable about it too. I guess if you want to behave like a teenager forever, being a stand-up comedian is the right job for you.
So in the high month he smoked dope all day (mainly through a vapouriser) and became more psychic (!), couldn't do simple maths and put on 8 pounds (the munchies!)
Probably the best part was that after all that you'd think he'd give up, at least for a while, but the first thing he did after the 30 days were up was light another spliff! Literally no moral to the story whatsoever. Perfect.
What I liked about this film was that if this story about smoking dope had been an investigation in the Daily Mail ('my drug hell') where some straight journalist would have done it for 30 days, by the end they would have been having psychotic visions, stabbing their neighbour and moving onto mainlining heroin. In reality, all dope-heads do is sit around smoking, giggling a bit and eating. Forever. And that's about it.