Search - Super High Me on DVD

Interesting, funny and insightful

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 10/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Super High Me" portrays standup comedian Doug Benson's experiment to see what would happen to him if he, a regular smoker of marijuana, went 30 days without smoking it and then go on a continuous binge of marijuana smoking for the next thirty days. Benson makes it no secret that he was at least in part inspired to do this by Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me' in which Spurlock discovers that the effects of 30 days of fast food aren't exactly all that great--it's unhealthy for you. Benson wants to learn if 30 days of abstinence immediately followed by 30 days of marijuana "immersion" would have any effects on his mind and body. Doug also knows that the effects of smoking marijuana can be distinctly different for different people. Some tolerate it well and others don't. Doug will try to continue his work as a standup comedian while he goes through the entire two month experiment. All in all, Doug's trial remains really interesting; I never felt bored or itchy for the movie to end. It all flows well and the cinematography is terrific. We get brief comments from other comedians who know Doug, too.

Predictably, it was tough for Doug to take himself off marijuana as he is a routine smoker; we see him driving down the street in his car and he not so jokingly states that everything reminds him of marijuana--even the green traffic lights at intersections! However, Doug does an admirable job of holding it all together and he doesn't cheat--he's committed to his experiment. Doug also takes a trial SAT; a test to see if he's a psychic and he meets with both a psychologist and his internist to get tested once while he's completely sober and another time when he's rather stoned indeed.

The outcome is rather interesting; and I don't want to spoil it for you so I'll leave a good deal of that part out. We do get a basic introduction to how Californians were able to vote their way into the legal use of medical marijuana within the state; although we also see conflicts arising when federal agents and federal law enforcement step in to close a store that sells marijuana legally in California because the government at the federal level does not allow marijuana to be legally sold. We also lean that the stores selling marijuana, which are called "dispensaries," are growing in number at a fairly good pace in California at the time this film was made. We get a brief look at the first legal dispensary in California; and I really like that we meet a couple of people who use marijuana for legitimate medical reasons when their doctors have given them a special type of prescription that they can fill at a dispensary.

Unfortunately, the DVD comes with no extras--unless you count the theatrical trailer as a bonus extra. I would have liked a running commentary from the director and/or Doug Benson himself; but this is lacking and that's a disappointment.

If you want to study the effects of marijuana on people and the history of marijuana, this film is probably one of the better places to start. I commend Doug Benson for putting his experiment on film for us to watch and ponder. The footage of Doug doing his standup routines gives the movie extra flavor that works well, too."