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A Popular Plant Is Quietly Spreading Across TV Screens
LOS ANGELES — Tips for cultivating marijuana.
Testimonials by patients about its medical benefits. Cannabis cooking
lessons. Even citations for award-winning strains of pot. Viewers here
can now watch, every week, what amounts to a pro-weed news program.
Booted
off one skittish TV station but quickly picked up by another, the
low-budget “Cannabis Planet” show is televised evidence of how
entrenched marijuana has become in California’s cultural firmament and
a potent example of the way the pot subculture has been edging into the
national mainstream.
“We’re trying to show the legitimacy of this plant,” said Brad Lane, the executive producer of the half-hour program.
Mr.
Lane pays for the twice-weekly air time on the independent station KJLA
— Thursday and Saturday nights at 11:30, sandwiched between “Bikini
Beach” and “Jewelry Central” — and says he is now breaking even, almost
two months after the show’s premiere. “Cannabis Planet” focuses on
medical, agricultural and industrial uses of the hemp plant, purposely
ignoring marijuana’s recreational aspects. Viewers, for instance, see
very little actual smoking, even though the hosts and producers are
known to inhale between takes. “We’re walking on eggshells here, to be
honest,” Mr. Lane said.
Still, “Cannabis Planet” remains on the air — with not a single complaint from viewers, according to the station.
Marijuana
use has been depicted in the media for decades, though its presence has
waxed and waned over the decades, from Cheech & Chong’s comedy
albums and films in the late 1970s and early ’80s through more recent
pot-centric efforts like Dave Chappelle’s “Half-Baked” and Seth Rogen’s
“Pineapple Express.” On television, though, it has rarely risen above
the level of a plot device or punch line — until recently.
Medical
marijuana is now legal in 14 states, and the lobbying organization
Norml says efforts to legalize it are under way in 15 other states.
Marijuana use remains illegal under federal law, but in a break from
prior policies, the Obama administration said in February that federal
officials would stop raiding dispensaries of medical marijuana
authorized under state law.
Since then the number of dispensaries in California has surged in what some call a “green rush.”
“It’s
really blown up,” said Jay Peterson, a production executive at Original
Productions, which is working with Blue Dream Media to create a reality
show set at a pot collective, or distribution center, in Hollywood. The
show, “Top Bud,” is envisioned as a cross between “LA Ink,” the TLC
show produced by Original about a lively tattoo parlor, and “Weeds,”
the Showtime hit drama about a dope-dealing mother of two.
“While
the drug is illegal in most states, the idea is to show that there’s a
world somewhere where it’s legal, and where people are doing this,” Mr.
Peterson said.
The producers are now trying to sell “Top Bud” to
networks. Mr. Peterson acknowledged there was some hesitancy at first
but said his company already had “solid interest.”
There are
similar stirrings in the scripted TV world. On “Glee,” Fox’s new high
school musical, one of the characters is a medical marijuana dealer. At
the New York Television Festival next week one of the competing pilot
projects seeking a TV network home will be “Rx,” a drama set in the
medical marijuana world.
A rash of recent news reports have
documented the mainstreaming of pot, citing among other examples
frequent drug references in the media and endorsements by a growing
list of celebrities. This month Fortune magazine’s cover asks: “Is Pot
Already Legal?” CNBC repeats its eight-month-old documentary about the
pot business, “Marijuana Inc.,” at least once a week; it continues to
be rated one of the channel’s most popular documentaries.
Mr.
Lane’s inspiration for “Cannabis Planet” came from a more practical
place: he noticed an increasing number of ads in local newspapers for
medical cannabis. “It was the only market segment that I saw growing,”
he said during dinner at a faded Chinese restaurant on Pico Boulevard.
Mr.
Lane has produced on-demand TV shows about snowboarding and surfing for
several years. Tired of what he called “the demonization of the
cannabis plant,” he wanted to highlight pot’s uses as “fuel, fiber,
food and medicine,” as he and his co-hosts often say. He first bought
air time on KDOC, an independent station in Orange County, Calif., but
in late July station officials apparently grew antsy about the subject
matter. He recalled one employee telling him, “We’re a little concerned
that the topic is too controversial,” and he was instructed to pull the
advertising he had bought for the show. KDOC declined to comment.
Mr.
Lane promptly moved “Cannabis Planet” to KJLA, another independent
station that reaches an estimated five million households in Southern
California, which said it was happy to run the show, with a disclaimer
about the content.
A native Californian prone to statements like,
"Did you know the War of 1812 was over hemp?," Mr. Lane said he had
smoked pot since his sophomore year of college. He is now a medical
marijuana user, he said, relying on the drug to curb attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder.
“Cannabis Planet” is beginning to turn a
profit, Mr. Lane said, because of a growing list of advertisers,
including companies that sell nutritional supplements for growers and
recommend doctors. Now he wants to syndicate the series, he said, and
is in talks with stations in San Diego and Denver.
Mr. Lane’s
show joins “Cannabis Common Sense,” a weekly cable program in Oregon
that started in the late 1990s and is produced by a hemp advocacy group.
Calvina
Fay, the executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, said a
weekly TV show extolling marijuana as harmless contributes to
inappropriate public perceptions of the drug. “They are putting
people’s lives in danger as they promote a toxic, harmful weed to sick
people and intentionally ignore the harms of it," she said, adding that
the drug had been “linked to a plethora of health problems."
Mr.
Lane, strenuously disagreeing with the antidrug groups, says his show
exists to spread facts about cannabis. That is why he will not present
information about recreational uses of marijuana for now.
“Unfortunately, it is still perceived as offensive by too many people,” he said.