Cannabis Journalism Day #4
Today was the second to last day of our interterm course. The week went by quite fast, but it’s been packed with informative talks and memorable speakers.
This morning, we started off with a guest speaker from the Denver Post, Ricardo Baca. He seemed like a very personable guy, and I could easily identify his passion for what he does. After spending 12 years as the music critic for the Post, he became the paper’s marijuana editor, as well as an editor of the @Cannabist.
I think that the work that he’s doing is admirable because he’s taking an extra step to help incorporate the new culture of legalization into our local media. Education and general acceptance are critical in regards to understanding the marijuana industry, and the often misinterpreted culture that it’s attempting to cultivate. I’ve been following Baca on twitter for the past few days, and retweeting several of his ideas and shared articles.
I’m particularly excited for the documentary “Rolling Papers,” which will be released in theaters next February. In Baca’s article in the @Cannabist, he describes the film as one that looks at the first year of recreational marijuana sales in the world “via the lens of a daily newspaper”, covering the newly legal plant as if it were any other industry. I look forward to reading and hearing about more public reviews of the documentary, and seeing how the filmmakers endure a variety of critical responses across the nation.
Peer Reviews…
After Baca generously shared his time with us, we did peer reviews of students research progress in class. It was helpful to have another set of eyes view my paper, and get some feedback on how to better organize my thoughts.
We were let out of class early today, so I spent some time on my research and gathered more information to help consolidate my ideas. I’ve been finding a lot of information on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) site, and also several credible articles through twitter and general google searches.
After some further research and tweeting, I spent some time reading Weed the People, by Bruce Barcott, and flipping through Marijuana Nation by The Associated Press. Although I didn’t find much new or surprising information for my research paper, they were both informative and enjoyable reads. I found some quotes in Weed the People that I may reference in my paper.
I’ve concluded that I’m not exactly attempting to argue that there are too many individuals incarcerated for marijuana related crimes, but rather that the racial gap for these crimes still exists in the criminal justice system. I haven’t found any sources that disagree with or counteract this thought, so I’m hoping that my ideas will conglomerate into a genuine newsstory.
