At a time when the world is rethinking its drug policies large and small, one state rises to the forefront. Once a pioneer in legalizing medical marijuana, the state of Montana may now become the first to repeal its medical marijuana law. Set against the sweeping vistas of the Rockies, the steamy lamplight of marijuana grow houses, and the bustling halls of the State Capitol, Code of the West follows the political process of marijuana policy reform – and the recent federal crackdown on medical marijuana growers across the country. This is the story of what happens when politics fail, emotions run high and communities pay the price.
Rebecca Richman Cohen is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, who teaches courses on media theory and advocacy at Harvard Law School. Through her work, she has examined a range of topics including the prosecution of war crimes in Sierra Leone, responses to sexual violence in the US, cannabis legalization, and biodynamic winemaking. Her most recent film, The Recall: Reframed (broadcast on MSNBC), examines the recall of a judge who issued a lenient sentence in a sexual assault case. Her SXSW and Tribeca-award winning documentaries have been hosted on platforms including HBO, Amazon, Netflix, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, public television and more. She has taught at RISD, American University’s Human Rights Institute, and Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and has held fellowships with Open Society Foundations, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard’s Film Study Center, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her very good dog and some nice humans too.
