The intention of The 41st Shade Documentary is to explore the role of cannabis in 21st Century Ireland, not least due to growing usage within the mainstream, but also because of our failure to prevent its distribution. For this reason, we need to question the resources ploughed into the ‘war on drugs’ and whether both the time and manpower called upon is justifiable when it appears that all other progressive nations are either entirely decriminalising cannabis or relaxing their laws on its possession. Maybe it is just a matter of semantics. Perhaps we should just stop calling cannabis a ‘drug’ and refer to it by its proper title, a plant, at which point the war will finally stop and we can redirect our severely stretched resources to persue those who are committing real crime.
