Review: Sex, Drugs & Democracy DVD
Length: 87 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR, not rated, but contains explicit sexual images
On August 21, 2001, Gallery Six released a Special DVD Collectors Edition of the provocative 1994 documentary Sex, Drugs & Democracy. Included on that DVD are the cult classic 1936 movie Reefer Madness, the U.S. government-funded 1942 documentary Hemp for Victory, and an interview with counter-culture hero Dr. Timothy Leary. Packaged with the DVD is a music CD featuring 15 songs, most of them about drugs.
Sex, Drugs & Democracy is a Jonathan Blank film that explores how issues such as prostitution and narcotics are treated in the Netherlands. There prostitution is legal, but regulated to maintain health standards and prevent exploitation of prostitutes. Also, marijuana is openly sold in some 2000 licensed coffee shops and used by people 18 and older without interference from law enforcement.
The documentary presents interviews on these and other issues with the Amsterdam police commissioner, the president of the Royal Academy of Arts & Sciences, the national director of Alcohol, Tobacco & Drug Policy, a judge, a female senator, Public Health Department officials, a government hemp agronomist, feminists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, attorneys, and others. All the people interviewed stress that they are trying to take a pragmatic approach to the full range of issues where government regulates personal behavior, including nudity, sex education, pornography, homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia, as well as prostitution and drugs.
Although Sex, Drugs & Democracy is extremely one-sided and makes no attempt whatsoever at balance, it nevertheless raises important issues. If you bounce your own sensibilities off what you see, Sex, Drugs & Democracy can be a thought-provoking film. As an American, I’m troubled that the Dutch enjoy greater personal freedom than do people in the United States. At the same time I’ll be the first to admit that what works in Holland might not necessarily work somewhere else. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Netherlands many times, and I love the attitude of tolerance there. Yet, while there I found some things that were far different from anything I had experienced in the United States. A short stay in a city like Amsterdam can make you think about different ways of dealing with difficult societal issues. In a similar way, and without all the bother of getting on a plane, Sex, Drugs, & Democracy can spark thought about what public policies might make sense in the United States regarding prostitution, drugs, gun control, and euthanasia, keeping in mind that Dutch society is very different from American society.
On the DVD with Sex, Drugs & Democracy is the cult classic Reefer Madness, which I believe is one of the worst movies ever made. The film, released in 1936 under the title Tell Your Children, looks as though it was intended to be shown to parents’ groups and civic organizations to scare them about young people using marijuana. The filmmakers seemingly knew almost nothing about the substance and assumed that their audience wouldn’t either. Later retitled Reefer Madness, the movie was widely shown in the 1970s by American organizations that wanted to decriminalize marijuana. The laughable story is about two students who smoke marijuana, leading to violence and incurable insanity.
Also on the DVD with Sex, Drugs & Democracy is the U.S. Department of Agriculture wartime film Hemp for Victory. Hemp is, of course, the plant whose flowers are the source of marijuana, but its stems yield a fiber that can be used for making rope, paper, cloth, and other useful things. The difficulty of shipping from the Philippines and India to the United States during World War II forced the American government to permit farmers to grow hemp domestically as a source of fiber for the Army and Navy, and Hemp for Victory was made as part of this effort. This boring propaganda film did make me wonder if it wouldn’t be worth considering growing hemp for its fiber today.
Yet another feature on the DVD with Sex, Drugs & Democracy is an interview with American psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary, who was famous for the quote, "Turn on, tune in, and drop out." I don’t know the date of the interview, but Leary died at age 75 in 1996. The interview ranges over several subjects, including electronic realities, psychoactive plants, and freedom of consciousness.
In the package containing the Sex, Drugs & Democracy DVD there is a second disc, an audio CD that contains 15 musical numbers dealing with the legal boundaries of personal freedom. My favorite is the rollicking "Reefer Man" by Cab Calloway. Another fun one is Fats Waller’s "Reefer Song," which uses the old term "viper" to refer to a habitual marijuana smoker. I also like Leadbelly’s "Take a Whiff on Me" and Memphis Minnie’s "Hustlin’ Woman Blues."
Selected Special DVD Features:
