Rolling Papers

“Are you high now?” This question is posed more than once to an interview subject in Rolling Papers, which tells the story of the first year of legalized recreational pot in Colorado through the eyes of reporters for The Denver Post.

To be high in Colorado is no longer rare, no longer an indication of the stoned individual’s social status, nor necessarily related to summitting one of the state’s a fourteeners. Director Mitch Dickman imagines that legal marijuana may represent more than a culture shift in the annals of self-medication. Could it also be a way for a venerable newspaper to reach a new readership and reverse its declining fortunes?

With more states moving to legalize marijuana and polls showing a majority of Americans in favor of legal pot, the Colorado experiment may not herald a revival of traditional media, but it could be a harbinger of an increasingly permissive American culture.