“Amblin”: Open-Ended for Discussion
Marijuana and film media are historically intertwined in the United States. No drug policy professor will pass on an opportunity to reference Reefer Madness, a 1930’s film depicting casual cannabis use as generating spontaneous insanity or homicidal tendencies. And although they became (slightly) more mellow over time, broadcast public service announcements continued to stress the perils of marijuana-use well into the 1990’s.
Reefer Madness, circa 1936.
Although I’m no film critic or historian by any means, I am hoping to contribute to the cannabis film canon myself with a (nearly) newly discovered piece of art—a 1971 film produced by the United States military presumably for use in training Naval and Marine troops.
After stumbling on a catalog entry for the feature described below I filed a request with the U.S. military under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Unfortunately I was provided only with informal responses that failed to indicate a search for the records, let alone the “reasonable efforts” that FOIA requires. As such, I filed a lawsuit in the District of Massachusetts in October 2022 seeking judicial intervention under FOIA—that litigation is ongoing. What follows is a quick summary of the film, how I found out about it, and the current status of my FOIA request.
The Record
I can find out very little about the record I am requesting under FOIA with the exception of a few reference description fields and a short narrative description in a 1984 internal catalog of “audiovisual productions produced and procured in support of formal training, education, management, and information objectives by all echelons within the Department of Defense.” One production out of the several 400 pages caught my eye:
Despite heavy searching, I have very little additional information other than the catalog entry above. Given that the catalog was published in the 1980’s and I do not have access to the Navy General Audiovisual Library, I have to rely on the government to lawfully complete their search for the record.
The description alone raises innumerable questions—what “open-ended discussion” were the troops having in 1971 that required an officer to rent out a film about a one-night smoke sesh on a California beach for his enlisted.
I have learned that this is not an unprecedented request—the National Archives and Records Administration has an active Motion Picture branch which posts many films, including by the Navy, online for public viewing. For example, the classic Naval motion picture known to me only by the description: “A group of teenagers are arrested at an after-school Marijuana Party and angrily express their views on using pot as they are led to patrolcars [sic]. Their remarks are compared to those made by another group of teenagers who do not use narcotics.”
Where it Came From
You may have the unanswered question at this point, “Where did you find out about this gem?”
The United States and in particular the United States military generate an extreme amount of paper and paperwork, both classified and unclassified, public and non-public. There have been several attempts to consolidate the many technical and non-technical reports generated by the U.S. government over the years. Two of those efforts were crucial to this discovery: (1) the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Technical Reports database; and (2) the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) National Technical Reports Library.
The DTIC Technical Reports database is a military collection of “reports created and published to our collection by organizations funded by the Department of Defense to perform research in a variety of industries and disciplines[.]” The collection is broad, even accounting for only public documents, but the website is essentially unsearchable without having a reference number handy.
The NTIS National Technical Reports Library, on the other hand, is administered by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), a non-military division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The NTIS seeks to fill a “void in access to a large collection of historical and current government technical reports that exists in many academic, public, government, and corporate libraries” by creating a central depository of U.S. generated “technical content” more generally. It was through the NTIS database that I was able to locate the original PDF of the audiovisual catalog and its DTIC reference number.
My Request
I requested that the U.S. military search for and disclose the record in May. The U.S. military had agents of the National Archives and Records Association reach out to me but refused to issue a written denial of my request, even after appeal. The National Archives and Records Administration completed a cursory search but also failed to locate the record. As such, my only remedy remaining against the U.S. military is to seek a judicial order that they search for and disclose the record.
The United States is required to respond to my complaint by Monday, November 28, 2022. I look forward to reporting back with a future update as the matter proceeds with judicial oversight. You can follow the case docket on CourtListener for an up-to-date feed from the court.
A copy of my pending complaint is available online, as well.
