Like much about the marijuana experiment in Colorado, the caliber of TV reporting on the subject has matured over the past year. Sure, the latest documentary includes images of smoke-filled Civic Center and celebrants hooting at a 4/20 fest. But it also features a high-powered lunch at The Palm with gangapreneurs making deals. Since legalization brought international media to the state a year ago, the quality of coverage of the upstart industry has improved.
No longer confined to quick hits filled with pot puns, shots of leafy plants, thick buds and mountains of cash, the latest pot documentary, “Pot Barons of Colorado” on MSNBC airing Sunday nights (with a sneak peek on Nov. 28, 10 p.m. MST), probes the financials in a new way.
More weedy reality TV coming out of Colorado’s pot industry:
‘Medicine Man’: Reality TV and legal pot, the ‘new American dream’
CNN’s ‘High Profits’: Docu-series will cover cannabis in Colorado ski towns
Video: They call this show ‘Shark Tank for pot,’ but would you watch it?
“Pot Barons of Colorado” takes seriously the ambition of these dispensary owners to become “the Costco of marijuana,” to franchise across multiple states and to be the lasting names that come out of the end of this Prohibition.
They’re familiar to Denver Post and The Cannabist readers: There’s Andy and Pete Williams of Medicine Man; Jamie Perino of Euflora; Tripp Keber of Dixie Elixirs. (An 8-ounce bottle of Dixie Elixirs blueberry or pomegranate soda now sells for $25, and the retailers have a hard time keeping them in stock.) There’s Brian Ruden of Starbuds, who likens the moment to “the dot-com boom all over again”; Bob Eschino of Incredibles; Nick Brown of High Country Healing. All are savoring the moment as demand outstrips supply.
Finish this review at Ostrow Off The Record.
