Ex-Washington Wizards & LA Lakers Star Caron Butler To Produce ‘The Green Dream’; Doc Explores Racial Inequality Within Cannabis Industry
EXCLUSIVE: Former NBA star Caron Butler has teamed up with Desert Dancer co-producer Parisa Dunn to produce a documentary about racial inequality within the billion dollar cannabis industry. Butler, who played for the Washington Wizards, Miami Heat and LA Lakers during a career that saw him become a two-time NBA All-Star, is producing The Green Dream alongside Dunn, who co-produced Freida Pinto-fronted feature Desert Dancer and has worked on docs including U.S. Drug Wars and Border Invasion USA.
Principal photography has started on the project, which will look at the “war on weed” and the disproportionate incarceration of people of color in the USA. Butler, who wrote Tuff Juice: My Journey From The Streets to the NBA and is working with Mark Wahlberg on a movie based on his life, is known for his work on U.S. justice system reform.
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The film will feature exclusive interviews with politicians, sports personalities, music artists, District Attorneys, State Governors, activists and law enforcement officers from California, Texas and New York. It will expose the real stories of people of color struggling in radically different ways under cannabis laws in the USA.
The Green Dream is set for release in 2020.
Butler said, “As an active participant of reform against mass incarceration it’s paramount that this side of the story is told.”
Dunn added, “This film explores an issue that lives mostly under the radar when you look at the hot topic of cannabis legalization in the U.S. Despite the dial clearly shifting in attitude towards cannabis, with even Attorney General William Barr last week talking of a more lenient federal approach, you only need scratch the surface to find that the biggest winners of decriminalization are not those who have suffered most from the impact of the War on Drugs.”
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