New film covers Baytown Kush use

‘The Last High’ airs on 4/20 — and no, it’s not a coincidence

A new documentary on synthetic marijuana in the Baytown area is set to premiere this week at the Lee College Performing Arts Center.

Slated for 4/20 — the unofficial national holiday for marijuana users — “The Last High” features firsthand accounts of drug use, as told by current and former users.

“It’s insane; the people who use this drug have no idea what they’re putting in their bodies,” said the film’s director, Glen Muse of Houston-based Texas Pictures. “It’s Russian roulette.”

Filmed primarily in and around Baytown, the film’s production team included local high school and college students. The Baytown Police Department partnered with Texas Pictures and the Southeast Harris County Community Coalition of the Bay Area Council on Drugs and Alcohol to put out the 57-minute film.

Although it is undoubtedly an anti-drug movie, Muse emphasized that it’s not in the same vein as the heavy-handed propaganda of “Reefer Madness.”

“In the opening, a guy in an ambulance pukes all over himself. It’s got bad people using bad language,” Muse said.

“There’s an interview with a prostitute. It’s not that typical message at all. It’s not a bunch of statistics or technical terms.”

The film’s villain, Kush, also known as K2, is a spice or synthetic marijuana. The drug is intended to mimic the effects of illicit substances and is typically smoked like regular marijuana. However, it is actually a dried leafy substance sprayed with hallucinogenic chemicals.

Although the film is set mainly in Baytown, Kush use has plagued other parts of the county as well.

Back in May 2016, federal agents indicted 16 people, including a University of Houston-Victoria professor, on charges stemming from a $35 million international ring responsible for more than 9.5 tons of Kush.

Then in June, more than a dozen people overdosed in Hermann Park, and the mayor vowed to bulk up police presence in Kush hotspots across the city.

Nearly 1,400 of the 3,000 overdose calls that city paramedics responded to from September 2015 to June 2016 were attributed to synthetic cannabinoids.

The new film, which has no narration and is based entirely on interviews, premieres Thursday during a 6 p.m. event at the arts center at 805 West Texas Avenue. Afterward, there’s a meet and greet with the production team and crew.

For anyone who can’t make the 4/20 debut — a date Muse admitted was intentional — there will be future showings around the state and, eventually, free viewing on YouTube. In the meantime, Muse has entered the movie in a variety of film festivals.

“It hasn’t been accepted yet ... but film festivals don’t work fast,” he said. “Some of them are celebrating 4/20, too.”