Over the summer, students from the Red Hook Community Justice Center collaborated with CUP and Teaching Artist Elliott Golden to dig deep into the issue of marijuana legalization by interviewing stakeholders working on the issue, and filming a documentary to show what they learned.

The group created the short film, Puff Puff Passed, to educate others and help them get involved in the issue. Students screened their film and presented on the creative process. Afterwards, students facilitated a community organizing workshop to make connections to other issues impacting their community and strategize on how to take action!

“This project made me think about the issue differently because before I didn’t really think about marijuana legalization as much as like the consequences and everything. But now I see like all the consequences and everything behind it. It felt good to hear [participants’] reactions and just to see everything we did come together just for our final project. ” – Romell Mendoza, CUP student

“The workshop was fun! The conversations were very interesting, because I’m not usually a main person to talk to, but like hearing other people’s different perspectives on how everything is being that some people smoke, some people don’t, but they know the logistics of legalization, and it was just very interesting to hear other people’s sides of the issue.” – Destiny, workshop participant

Watch the students’ film here!

Check out the project here!