Sam Branson Quotes

In 1970, there were approximately 330,000 prisoners in the US. Today there are 2.3 million behind bars - more than any country in the history of the world. In 2009 alone there were 1.6 million drug-related arrests in the U.S. 1.3 million of these were for possession of drugs alone. Over half were related to marijuana. The forty-year war on drugs has cost $2.5 trillion.

If you have a drug problem, you should be sent to a doctor, not a jail cell.

Research states that we have a two-week window to act after being inspired by an experience, before the brain is compelled to move on. I have always thought that while some documentaries I have seen have educated me, they have failed to engage and drive me to act in support of the message.

Drugs are available to those who want them. And where are those profits going? Into organized crime, [to criminals] who spend their profits on the destruction of whole societies.

Even the best documentaries reach tens of thousands in their cinematic window. I believe that by launching online, we could potentially reach millions.

My measure of success is to walk into a restaurant and hear a table debating drug policy. Once the public start the conversation, the politicians will join - that is when we can create real change.

Whether through TV, film, online, app, or web, we will find ways to tell our stories with authenticity, and engage with our viewers beyond traditional means.

Incarceration has become a business. It is in the interest of the police and the prisons to keep locking people up.

Through social media, we can start a global conversation. This creates an army of advocates - the power really is in the hands of the viewers.

I have a vision of a world where we don't continue down senseless paths, where we care for our fellow human as much as we care for ourselves. I believe the mere striving for such a world is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner and global security.

[As in the case of] alcohol prohibition, illegality has driven organized crime, sent countless people to jail, and killed many thousands. Repression does not work.

I believe the medium of film is one of the most powerful tools in the modern era to create positive social change. It has the ability to put big, complex, and controversial subjects across in an easy-to-understand and digestible form. It has the power to change someone's perspective on the world in a very short space of time - film has the power to change the world itself.

How do you create a film that can reach millions of people and engage them in the subject? You have to take risks and try something new.