There aren’t many decent weed documentaries on Netflix. The category is a shortcoming of it’s potential, but it’s likely we’ll see more to come since Netflix seems to have an ever-growing penchant for true crime documentaries. With the massive success of series like Making a Murderer, The Keepers, and Evil Genius, the streaming Goliath recently released Murder Mountain, its first true crime show of 2019.

The Name

The “Murder Mountain” area got its name from the 1982 murder of Clark Stevens, who was murdered by the San Francisco Witch Killers – a serial killer duo composed of married couple Suzan and Michael Carson. But today Murder Mountain is known for its lawlessness and missing persons.

According to California County News, 717 people per 100,000 go missing in Humboldt County every year(where the show takes place). This is a staggering number compared to the rest of the state and the show attempts to direct blame for missing peoples on the cannabis industry. It’s a convenient take to go after whilst the United States sits on the fence of legalization.

Situated in the Emerald Triangle, a 10,000-square mile Northern California area stretching across Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties, the weed is about as famous as BC bud. Most of this crop, at least until recently, went out of California to fuel the black market.

Focusing on this mysterious area, it presents questions of vigilante justice with the fates of those involved and a heavy dose of historical footage documenting marijuana cultivation in Humboldt. But the main theme hinges on the murder of