Montreal: The Ontario Film Review Board has reversed its ban of Ron Mann’s new documentary Grass. The film will now be released with an aa rating. Grass is a humorous, 50-year chronicle of government criminalization of marijuana.

John Bain, vp theatrical distribution at Lions Gate Films, says the distrib immediately appealed the censor board’s May 31 ruling, and the new ruling was handed down June 5.

The ofrb’s objection was based on a scene in which an animal had been purportedly abused in the making of the film, a reference to a scene where some monkeys are seen smoking pot. The footage is in fact archival material shot in 1970 by the National Institute of Mental Health in the u.s.

Bain says an ofrb appeal panel composed of a different set of censors screened the film on Monday June 5. An aa rating stipulates children under the age of 13 must be accompanied by an adult.

lgf opened the 80-minute film to good reviews Friday, June 2 in various u.s. keys including New York, Seattle and San Francisco.

Bain says the ban has some publicity value but the distrib would have had to cut the offending scene prior to a release, a condition, he says, director Mann opposed.

lgf will release Grass nationally starting Friday, June 16 at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto.