Who Killed Janis Joplin?

Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue

Directed by Amy Berg (2015)

Film Review

This documentary is a mushy, pop psychology version of the life of late blues singer Janis Joplin. It makes an unsuccessful (in my view) attempt to tie her alcohol, amphetamine and heroin abuse (and ultimate heroin overdose) to her troubled adolescence in conservative Arthur Texas. The film is based on interviews with her sister Laura, friends and band mates; letters to her family and vintage footage from her concerts and recording sessions.

Berg paints Joplin as a somewhat geeky outcast who participated in civil rights protests during her last three years of high school – leading to bullying and harassment by fellow students, many of whom belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. The filmmaker makes the case that her unhappy adolescence left a gaping hole in Joplin’s psyche that could only be filled by alcohol, drugs and promiscuous sex.

The film acknowledges that Joplin had been clean for nearly a year at the time of her  heroin overdose. It was during this period she recorded her biggest hit, Me and Bobby McGee, which signaled a totally new direction for her work.

What the film doesn’t mention is that several people close to Joplin (including her sister) suspected foul play in her alleged overdose, especially given the deaths of many of her contemporaries (activist rock stars) in similar circumstances. A book her sister Laura published in 2005 (Love, Janis IT Books), refers to persistent rumors  the CIA arranged her death.

The film also fails to mention that shortly before her death Joplin helped organize several huge anti-Vietnam War concerts for the peace movement. Or the FBI surveillance she experienced (like John Lennon). Or her 1974 affair with FBI operative Michel Raymond, who introduced her to amphetamines and encouraged her to use them regularly, leading to her amphetamine addiction. Or that members of the Grateful Dead introduced her to heroin to help her come down from speed. The Grateful Dead introduced many California rock musicians to heroin (as documented in a 1971 book, Living with the Dead, by their first manager Rock Scully).

As John Potash documents extensively in Drugs as Weapons Against Us (see MK-Ultra, LSD and the CIA War Against Musicians and Activists ), CIA MK-Ultra agents were aggressively pushing speed, heroin and LSD in the San Francisco rock scene in the sixties and early seventies.

The film can’t be embedded for copyright reasons but can be viewed free at the Maori TV website for the next 10 days: Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue

Drugs As Weapons Against Us – Interview with John Potash

Full Interview with John Potash About His New Film

1. What was your motivation for writing your 2015 book Drugs as Weapons Against – and for making a film based on the book?

I had a number of motivations for writing the book, Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac and Other Activists. For one, I wanted to break the media censorship regarding the hidden history of some great activists, along with some great musicians who aspired to do more activist work. That is one of the reasons for the long subtitles. It helps get the word out on these issues.

Personally, I grew up with socialist grandparents and somewhat activist parents as my father organized fellow doctors against the Vietnam War and mother ran NOW lectures.  got into anti-war and anti-racism activism, and found out about U.S. intelligence operations, such as the CIA’s Project MK-Ultra that used LSD to undermine anti-racist and anti-war activists. I further read about the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, which targeted leftist activists in general, but was particularly murderous against black activists such as The Black Panthers.

I eventually found much evidence of how the CIA and MK-Ultra worked with the FBI in such targeting, and used many drugs, particularly LSD, heroin, and cocaine against anti-war and anti-racism activists. Later evidence supported the use of other drugs in this way, particularly MDMA/Ecstasy. My book got the information to a certain percentage of people with a certain amount of trust. My film will hopefully get it to more people, and depicts the actual sources of the information, such as CIA whistleblowers, saying some of the things I quote in the book.

I eventually found much evidence of how the CIA and MK-Ultra worked with the FBI in such targeting, and used many drugs, particularly LSD, heroin, and cocaine against anti-war and anti-racism activists. Later evidence supported the use of other drugs in this way, particularly MDMA/Ecstasy. My book got the information to a certain percentage of people with a certain amount of trust. My film will hopefully get it to more people, and depicts the actual sources of the information, such as CIA whistleblowers, saying some of the things I quote in the book.

2. For me the most eye opening aspect of both the book and the film was learning the CIA had deliberately disseminated massive amounts of LSD to anti-war protestors and activist pop stars in a deliberate effort to undermine their political and creative effectiveness. How did you come across this information?

After college, I got back into activism and saw Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) co-founder Martin Lee speak. I later got his book, Acid Dreams, loosely subtitled, The CIA, LSD and the Sixties. It documented the CIA dissemination of acid.

That book got some decent publicity and attention, even from some mainstream newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Village Voice. It included the details of an Italian judge ruling over a case of a U.S. intelligence agent, Ronald Stark, heading the trafficking of tens-to-hundreds of millions of hits of acid worldwide. 

Amongst other sources, I found a book by high level British police detective Dick Lee, who was the lead investigator of Operation Julie, and the author of a book by the same name. Lee detailed how his team’s investigation uncovered Stark’s operation and its network of intelligence connections, before higher authorities tried to cover it all up again.

I also confirmed aspects of U.S. intelligence’s continuance of their operations. For example, about four years ago I surprised an acid dealer I counseled by asking him if he was getting his acid from The Brotherhood of Eternal Love. He fearfully confirmed that The Brotherhood, a Stark-aided and U.S. intelligence-linked operation, was his supplier in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I further found whistleblowers confirming the continuance of intelligence operations under different names.

3. How did you finance your film?

I never left my day job and still do counseling for a living, with a particular expertise in addictions and trauma work. My first book continues to sell well. I poured the profits from that book, my first film, and my second book, into this film. Still, none of my projects could ever come close to paying my bills with the mainstream media censorship in the U.S. I see these more as activist projects.

4. How do you plan to distribute it and what’s the best way for people to see it?

My first film was lower budget and more low-key. I mostly sell that on my website and through Amazon. For my second film, I thought I’d try to get a distributor. I didn’t know how it all worked and so I took one of my first offers for distribution, Gravitas Ventures. I signed a North American distribution deal with them and they are officially releasing it on 1/29/19. I’m still looking for a distributor of the film for the UK, Europe, Australia and your New Zealand area.

In America and Canada, the best ways to see the film are renting it on Itunes, Vimeo, Vudu, Google Play/Youtube, and Microsoft Xbox. It’s also available for purchase on Amazon, and at Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Walmart, etc.

I highly recommend people buy the film because the purchased film will have an extra 16 minutes of deleted scenes. These scenes include eyewitness evidence of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones’s murder, just after he was gaining agreements from his friends Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon to form a super-group in 1969. It further includes the apparent CIA hypnotist in charge of aiding RFK’s assassination talking about everything he could get people to do through drugs and hypnosis. It finally includes more on Occupy Wall Street and Bob Marley.

https://www.drugsasweaponsmovie.com/