A task that gives him such a high

WHETHER or not he’s ready, Doug Benson will soon be the poster boy for pot. The self-anointed guinea pig in the new film “Super High Me,” which documents his life on and off marijuana, Benson endures 30 days of sobriety, followed by 30 days of pot “all day, every day.”

The film’s genesis was a joke in Benson’s stand-up act: “If eating McDonald’s for 30 days is a movie, and people are willing to pay to see it, I’ve got a movie. I’m going to smoke pot every day for 30 days . . . try to remember to film it . . . and my movie’s going to be called ‘Super High Me’ (pause) or ‘Business as Usual,’ I haven’t decided yet.”

He was only half-kidding. As a heavy pot smoker, Benson had actually pitched going pot-free for 30 days to “Super Size Me’s” Morgan Spurlock when his FX show “30 Days” was being launched. Though Spurlock seemed interested, Benson never heard from him again. But he soon bumped into filmmaker friend Michael Blieden, who was enthusiastic about turning the joke into a film. More serendipitously, Blieden, who had directed the documentary “The Comedians of Comedy,” then ran into producer Alex Campbell, who had just been researching medical marijuana dispensaries in California, and found the material ripe for a film.

“I heard the joke and immediately knew it could be a film if Doug was willing to go through with the experiment,” Campbell said.

Shot around Benson’s busy traveling schedule in August and September 2006, the film showcases the range of his act, whether conducting pot quizzes with audience members brought onstage or doing his monthly show “The Benson Interruption” at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood, in which, as another comic performs, Benson sits amid the audience shooting out ad-libbed commentary.

Otherwise, Benson’s material is typical of smart contemporary stand-up, in that it’s not given to easy categorization. And despite being named 2006’s Stoner of the Year by High Times magazine, not all his material is about being stoned. “Twenty to 30% of it is about pot . . . 90% of it is pot-fueled,” is how he puts it.

As “Super High Me” was in the editing stages, Benson’s notoriety was rising considerably thanks to his frequent appearances as a pop culture pundit on VH1’s “Best Week Ever” and a shot on “Last Comic Standing,” the NBC reality show and mainstream showcase for stand-up. After making it to the semifinals in the fourth season, Benson regrouped and made it to the final 10 in Season 5 and thereby into the all-important “reality” phase of the show.

Benson was already amid a successful stand-up career (as celebrity guest judge Tom Arnold put it: “Aren’t you already famous?”), but never doubted whether it was a wise career move. “A lot of people don’t watch VH1 or Comedy Central, but everyone comes across NBC at one point or another,” he said.

Through it all, Benson has remained a voracious performer, going on the road 47 weekends a year (“It’s rare I have a weekend in Los Angeles”), with more gigs in town during the week. During the off-Broadway run of the “Marijuana-Logues,” a long-running show performed alongside two other comedians, “essentially doing stand-up while sitting on stools,” Benson would go out and do his own act after the show. “I do like to perform a lot, I really do. There’s something about being on stage and everyone paying attention to what you have to say, and even enjoying what you’re saying,” said Benson, who will do two shows at the Hollywood Improv today.

“Super High Me,” which will “roll out” in grass-roots screenings across the nation today -- 4/20, a high holiday in the world of weed -- explores the ongoing challenges of Proposition 215, the California law that established the right to purchase medical marijuana with a doctor’s note. Even as Drug Enforcement Administration raids of dispensaries unfold on film, the last thing the filmmakers want is to be preachy or to make Benson a mercenary.

“Doug made it clear from the start that he doesn’t see himself as an activist,” said Campbell, “so I never thought of him as an ambassador, merely as a test subject and comedian. Hopefully, it will intrigue people enough that they can go learn more on their own. Echoes Benson: “The movie’s a comedy first, a political statement a distant second.”

At the South by Southwest Film Festival last month, which included a heavy dose of marijuana-themed programming and where the film has had the most exposure, “people got exactly what we wanted them to get,” Benson said. “Even people who don’t smoke pot. People don’t want to feel bad about being a pot smoker. I don’t want to enable anybody to ruin their lives, but my experience has been mostly positive.”

For Benson, transforming a joke into a full-length documentary stands on its own. “The fact that it exists at all is plenty of a political statement for me.”