The Week and the Strong in Review (August 27)

Its official…it is now getting darker before it will get light again. The drooping Summer Sun is spending less time with us, knocking some sense into that Sensimillan eco-alarm clock, in turn, causing the green sinewy thighs of Pot plants everywhere, to produce sweet, sweaty, moisture-dripping buds. In another month or so, the Indicas, those donkey-dongs of cannon-like flower tops will be ready for harvest. Then some weeks after that get your hand saws out because it’s now time to bring in your later blooming Sativas.

Starting around Mid-Rocktober, NorCal is gonna stink…like an Oakland Mega-Weed-warehouse during a power outage.

But as everyone is gearing up for the harvest, both sides of the Smuggling coin are hard at work. The police have stepped up their busts. Plants are being eradicated, left, right and center. But at the same time, like the Granny Grower who was…never really busted by the DEA (the local cops were there but let the DEA run things) when they came onto her property on the southern edge of the Triangle, they just took her 99 plants that she was growing for…some relatives who own dispensaries in San Diego, plus she had her personal 25 taken. But I’ve learned that two to three weeks after her crop was confiscated, she was back in business growing another 99 plants with the local police’s consent.

But boy oh boy, it does seem like law enforcement is trying to do their best to bust as many people before this shit becomes Legal in November. Then again, it is almost harvest time, the stuff still is illegal, so I’m sure some are just doing their jobs.

But what is the job of cops these days? The whole industry to me is confusing. Some people get busted while others are allowed to grow.

Then there’s Los Ganjales…

I’ve said it over and over, if there is any county in Cali that is going to tip the bong over and smell it up the state for the rest of us, it is going to be Los Angeles. Because L.A. is so greedy and has very little understanding or compassion for the rest of the state, (Check out the new water canal that is going to divide the state physically and politically with the billion tons of concrete that is going to be pour creating a new water and revenue stream to Los Angeles.) they are fucking it up with the dispensaries that were supposed to close, but haven’t.

To be fair, I don’t blame some of the dispensaries for not closing. There are some very legitimate dispensaries that put in their paperwork, followed the guidelines, and they’re still being put out of business by the less ethical Pot shop that opened during the Green Rush. It is being left to the corrupt city officials as to what and who stays open.

The good thing about the Greed of Southern Cali, they see dollar signs the same way the tourists see the Hollywood sign. The same pipe dream that has caused kids from the Middle-West to hop on buses that say ‘Hollywood Boulevard or Bust,’ SoCal has the same hopeful look concerning the future of WEED. Instead of stars in their eyes, they have Pot Leafs.

 That stick-up-your-ass older brother of a County, namely Orange, is going to be supremely behind Prop. 19 because they think they can become the next Oakland. Notice how the new Agro-money behind WEED sees Oakland as the business model, not Humboldt or Mendo. Because of their GREED, it just might work for us come voting time.

Beware of the Pot Leafs…

Now that those kids at Facebook have said Pot Leafs Bad- Sarah Palin’s chatterbox of Buffet-speak and ‘I miss George Bush’ groups, Good.  There’s a battle of images being argued here in the Bay Area. The heroic Kevin Reed of Green Cross is lobbying to get ads on the sides of our municipal buses, advertising WEED just like the other guys get to do. You know, ‘Cannabis Cup coming up in November’ or maybe a local dispensary offering a special on Q-T’s. Just your normal going down the road side of bus advertising that announces Heart Walks or upcoming events. It is already on our subway system ads. But nooo, even though it is impossible to walk the streets of Frissy without smelling some WEED, we still can’t have pictures of it driving by. I guess it sends the wrong message.

Hypocrisy lines this industry like the floor boards of a new building. Montana, a state I fear to drive through because of my hippie past. Livingston is kewl, but elsewhere in the early seventies, I felt like a couple of times, I might get a broken beer bottle haircut just by being around. But it always struck me that Montana was about personal freedom. Even the guy that could possibly attack my long locks of the day, I believe that guy would be against the government interfering with…anything. It was always my belief concerning any state that Dick Cheney might hunt in, that the prevailing idea was the less the government there is, the better it is. But apparently that’s not true when it comes to Medical Marijuana for those people who pretend to be preservationist of personal freedoms. Montana is being a total dick when it comes to patient’s rights. About 23,000 people are registered Medical Marijuana card holders. Now the state is worried it is getting out of hand. The question that one official is asking, is how much Marijuana does a person need? What happens when the patient takes their WEED and goes home? Now they’re asking these questions after Medical Marijuana was voted passed in 2006.

It would be great if we could just LEGALIZE the shit and be done with all the different rules.

I ran into my buddy, Smokin’ Joe at T.J.’s the other day. He finally got his MM card. He told me, he and three other people were ushered into the doctor’s office where he got his recommendation. The doctor didn’t even check records or question the patients about their possible afflictions. Literally five minutes later, Smokin’ Joe had his piece of paper stating he could walk into any dispensary in Cali and score WEED legally.

A serious question you may want to ask the doctor who wrote you your recommendation is, “Would you be available to come to court if needed if there was a problem surrounding my recommendation?” If the answer is ‘No.’ Get a new doctor. A legitimate doctor has to represent you, or be witness if call upon. So good luck with that.

 To me, that’s pushing it but it is a sign of the times. It’s like the land grabs in the western part of the states in the late Nineteenth century. People did what they had to in order to get a piece of the land, and in this case, like coming out of Prohibition of the Thirties, everyone’s trying to get a piece of the action.

Growers, doctors and cops alike.

Two stories to end with…

I’ve seen some funny stuff to grow out of this incredibly interesting time we are experiencing. There are local insurance agencies that will insure your crop against bugs, vandals or theft. I heard of the restaurant in Colorado that serves Cannabis-laden food for your epicurean and Spicollian desires. Here in the Bay Area where everything is about trying to find the best restaurants that deliver, there’s a new guy out there.

Cannabis Catering. Had to happen. Only makes sense if you have some killer WEED, a table and an apartment. If you and all members of your party have a MM card, the 420 Chef will come to your abode and whip up a THC-infused meal, they say is on par with the best five-star restaurants in Napa. I guess if you really have a hankering for quail eggs drenched in a nice, sweet, danky sauce, more power to you.

Call me old fashion. I like to get high, get the munchies, and then eat. See, there should be an order to the World, even when it comes to ordering out.

And finally, those fucking bears.

I write about the politics and the culture of Dope. Most of the time when my work appears in magazine or in blogs, I am competing for readers or clicks against a video of a hottie taking bong hits wearing nothing but a goofy smile. I take it in stride that sex or whatever you call it, draws the public in like a peep show at the carnival. But these fucking bears…

So I’m sure you’ve heard the tales of a lady in B.C. that had bears guarding her crop in the Canadian wilderness. By all accounts these bears were gentle and from what I read, domesticated through the feeding of dog food, producing a coalition of guard bears. If you saw the movie, ‘The Congo,’ I imagine it is a little like that without all the need to rip off a human’s arm when they got bored or were spooked by a battery of locating finding cameras.

But this story, that is now a week old, a lifetime on the Internet, won’t go away. Everyday there seems to be an update on the status of the fuckin’ bears.

Here’s my point…

Marc Emery is in jail for being a pioneer of the movement. Police are busting WEED merchants like they’re going out of business. The State of California is going to vote on whether Marijuana should be LEGALIZED. Pot Leafs are being banned on city buses because of the fear that a bus moving at ten miles per hour might capture the attention of an easily manipulated public, causing said public to either want to try Marijuana at that moment as an impulse buy or possible skipping Marijuana all together, and jumping on the ganja-wagon, using our municipal buses as a surrogate gateway to other drugs?

 I mean what is the fear there? The children will see it? If it wasn’t for the high high-school dealer, Glad sandwich bags would be out of business and most of your recent graduates would be budless.

We are in crazy times when POT is still illegal and there are over a thousand businesses in California where one can purchase MARIJUANA. Some people get busted while others open warehouses and delivery services. Some go to jail while others get zip ties from the local police, preventing that grower from getting busted.

A returning three-toured Iraqi Vet in Montana is denied Medical Marijuana until the State can figure out what he’s going to do with his WEED once he gets home. The argument is how much is enough, not, let’s get the guy his fucking medicine like he wants. Even if you give up an arm and leg for this country, does that mean you still can’t get a hand-out from the Government?

But the first big movie that will come out of this whole mess, it will be about those Marijuana guarding fuckin’ bears. It would be an adorable feel-good movie in the vein of ‘Marley and Me’. Maybe they could call it, ‘Bob Marley, Bears and Me.’ PETA will hate it. Dopers may love it. Non-Dope smokers might think it is cute. But it will say nothing about what we are going through to get this stuff Legalize and keep innocent people out of jail.

Mark my words. L.A. and Hollywood doesn’t have a clue. Barely owns the game. The first movie to come out to digest what has transpired after all the smoke has settled will be the ‘Bad News for You Bears’ or something like that. The real stories are too hard to tell in the beginning. It wasn’t until about twenty years later after John Wayne’s Green Berets movie came out that the real Viet Nam movie were produced.

Hey Young Hollywood, show me wrong. We need digitized short films depicting the positive aspects of WEED. In the next few years, if Legalization passes, get ready for Stoner’s Lit and Stoner movies. There will be a new market for all things giggly-based, visual material. Please don’t let it be about ten cute bears in the wilds being Panda-cute around a forest of WEED. It can’t be good for our side.

That is the last that you’re going to hear about those fuckin’ bears from me.

Have a Smokin’ Weekend!

More Later.



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