Sunday Morning Hits with Kantrite

Am I the only the guy on the couch hitting the bong missing the Free Credit Dot Com Band? I miss those three happy-go-lucky stoners.  Not only did it seem like they had fun playing together, but I would have liked to hang out with them, banging the gong talking credit scores at the Renaissance Fair or on the swings in the playground…Maybe I’m just old fashion, but the new Credit Bands are all coming off like the next Vampire Weekend clones…

One of the best events that ever happened for stoners is when Michael Phelps was shown hitting the bong. I know this was bad for Mike, but for many straight people, this was a wake-up call that maybe a guy could puff and still pull in eight Golds. Now the newest happy face for WEED is Paris Hilton. Pretty soon there will be the home game much like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? “What in the World? Where’s Paris gonna get busted Next?” I’m predicting the French Riviera, 3 grams Lebanese hash, with Greek Shipping Heir professional bull-rider. Fingers are crossed.  

Speaking of getting busted…Generally speaking, Whitey smokes more dope than any other ethnic group, yet every other ethnic group gets busted, again generally, at almost a two-three to one rate. This is why the NAACP came out for Legalization. It just makes good sense. Legalization would be a crucial step in keeping non-whites out of prison…Isn’t it interesting that the Correction Officers Unions and other related Pacs, are usually the largest contributors AGAINST the Legalization of Marijuana. How come no one ever points out this fact? It seems that if you work in the Prison world, it behooves you to keep the beds full with the path of least resistance. Do you complain?

So we have to educate Society that we can still make money, because that’s what it is all about, by putting our energies into the positive aspects of Marijuana and Hemp.

The news that the Veterans Administration changed its policy concerning Medical Marijuana last week was huge. This maybe is the next biggest step in giving a responsible face to the issue that scares so many people. This is when opinion changes, when individuals who have no prior history with Cannabis use it medicinally with stellar results. That’s almost better than taxation showing the positive side of WEED. That is what I call Supporting the Troops. Giving the returning heroes what they need, rather than what I think they should have.

Oh-oh. I guess because of the rise of prescription drugs being used more and more recreationally, (Y’know, the best pharmacy has always been the one in your mom’s bathroom) cops are having a hard time busting people. Apparently Barney Fife has a hard time deciphering what goofers Dylan and Kayla are on. The days of having two or three cocktails right before getting behind the wheel are over and getting hit with a breathalyzer are over. But what happens if I have some unbelievable Trainwreck, the D-Tree Kind, and I’m still fuzzy three hours later when I head out in my car to get some more. If I get stop and they say I’m high but I say I’m okay, what gives? How the Police handle prescription drug offenders will give us, and MADD, a glimpse into the not too distant future…

Here in California some activists are feeling let down that not a major Democratic political candidate isn’t backing Proposition 19. My belief…there’s not a great upside in coming out for Legalization. The professional hand-shakers can’t tell who is for or against this issue, I’m talking outside of San Francisco. So there’s no reason to get the citizens in the burgs and valleys up in arms thinking that someone’s a pro-Pothead leaning politician, maybe even a Communist after three or four pipe loads. Jerry Brown has always been against it. I’ve seen it in person. This is why the Eagles weren’t given political positions during his two-terms. It was that close…

I blame Craig’s List…It seems that in Cali if you have wheels and some pot you can become a delivery service. From the very north down to San Diego, more and more gypsy delivery services are popping up. This is a real drag. It totally makes the process harder for the people who have been working diligently to make Legalization happen. But Marijuana is all about the Rush again. The rush to get a piece of the pie. The Rush to get your foot in the door. The Rush to make a name for yourself while others remain quiet. It is the Time of the WEED Barons and history has taught us there have always been a few mavericks in the bunch that also come out ahead, financially speaking of course.

And now the last word about Money…

Does anyone really think that the price of WEED is going to come down? There was some bullshit about striving for a fo’ty dolla O.Z. just like Trader Joe’s ‘2 buck Chuck.’ I would like to hear from my readers what you think. I spoke to a Budtender on Friday. I asked this young man if he thought the price would ever come down in the dispensaries. He said he didn’t know. I asked him that the price of a pound has dropped so drastically in the last couple of years, but the price for an ounce at the dispensaries still remain about the same. He replied, “Well they have to pay me.” Yes, there is an overhead to maintain, I thought as I watched about six hundred dollars being handed over across the dispensary’s long wooden bar, in a manner of nine minutes.

Commerce versus Compassion. Legitimate versus Illegal. Us versus Them. Joint versus Pipe. So many decisions. I can’t imagine having to make those choices sober.

More Later.



Badges, We're Da Feds, We don’t need to show any stinkin’ badges

The confusing bust of Joy Greenfield earlier this month in Northern California, has many activists shaking their heads, wondering what’s up.

Ms. Greenfield, 69 years young is on the books as the prospective supplier of Medicinal Marijuana for a dispensary in San Diego. In terms of the paperwork and other bureaucratically-challenged BS, Ms. Greenfield was awaiting a promised okay-dokey from whoever releases the necessary Big Okay from up above in San Diego for the final go-ahead. She had made the required payments for permits and other financial hoops that were asked by the state. So she started a patch of 99 plants for the San Diego dispensary. And as the law allows, Ms. Greenfield also had her 25 plants in another patch. That 25 was her personal stash as per her MM card.  

The local sheriff’s department knew what she was doing.

Now here’s the reason that Joy Greenfield, age 69, may become the Leonard Peltier of the Month. (I mean no disrespect to Leonard Peltier. One of the greatest bullshit tragedies in American history.)

On July 7^th, the Feds went in and confiscated both patches. Now most of the media is reporting how the Feds went in with a total disregard of Ms. Greenfield’s attempt of doing the operation legally. That in a sense, she was only following orders set up by the state. There is a belief that the Feds went in like Tommy Lee Jones taking over a high-profile kidnapping. Local law enforcement, be damned. But I have it on good authority that there were Mendocino County deputies along for the ride. Even so, the Feds has released a statement declaring that they don’t need to check in with the locals for a Marijuana bust.

It has been reported that when told that Greenfield had approval from local law enforcement, the DEA agent in charge of the raid reportedly replied, "I don't care what the sheriff says."

        To me that might be just some bold talk from a one-eyed fatman with a badge, but I don’t know. As long as there was a local presence with the deputies in tow, the disconnect might not be so unconnected.

I spoke to some growers over the past week that are slowing down their operation of coming out to the Man. One person said, “There is a rush up here [in the Emerald Triangle] to get a piece of the action before November, but I think I’m going to wait the summer out and see what happens. See if there are any more busts.” Other growers are reluctant to come out of the shadows, testing the waters of this almost legal market until the process is made clearer.

To be clear, Ms. Greenfield was never busted. Never arrested. In fact, she wasn’t even home when the raid happened. The Feds took all her plants and that is it so far. Well, and that she has become a cause célèbre for us Weedsters.  

But this does beg the question of state right’s versus the Fed.

But it is all changing. With yesterday’s news that the Veteran’s Administration has okay’d Marijuana for treatment is the biggest step next to Legalization. More about that later.

Was what happened to Ms. Greenfield a power play by the Feds to show us activists that whatever we think, they’re still in charge. That when it comes to Big Government, they actually can do whatever they want and when they want to.

My friends up north tell me that Johnny Law like everyone else is moving into the Triangle for the upcoming economical shoot-out. Their presence is being felt. Undercover cops at a local show were almost unheard of. Except at Area 101 in Laytonville, there were four busts earlier this month. One for passing a joint to your neighbor during the show. Shit, locals pass a joint at the Safeway while waiting in the checkout line.

Here’s another small interesting tidbit. There is a Federally funded program that pays the experienced Mendocino police to train Feds, out of state cops and other forms of law enforcement, how to spot POT from helicopters. What to look for when trying to find a still, I mean, a patch or farm. So it’s not like these different departments don’t know each other.

The local cherry tops of Mendo are throwing hands up like a Mexican pulled over for a broken tail-light, feigning, “We have no idea what’s going on with the Feds.” Hmmmm.

I guess what it gets down to is…as long as WEED is illegal, there are no rules. Whatever we think Eric Holder and Obama should be doing for us, it doesn’t matter as long as there is an uptight law official who knows that no matter what the papers say, or how optimistic we are, they hold all the cards.

And now I have a very interesting question. If California passes Prop. 219 and WEED becomes legal, can it be taxed if it is still illegal everywhere in the states?

Joy Greenfield, besides for having the perfect name to be a Marijuana farmer, could very well be the pivotal case for what’s wrong with this picture.

Where do all these dispensaries get their WEED? Somebody is supplying them. Why do some people get busted and others don’t? What happens when you play by the rules that the State has set up and the Feds don’t like it?

Ms. Greenfield, get out your triple-beam, you just might have put the balance in our favor, with even a few grams over.

Thank you.

More Later.

California, Warehouse Über-Alles

Well the smoke still hasn’t settled after last night’s verdict in Oakland, leaving many adrift this foggy morning. There are many who will arise today, wake and bake and go, “WTF?” And it will really be for medicinal reasons. For many growers in Oakland and the adjacent areas, this was a stunning death knell to the little grower.

The gig for growing grass for Oakland was given to four multi-acre-warehouses to be the legitimate supplier to Oakland’s dispensaries.

This is huge because it shoots an arrow right into the heart of the Politics of Pot and Legalization. Do you want WEED to be legal, yes or no? If you answered yes, then the vote last night went to your side of thinking.

Let me once again give you, my two readers my view how POT is going to become legal this fall.

After the very hard work of activists, known and unknown, a very slow process was started by a group of people with similar interest in seeing that Marijuana was accessible to those that needed it, and truth be told, to those that wanted it. This started the Medical Marijuana movement.

Once dispensaries were set up and neighborhoods weren’t pillaged, the general public saw that there might be a place where Marijuana could be sold on the retail level. This led to the belief that there was a way of receiving revenue (taxes) without having to go to some beatnik’s crash pad to extract the government’s cash. All of a sudden, it was all very doable.

So other cities in California tried it too. Now, there are too many people doing things unrestricted while others are following what they believe to be the law, even though the whole industry is against the law according to the Feds.

So the movement goes slow until there are major breakthroughs, like last night in Oakland.

If you go below the scene a little, it is still all politics. The woman behind the four warehouses getting the contract is running for mayor. The Legalization of WEED is building little power bases behind the scenes that, I believe after November we will see coalesce into even greater power blocks.  

In the East Bay we have the start of the corporate take-over of Weed, even though this is how business GETS done. This is how the straights do it. But a lot of the freaks, the so-called citizen farmer, the mom and pop farmers, are being left out of the game.

Here in San Francisco, we have the Marijuana commission, made up of prominent dispensary owners and the like to form a Marijuana policy for the City and as it happens, for the rest of us who didn’t get a say in the way things are going.

It’s all happening. One way or another.

And it all gets us closer to the goal of the freedom to smoke dope without being busted. But we can’t talk like that. It’s about the compassion. Most will say it always has been. And that’s what is so troubling about the Oakland news.

You can’t talk WEED politics in Oakland without bringing in Richard Lee to the discussion. Richard Lee is a great man who has led a tireless campaign for getting Marijuana to the people that need it and want it. What Dennis Peron is to San Francisco, Richard Lee is to Oakland. You can’t have a real conversation about Oakland’s WEED issues without including Mr. Lee in some form or measure. Even if he’s in the background, he still has a say.

The biggest schism this industry is facing is an identity one. Is it about Compassion or Commerce? Is it about bringing a medicinal herb to individuals that benefit from its healing properties, or dare I say, is it about an adults desire to get high?

With what happened in Oakland last night I think this will shoot the ideological question to the forefront, if not today, then soon.

Who are we? People who want to nurture and massage the path to Legalization like a Meg Whitman commercial? Greed-herders dressed up in Compassion’s pelts? And remember, this isn’t even November when the unknown factors are going to metabolize like joints at a Dead show when the lights go out.

We have to get it together, but I’m not sure how. The reason everything is happening today, is because of people like Richard Lee. Are you going to tell the pioneering man in the wheelchair that he’s being led by the wrong people? How do you include the growers that have been bringing us WEED for about fifty years? What do you say to them, sorry. There are some foreign guys with lots of cash that we’re going with?   

It’s very complicated when you get down to the issues and have to take a stand.

Sadly, here’s the deal. The Dispensaries are running the show. It is a supply and demand business, just like they teach in the highest levels of Keynesian academia. And they are in control of the demand. I could give you reasons why having only four warehouses growing our WEED is bad, but you can read that in other blogs. The real deal is it went down. This is the way it’s going to be from now on.

Some are going to get lucky, and others are not. Some are going to make massive amounts of money, and others are not. Some are going to lose their soul, friends, and families in order to get rich and have a comfortable chair when the music stops.

We have now entered the Age of the Grass Barons.      

For what it is worth;

This is a really good blog for Info about the triangle…

http://kymk.wordpress.com/



Road Dogs, Gift Shops and the End of the Haight

I love the Haight. I have lived in the same place on the same street for over twenty-six years. This works out to be just shy of half my life. I’ve never thought of living elsewhere till now. I think the worm is turning on Haight Street and no one is taking the bait.

It all started with George Bush. He left this country in the dumper. San Francisco, bastion of Liberal Pride, was no exception in the oncoming fear of the financial ruins he left behind.

People forget that when it comes to money, we Frissians are as tight or fearful when it comes to spending or the panic of not making out collective nut just like the red states. After Obama won the election, it seemed like there wasn’t a moment to waste. The country was going into a freefall. Tent cities were rising under underpasses like weeds from concrete. Citizens were nervous. Good and decent people were losing their homes. Then the banks and automobile companies began to fall, bleeding and hemorrhaging all over Wall Street. Luckily Wall Street knows how to hose the public like Mack the Knife, so there’s never a trace of red.

We had a real world panic going on.

Now it’s the jolly-olly-holiday time of Ought Nine.

The newspapers are already worrying a pumped-up public that this Christmas season, revenue is going to be down. There was talk of home-made presents and limiting spending on gifts that had stores holding their high-rent paying breaths, worried that sky is going to fall.

There was a palatable fear running through the commercial properties of America. Haight Street wasn’t any different, except for one component, the Road Dogs.

One thing you have to understand about the Haight/Ashbury district of San Francisco is-we are the end of the world for many kids and yes, for many adults too.

We are the end of the world because of the dreams of those who come to San Francisco in hopes of reclaiming some of that history that Jerry found all those years ago. They come out looking for some Peace and Love. But those numbers are dwindling too. The hippies of the Sixties, it would be their grandchildren that get off the bus trying to find a new life in the Haight now. And those grandkids, they have as much as in common with the Hippie Dream as Fishermen’s Wharf does now with fishing. Nothing.

The kids who come to the Haight now are products of bad homes. They’ve been pimped out by their mothers or fathers, if they hadn’t been used by a parent already. They’re addicted to Meth, 40’s and pills, not Weed, like previous generations. They don’t respect women, property, and are in incredibly pain for the most part.

This is where the world stops for some. Once you get to Frissy, you can either go up or down. To go further west means wearing floaties and earplugs, because you’re in the Pacific now my friend.

So in the months leading up to Xmas ’09 were very tense here in the City. When the Road Dogs showed up on the street, and as the Atheist god is my witness, I was there to see them, the Merchants of Haight Street freaked out.

There has always been street people, panhandlers, and assorted other broken toys perched along Haight Street intermingling with the public since I moved here. But now it was different. There was an animal out there that got into your face if you didn’t fork over some spare change. All of a sudden, almost overnight, small bands of young men that normally were sent off to war were lining the street, aggressively asking for money. A lot of the Road Dogs actually had dogs too. Another reason for their name. The sight of Pit Bulls and other jaw-tightening animals that were tied with makeshift leashes and other shreds of knotted rope barked at us while we tried to get by on the sidewalk.

The situation was definitely different from the usual gang of nuts that frequent the street.

Then a columnist in our only official newspaper that requires payment to read wrote an article about the rumored violence in the Haight. If the sky wasn’t falling before, now it was coming down in chunks. This columnist just like Chicken Little declared the End was Here! And this gave the Merchants of Haight Street a chance to voice their fears of not making enough money this Christmas season because of the street people of the Haight. All of them. Anyone who is poor is the problem. Whether or not they are like Otis in Mayberry and have lived on the street for years, being known and cared for by the locals. It didn’t matter whether or not it was a sexually assaulted sixteen year old girl who is scared and literally has no other place to go. The window of opportunity had been lifted by the columnist and the merchants joined in on the hold. The reason was obvious why consumers weren’t spending this Christmas of 2009, it was the Road Dogs. Nothing like blame to simplify a situation.

Okay, it is now July of 2010. The damage made has been done. A friend of mine has owned a store in the Haight/Ashbury for thirty-four years. He’s now closing his store due to his rent increasing from roughly $3500 to SEVEN GRAND, a month. More and more stores are closing.

Friends of mine no longer shop the Haight because of the articles that written. The damage has been done.

Because of the articles that the columnist wrote, the Mayor got involved politically, I say it like that because he’s trying to leave town with something done that can show the state of Cali that he’s serious, not just another crazy San Franciscan politician. So against the wishes of our District Supervisors, the Mayor is trying to enact a law making it illegal to sit or lie on a commercial street during business hours. I could give you a thousand reasons why this is wrong. I just give you one. If you or any member of your family is in serious trouble and need the police, after the cuts and layoffs that are happening state-wide, the chances that a police is going to be able to respond to a call with any kind of urgency, forgetaboutit.

Today, this very day, the Oakland police released an official communiqué stating, they are only going to respond to violent crimes. Everything else is going to have to wait. They are stretched too thin to do otherwise.

If you were to walk Haight Street now, you’d see the majority of the Road Dogs are gone. They have moved on. I heard Ocean Beach down San Diego way has encountered the Dogs and their aggressive ways and are trying to find a solution.

        It’s too bad we see these kids only as a monetary crisis, instead of kids in pain. But that’s another column.

So the Merchants and the scardy-cat Columnist gave the Haight a death blow. They scared the straights from coming out. If the Mayor and the Columnist have their way, it will be against the law to be poor in San Francisco in the near future.

Soon this will be turned into Hippie-Town. It will be a matter of time before fake remnants of the Sixties will be sold by actors in wigs wearing patchouli oil offering fake Peace and Love in gift shops for a price.

 Once again the fear of not making enough money set off the alarms that continue to ring in the ears of people that can’t hear.

Just say, “I would prefer not to,” Day.

Well, when I’m wrong, I’ll admit. I was wrong and the Republicans were right. You can say “No,” for almost two years to EVERYTHING that the president puts forth, and the American people are okay with it.

At this point President Obama still hasn’t all his positions in his administration approved because of some Republicans holding their confirmation back. Why? Because they can.

We’re in one of the worst economic crisis that the country has faced in almost a hundred years, and half the country would rather see India and China surpass us as world powers. Those so-called red states would rather bleed America slowly by hamstringing Obama administration with every proposal that he puts forth instead of lending a hand and get this country working again.

You can see the leaders of the Republican Party are on TV nightly proudly boasting how they had refused a vote or conformation that would have helped the country and Obama’s administration accomplished the goal that they were reaching for. And the response of the American people when they hear another policy is questioned to death and then stymied in time-hole of committees; “Bully!”

I find this amazing how easily the American people accept this kind of behavior. In these trying times when so many people are supposedly so angry with what is happening with their country, that this solution is acceptable, at first just freaked me out. Then I became to understand it better.

It would be too easy and comical to blame Nancy Reagan who started it all with ‘Just say no,’ campaign in the Eighties. She did introduce the whole concept of being able to reject something on pure self-interest beliefs. So I give her that.

But there is a precedent earlier than that. There was this guy who wrote a pretty good book about a big fish named Herman Melville. It’s no Bassmaster, but a good read at the beach if white whales and harpoons are your thing.

        Mr. Melville also wrote a little story, actually a very long little story called, ‘Bartleby, the Scribner, a story of Wall Street.’ It’s about this small law firm that hires a fellow named Bartleby who works out very well for the first few weeks and then suddenly one day when asked to do any task or assignment, Bartleby replies, “I would prefer not to.” That’s it. That is all he says to anyone from that point forward.

        I would prefer not to.

        So I was thinking since August 1^st is Mr. Melville’s birthday, why not a national day of ‘I would prefer not to.’

        If it is good enough for the Republicans and their followers to always just say no, how come not the rest of us? I would love to say no to my boss, or to any extra work as far as that goes.

        Just think, a whole day of knowing you’re not going to assist a co-worker who might need help or even someone who might be waiting for an extension on their unemployment insurance. It’s very freeing knowing you’re only in it for yourself. It’s like a burden been lifted. It may be difficult in the beginning to learn how not to care for others, but the less you do, the more you don’t care. You might even consider asking John Boehner for a job.

I think August 1^st should be Bartleby Day or another name similar to that. One day where the whole country just says, “I would prefer not to.”

           I can’t imagine it causing any problems.