What do we want? And when do we want it?

Lenny Bruce’s Mom once told me, “Life is never how you expect it to be, what got you there, can get you out.” Sally was referring to one of Lenny’s drug busts for dope (heroin.) It seemed that during the trial one of the jurors who was a drunk, snuck out of the sequestered motel where the jurors were being held, for a little pick me up, thus nullifying his trial. But we all know Lenny was being busted for what he said and the drugs were an excuse to shut him up. As the Great Sage wrote in his song, ‘Lenny Bruce’, “Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads/He just took the folks in high places and shined a light in their beds.” (Happy belated B-Day Bob!)

 So as I attended the hearing at the Planning Commission last Thursday night/Friday morning, I never thought as I was sitting there, that this panel, this commission was going to approve a dispensary going into a very definitive residential neighborhood. When I passed out Friday morning somewhere around 1:30 am, it would be another hour and half before they would APPROVE the dispensary. I went to bed that night thinking, “No way.”  That was after watching local resident after another plead, cry, bemoan, weep, shed tears, whine, wail to the Commission that a Medical Marijuana store would wipe out their neighborhood as they knew it. Not to mention the dance studio and learning centers that were not technically schools in the strictest sense, but still had hundreds of kids attending during the day that I thought for sure would stop the pot shop from making roots on Taraval Street. Well, way. It passed. And it taught me how wrong I can be.

I still can’t believe it passed.

The reason this is so important to me is, two months ago I thought legalization was almost a done deal. As I am apt to say, “It’s all happening.” I still believe it, but not as strong as before. But as Lenny’s mom, Sally Marr said about what gets you there...Will it only be about money that makes the side of Legalization, the winner?

In the stoopid Chronicle today, the business columnist, Kathleen Pender did an interesting piece on how the local banks are dealing with the dispensaries and the challenge of what to do with all that illegal gotten dollars. Apparently Marijuana is actually illegal and by selling the WEED, we’re going against the federal laws. But by putting the bucks in financial institutions, it’s kind of hard NOT to justify what is going on.

http://www.sfgate.com/columns/networth/

So it gets back to that old Civil War question of state’s rights versus federal rights. As it would be legal for the United States government to come into one of our Bay Area Medical Marijuana shops, and shut it down. They’re illegal! They only reason they don’t do here like they do it elsewhere, is public opinion. For example, Orange County while still technically residing in California could care less about compassion or that dreaded Obama-word, empathy, for a patient or a person stricken with MS or some other disease that prevents you from experiencing life at its fullest for your condition.  Location, location, location.

The reason I bring this all up is...In the grand scheme of having all our bongs in a row, making sure when it comes to the vote this November on the ballet for Legalization, are we ready? Have we thought what the anti-Legalization forces are going to come at us with?

After watching the beating of the collective chests of the Avenues last Friday morning, I see how much public opinion counts. Not as much as I thought. See, I believe we live in a real straight world where people act much hipper than they are. But when it comes down to it, we go to war when we’re scared. We act irrational when our backs are against the wall. I saw fathers and mothers cry in front of the Commission. I mean jeeze, I wasn’t going to let those pot-smoking freaks open the pot shop after hearing the neighbor’s testimony. What’s going to happen when it goes state wide?

Here’s the big point...

What happens if it is illegal to tax an illicit drug? What happens if taxes weren’t the answer? What happens if Legalization needs to pass like a big boy, on its own merits?  Not because Ahnold the Guvanator took at stab as acting as a politician before driving the state into the ground with a, “Ah’ll neva be baaaack.”  Every day we read on bad California is. How taxes are going to have to go up and still, agencies are still having to cut programs left and left. The once Golden State is being mocked on the East Coast for our spendy ways. Face it, they’ve always hated us on the other coast, now they have they’re chance to express their repressed, constrained, Puritanical minds. We are now being laughed at outright for our crazy social programs and our stoopid energy restrictions that everyone knew was going to run the state into the desert’s earth.

So the wagon trains aren’t coming west anymore for a better life. Jack and Moriarty aren’t going to hop into a just purchased used car and head for the sunset down that orange-scented road. No, Cali ain’t what it used to be...

Unless...unless WEED can save us. Maybe while all others are losing their heads, Heads are the answer. Potheads. Will it be up to us to save California? Is the reason that Legalization’s gonna pass is because like everything else, it is all about the Benjamin’s? Are we the answer?

I just need to ask my brothers and sisters of the Blue Smoke, one question? Why do we want it legal again? Is it to help others or to get high? As we advance with our cause is it a wink-wink thang? We come through the door carrying our compassion card and once in, roll ‘em up like there’s no tomorrow.

Sorry, I have another question. If the compassion part didn’t exist, would we be satisfied with saying, we want WEED sold like booze is in liquor stores or drugs are at Walgreens. We just want access to our stuff. Would that be too honest? Is there a chance that we could be that honest?

 What happens if federally it couldn’t be taxed, just locally? I kind of think that is the way it is going to happen. Here’s a scary thought for a second, what happens if the money factor is removed and it was left up to us and our neighbors to debate? What would happen?

Is that why we need to have the taxes involve? To bring the Man and the rest of the country aboard so they can see the benefits of having WEED legal. Otherwise, who’d give a fuck?

More later.



NDIMB No Dispensary in My Backyard

I am such a poorly designed athlete, albeit, an natural one, that when playing any competitive, ambitious under taking of a game like darts or ping-pong, at the outset when the score is neutral, I have a habit of remarking to my opponent, “Score’s 0-0, I’m winning.” I do that for two reasons; one, to get into my adversary’s head just like Reggie Miller did, and second, it may the only time in the contest that I may actually be winning.

That’s what it feels like now, still no victory and yet, not defeated either. Let me explain...

I spent almost the whole night at City Hall yesterday for the hearing by the SF Planning Commission for a Medical Cannabis Dispensary to be allowed to open at 32^nd and Taraval.    

For those unfamiliar with the San Francisco landscape, going west towards the Pacific, the City is divided North and South by Golden Gate Park. On the south side is what is called the Avenues and on the north side of the park is the Richmond, not to be confused with the City of Richmond across the Bay Bridge to the east. The Avenues and the Richmond is much more of residential area than most of the city. It used to be home of the Irish working class, the other Italian contingency outside of North Beach, and consists of a very large Asian population. If Frissy was Boston, these areas would be the Southside and maybe Dorchester, because of the diverse make-up of people.

To begin with, it was going to be a hard sell to get the neighborhood to agree to have a dispensary in this area.

Here’s the dealio, I left at 1:30 am last night, and there was still no verdict. I do not know the outcome as I write this and the EFFING Chronicle hasn’t stated whether it was approved or not. In a way I can’t blame the media, the commission hearing was so incredibly boring, I don’t know how anyone could have stuck it out.

This is what I think...

Right now all the polls are showing that California voters are split right down the middle on the issue of legalization that will be voted on this November. I see the Taraval Dispensary as a referendum on the vote, in a way.

As I’ve stated many times before, As San Francisco goes, so does the nation. We are the wellspring for the movement, no matter how much the greed and avarice of LA tries to bring us down. At the proceedings last night I saw our future, or should I say the lack of it.

I knew about this hearing for the approval or not of a Pot Shop being allowed in the Avenues for a while. A lot of good people have been working getting a dispensary opened in the Avenues. Yesterday in the EFFING Chronicle they posted a notice of the time and place of the hearing in the paper. They said the hearing starts and 5:30pm and in the comment section, all activists were asked to attend. I went as a sneaky journalist.

What they didn’t tell you was... the hearing for the MCD was like fifty-third on the commission’s docket. The hearing for the Dispensary didn’t start until around 10:45 pm.

During this time the noise from the halls was interrupting the proceedings and the sheriffs who were there to keep control, had to shout at both parties in the hall, the pro and cons, to shut up. There were so many people arriving for both camps, that over-full rooms were set-up with monitors to accommodate the public’s need. It was surreal to be there so late and have these groups eyeing each other suspiciously. I take that back. One group was going out and getting stoned and really didn’t take the other group as serious as they might have.  

One incredibly funny note, the general public is allowed to comment on the issue before the Commission that they are reviewing at that moment. I can’t tell you how many times Joey Buzzhead came in and walked to the podium with the words coming out of his mouth, “Dudes, the reason we need a Medical Marijuana Club in...” Before one of the commissioners would stop Joey and tell him, “Easy Tiger, save it, not yet...”

It had to have happen like five times.

The group against the MCD on Taraval was predominately Asian; I’d say almost 90%. The district’s supervisor came in and spoke, against it, manifesting the will of her voters. That was a bad sign. I did think one of the advantages the pro MCD side had was, the lateness of the evening. I figured when it was time for the general public to speak, it would be too late for the Taraval gang, consistency mostly of white color and working-class people in their forties, fifties and older. The pro side was skaters, stoners, patients who visible needed medication, but a hearty group, never the less. Boy was I wrong.

Tonight the proceedings are being replayed on Comcast cable channel 26. If you’re not being water-boarded and you want something fun to do, watch this. Trust me, after ten minutes, you’ll cry out for more aqua.

Watch the hearing and after a certain time, the only people speaking at the podium provided are the naysayers against the opening of a Cannabis Club in their neighborhood. The pro MCD must have gone home or passed out.

And truthfully so did I. After a certain point, I realized I could be home on the couch with a nice Hybrid waiting out the verdict while watching the proceedings on Government TV. Rolled a Raw one with the shorty crutch and dug in with the tube. I planned to stay up till the bitter for the verdict so I could report it in the morning like a good blogger. Didn’t happen. I woke up at around two or three in the morning with the TV watching me playing a nice jazzy soundtrack and a clearly mark sign on the tube, ‘Go to sleep, the Government did.’

So I don’t know the verdict yet.

But this is what I saw. I saw the Fifties versus the ‘10’s, whatever NOW is.

Those against having a MCD opening in their neighborhood brought out every Hallmark Card issue and made the proceedings into a Lifetime cable special. Speaker after speaker pleaded with the Board, “What about are children? If you allow this to open in our neighborhood, you’re sentencing our children to become drug addicts.” One woman at around 1am had her nine year old son read a prepared statement that she wrote for him. She prompted him with each word and sentence. One could look at it as a concern mother who is scared or the amount of old–time family-values control these kids grow up with. Listen, my mother wanted me to be a doctor and look what I’m doing. You can understand her concern.

It’s not going to be easy for this to pass for approval. There are two tutorial centers within a thousand feet of the proposed dispensary. California law does not allow a dispensary to be within a thousand feet of a school. The locals are claiming the tutorial center is like a school with the amount of young kids attending.

Then there was the crime aspect. Ohmigod, it sounded just like the Mafia was moving in. The locals bemoaned they didn’t have the funds for extra police. Then there was the worry that the patients would buy a bag and then turn around and sell said product in the doorways of Taraval Street. Locals stood at the podium, clutching the thin microphone with shaking hands, crying and shouting about the anguish of the impending downfall of their neighborhood. They banged their breast with the pain of knowing that Marijuana is a gateway drug that will seduce their children right from under their grasp.

After a certain point, the pro MCD side was gone. There was an interpreter provided for Cantonese and Mandarin translation. I started to get loopy after one:fifteen. I knew if the person requested an interpreter, they were against the dispensary going into their neighborhood. So I started to make my own translation.

“After a hard day of pressing clothes in very hot shop, I like nothing better than after helping the kids with their trigonometry, Latin studies, and their personal hobby of mapping out the unknown parts of our Galaxy,is to sit on the couch and roll up a big fatty and switch between Adult Swim and HGTV.” Of course at the point I was just dreaming.

Then what the other side didn’t get, the pro pot side, was the neighborhood didn’t care about the medicinal effects of Marijuana or whether it should be legal. The other side didn’t care about the pain that some of the patients spoke about concerning their debilitating diseases and the wonder treatment they’ve found. The issue wasn’t WEED. It was the location where the WEED was going to be sold.

And here’s the rub. The fly in the oatmeal. Those who are against MCD opening in their neighborhoods give very emotional pleas that resonate with other families. There were very few if any last night that said Marijuana was bad. They had their fears and prejudices, but mostly, they didn’t want it in their backyard. There other big complaint was that there are twenty-six other places to get WEED from and two in the City delivers. The opposition felt if a person wanted WEED, they could get it from some other source.

Understand to a straight, getting WEED delivered seems like the Jetsons or something. That a futuristic service exists that the locals are having troubles getting their collective heads around. As in, “what more do you need babies! You can get it delivered to your front door?”

The patients’ rebuttal; “We want our own pharmacy out in the Avenues. The next closest MCD is two miles away. In a wheelchair, that can take up to two hours.” Another gentleman wanted the independence of getting his own stuff instead of sending a care-giver who has their own life and sometimes can’t be counted on. There were elderly men and woman, people who you couldn’t imagine knowing what WEED is, let alone ingesting it who spoke eloquently about their diseases and the cure they found with WEED. Didn’t matter. The issue wasn’t WEED. But where it can be sold.

Finally, and I was waiting for this, a guy brought up the fact with the neighborhood citing the possible surge in crime and the way the streets are going to be paved with shake of all those leaving the stores with Santa bags of WEED, what about the liquor stores and bars within one thousand feet of the proposed club. What about that? Did the bars serving booze bring crime to the neighborhood? The liquor stores have bars on their windows for protection. Does that mean that they are expecting trouble?

The commission was so beat and tired at this point, I don’t know what they heard or not. It is my feeling they’re mind was made up after the supervisor spoke right at the beginning of the night. I think the die was cast.

In a way, I hope the dispensary isn’t approved. I think it was a bad location and that is it. I don’t know. It’s a matter of consciousness. In the future, when it becomes legal and the microscope isn’t burning down on every move the Pro-Marijuana activist do, when money can change hands more freely, we’ll see dispensaries in the strip malls and next to the pet stores and ice-cream shops. Once you’re used to seeing it, it’s not that hard to see them everywhere.

In a complete sidebar: On the docket before the hearing of the proposed dispensary was a hearing for the gentrification of 5^th and Market Street. The proceeding for this went on for like four hours or more. The team that wanted to build the new 475 occupancy dwellings has been working on the project for three years. And this is before any shovel has hit the ground. This is all about getting the permits and okays from the Planning Commission. While it all seemed like a good thing, it would disrupt that area that has been traditionally home to a large Filipino population. Many passionate people spoke out about their neighborhood and the change this monster structure would bring. Occupying city blocks, changing the whole configuration of the downtown area, even though many agreed it would be for the better, it would still be change. And once that happens, you lose the old ways.

The project passed unanimously.  

I saw the dejected looks on the mothers with little children attending hearing. Elderly Filipino men in worn Navy baseball caps depicting the battleships they served on sat quietly with the news that the area of 5^th street would be demolished along with some of their clubs and old haunts.

The architects, project managers and a bevy of assistants and associates sprung up there their chairs making their exit like an over-time game bell had rung. Exhausted by three years of planning but invigorated with the big win.

I knew right there that’s what both sides of change looks like.

There’s more to say what the Legalization side needs to do, like first thing, organize a PAC. That right there is going to be interesting. If last night was any indication what the Legalization side is up against, it’s going to be the same old story.

You got to win the hearts and minds of the people. For the people who live around 32^nd and Taraval, the influx of revenue and capitol to the area wasn’t going to be good enough.

Money sometimes won’t be enough. You’ve got to organize. IF a dispensary can’t open in San Francisco, it can’t open anywhere.

More Later.

WEED MAY 2010

 Helen:

The Volvo wagon starts to finds it’s groove finally on the top of the dirt road leading to Clay’s. Helen maneuvers a place for her old friend under an ancient Redwood forty feet from the main house. Turning off the car, the engine sputters to a coughing finale, then spits and dies with a buck and surge. Helen shakes her head knowing that car repairs will have to wait, transportation expenses falls somewhere below medicine and food. Helen runs through the list in her head; Hank’s home probably getting ready for ‘The View,’ with his five pills of various multi-colors and shape and sizes wading in the middle of the coffee saucer. When Barbara Walters speaks, Hank knows it’s time to take his pills. Helen can only shake her head hoping that he’ll remember. She knows that with the four or five hours that she gets in at Clay’s, putting her at her real job at Walgreen’s in Weaverville by four with no problem, then home by nine. Since Hank was laid off two years ago from the Post Office after nineteen years of getting mail to all the hippies and settlers of the Coast, he doesn’t do much except sits in his chair. She worries that he forgets to feed himself.  Of course once his health insurance had stopped, that’s when his diabetes kicks in. Helen feels lucky to get a second job at Clay’s. Why not, most of her friends work there too. Well, the friends who were known for not gossiping, not like it would matter. There are very few secrets in the Emerald Triangle, if you’re a local. Closing the car door, Helen almost catches her coat absently thinking about what to get Hank for their thirty-second anniversary coming up this weekend. Plus her sister’s son, Julian, is thinking of coming up from the City and bringing a friend for the weekend. That’s it! They’re going to have a party, just the four of them, Helen thought with a new found smile. There must be something on the shelves at Walgreen’s for Hank. With her discount, maybe she’ll splurge and get him one of those fancy foot baths for his hurting arches and corns. She grabs her trusty Fiskar’s from the glove box, scraping away some residue from the other day’s trimming.

Helen, an avid church-goer and a friend’s of Clay’s family from way back, says a prayer of thanks and of safe passage as she sees Clay going to his van parked on the gravel driveway. Clay grins and gives a dramatic nod of thanks to Helen from the front seat of the van as she makes her way to the main house. The gesture warms Helen and she blesses Clay again as she walks by him without a word and gets ready for part-time job that has saved her and her ailing husband’s life. Walking into the Great Room of the western-style home, she finds an open chair with a place setting of a wooden plate and small glass for the finger hash set at one of the many card tables with pounds of mangy Marijuana flower-tops flopped down like bulging pick-up sticks on newspaper waiting to be manicured and trimmed. It is Helen’s job, like the thirty others, to make the buds look pretty for the marketplace.

Clay:

 Clay was praying his smile didn’t seem too plastered on like something was up. He didn’t want to give Helen or any one of his trimmers the sense that there were any problems. The business was changing so fast and the competition from all over; the indoor growers in the City, out in the woods and the national parks, not to mention the Asian and Mex gangs, some days...it felt like it was all falling apart. But Clay assured himself, this wouldn’t be one of those days. Got to stay psyche, he sang out loud to the Radiohead instrumental. Harvest just started and this was no time to get bummed out. Clay needed his game face. He needed to be firm on his price. He wasn’t going to come down any more, he couldn’t. I put too much heart and soul into my WEED. Marijuana is in my roots.

When he inherited the biz from his dad ten years ago, when he was twenty-four, they were getting about thousand more per pound. Now with all the dispensaries popping up in the City and the whole state, the demand has never been greater, yet the price continues to drop. Leave it to the hippies not to pay attention to Supply and Demand economics. Clay thought about all the people who depend on him. There’s Helen and her friends. Part PTA, part God-fearing normal June Cleaver women, who if they lived anywhere else besides than in the Emerald Triangle, would be attending a Ladies Lunches or worse, getting welfare checks like what’s happening in Cotati. His dad tells him he’s taking it too serious, it’s the dope trade. It goes up and down, highs and lows, just like the weed. His dad is smoking too much Trainwreck to care. Besides, he made his millions. There are banks up and down the North Coast with safety deposit boxes full of green paper totaling around one hundred large in each. No taxes, no man, dad always said. Clay thought his old man was smart to get out when he did. The old guy would go out of his mind if he had to deal with today’s market. Everyone wants Kush or Purple in the name, no matter what the genus or strain. Growing season can be fudged indoors. And the worse besides the whole indoor growing thing, there’s a lot of the product out there that isn’t even organic. His dad would freak if he knew what people are planting in chemically spoiled soil and passing off as product these days. Clay knows he can’t worry about that now. He told the buyer at Compassion Depot, the dispensary he does biz with, that he would get them their product by five today. They said, if it’s not here by five, they would go with someone else, they couldn’t wait. They were running out of WEED in their store. In the old days, the buyer would say, “I’ll see you when I see you. Drive safe.” Now it’s be here by five or else. As Clay pulled into the AM/PM to meet Mara, he thought his dad could never hang in today’s market. The righteousness is slowly being tapped out by the usual reasons, money and greed. Clay scratched at the base of his long dreads and made a pact that when WEED becomes like Marlboros, he’s gone. He made a second promised as he parked the van, he would never let that happen.

Mara:

Mara was still sore from Yoga. She taught three classes already that day and it was only a little after noon. Usually her muscles are more fluid but attendance has really dropped off and since harvest started, she might be hitting the bong more than usual. Besides, the WEED is so good when it’s fresh like this. Her little Toyota wasn’t that much different than the rest of the traffic on 101 going south. She counted on that. She told Clay that she didn’t care how many turkey bags he uses, the car still smells like a hothouse. But it’s like she said to Solar, her jealous roommate, “like what are you going to do? I get a free bag, easily an ounce and half. Plus, couple hundo for making the trek, doing the deed. Not bad for a college chick few times a week during the season.” Plus...plus...Clay drives the stuff to the freeway and with that Mara high fived Solar, leaving her roommate to think Mara has it pretty sweet for only having to bring a few pounds to Clay’s man in the City. She made Mara promise to let her have the gig if Mara decides to ever give it up. Mara drives a steady sixty-two miles an hour in the right lane singing to KFOG thinking about how her Solar is never going to have this gig ‘cause she never going to give it up.

She gets nasty looks for going less than the speed limit from campers and the Beamers from Napa. But every so often there’s a long hair or a knowing grin from vehicle purchased from the Triangle area that makes eye contact with her. In a split second, conspirators grin like only criminals can.

Armando:

He was sorry to see her go. Armando liked Mara the most out of almost of all of Clay’s people. She was pretty. She was cool. She did her job like a pro, being on time and never having a sob story that somehow includes him helping the person with gas money or something. Armando was a city dude now. He left the hills years ago but kept the connections. For the past twenty, thirty years business has been real good. Why not? He was the only game in town, him and the other fifty thousand pot dealers in the Bay Area. But that was before the dispensaries opened shop. This was before everything changed. He took the garbage bags of WEED with turkey baster bags taped around trying desperately to conceal an odor that can’t be corralled from Mara’s old car into his nicer SUV. The sooner he could unload the WEED, the better he’s is going to feel. The public still seems to be surprised when someone in San Francisco gets busted for pot. Three pounds doesn’t sound like much, but if you have a record...Armando seen much in terms of the change. Weedapause, that’s what he should call it. Somehow as Marijuana’s matured and grown older, it’s changed. It’s no longer two business people who get together and discuss the price of Dope in China. No, now it’s a real business. Pot exchanges hands and not one joint is smoked. Guys just like Armando with duffle bags full of smoke are waiting in backrooms of dispensaries, sitting in black studio chairs, patiently ready to be summoned and have their stashed purchased. No, it’s not like the old days when you’d meet your Man in Sausalito for breakfast at noon, do the swap in the parking lot. Go for a walk and share a jay. No, it’s take a number like in a deli and wait your turn, and what hurts him most?  It isn’t the prices dropping; it’s the lack of respect for the guys who got us here. Guys like me, thought Armando. He made it to the dispensary by four-thirty just like Clay asked. But that’s what Pros do. Looking around at the young hipsters, absolute and secure with their duffle bags full of WEED probably with names like ‘Igor’s eyes’ and ‘Sweet Camellia’ that are oxygen deprived or CO2 injected for the color purple effect that kids love. Armando wondered how many more there are like him. Then he knew it didn’t matter as long as he got Clay his money, so he could get his money. He wouldn’t be the weak links of the chain like the guys sitting next to him.     

Karl:

Karl couldn’t believe River needed a break again. She’s just been working for a little better than an hour. Maybe he’s putting out too much in the bowl next to the bong. He can hear the door chiming every few minutes so he knows business is good and more importantly, brisk. The whole business is fast. Trying to find the right people, to work for him and to buy from keeps him busy when not telling an employee who’s supposed to go on break.

Being a lifelong pot smoker helped. It wasn’t too hard to find dealers once his permit was approved for his dispensary. But to find a good, reliable one, that is the task. Everyone knows someone who is growing these days. The Avenues and the Richmond are full of Mom and Pop Stops for small cultivation. But for the Egyptian barrage variety of abundance, look to Oakland. O-Town is where it is at for bulk deliveries. Karl suspected there was some organization behind his East Bay purchases, but what can he do? The stuff flies off his shelves. Everyone has a card it seems these days.

Karl rubs his eyes and cleans his magnifier with the soft cloth he keeps in a box that he has from when he was a child in Hamburg. There are three dealers yet to be seen and he only has money for two of them. Someone going home sad, Karl thinks as he gets up to inspect the next seller’s wares. Oh well, such is the business we’ve made.  

Us:

On the other side of the wall where patients line up while waiting their turn at the counter, a happy kid who just finagled a card by telling the doctor his back aches after working a forty hour week at the quarry is just leaving the dispensary. The bell on the door echoes as he exits with a quarter ounce of Purple O.G. Cinderella Kush in smell-proof paper bag throbbing in his coat pocket. The kid can’t wait for the weekend. He and his partner are going up to his Aunt Helen’s place at the River. She doesn’t know he smokes, but he thinks this is the weekend for no more secrets.

More on the War on Drugs, PT. 109

Here in San Francisco, the lab technician who borrowed office supplies from her drug-testing lab, little things like Post-it notes, heroin, and coke, her troubles are mounting, not to mention the City’s. I wrote in a previous column if one was to hang outside the halls of corrective justice these days, the sounds of whoops and howls can be heard all the way down Bryant Street out to the Bay. As case after case is being dismissed because of tampering with evidence, more and more inmates are being released with a second chance for life. I wonder what they learned behind bars. It’s wrong to do drugs? It’s okay to do drugs if someone else takes the fall for you? It’s okay to do drugs if you never get caught? Life is a fickle bitch?  

The lab tech was first suspected of skimming samples way back in November of ought Nine. In December of that same year, she was let go for investigation, oops, I mean, she took a leave of absence for personal reason. In March of this year, the crime lab shuts down and the suspect is taken into custody.

If someone is moving sixteen tons of WEED, I have a hard time defending that kind of movement of product, even though while Marijuana is still illegal, someone has to or needs to do it. But when someone gets busted for a few pounds, I don’t have a problem. But on the other side of the hypocritical teeter-toter, if someone gets popped with any powder, meth, or anything that’s not WEED, I have very little sympathy. I know, not fair. I said I was a pothead, not a mainliner.

No one remembers but in the months preceding that fateful date of the ninth of September, 2001, New York City was facing its biggest corruption hearings since the salad days of Serpico back in the old real Seventies when everything was grittier and graft was King.

The police were being charged with everything from moonlighting as muscle for organized crime to skimming of product from lockup and reselling drugs back onto the streets. They were on the verge of the biggest shakeup NYC had ever seen but then that day happened.

A lot of bad corrupt cops died heroically trying to save the citizens of Manhattan when the three towers went down. It wasn’t only the cops that weren’t on the take or held ‘second jobs,’ that gave their life up in the service of doing for others. Life isn’t that simple when you ride in the black and whites, even when it comes to the Man.

My point, as long as there is so much money to be made from drugs, it will turn honest people crooked and sober geeky, technically-advantaged kids into addicts. Of course, I am professionally speaking...

 What is happening here in San Francisco could occur anywhere else.

A prisoner in San Quentin sent a handwritten note to the City Attorney’s Office asking for unlimited damages from the state because, “...evidence was purposefully withheld that affected the outcome of the claimant’s case.” True.

There are other aspects of this particular case that might make it hard for this inmate to get out, but this filing is his first step and it does look good concerning calling a mistrial based on the tampering of evidence. Mostly because the evidence ain’t there no mo’.

Follow the money...

Guvanator Ahnold slashed the state budget like he was in Conan Three. (Much sadness and heartfelt good-byes to the great Frank Frazetta, the fantastic artist who drew the Conan and early Tarzan comics, died 5.10.2010) Because of his republican roots and that he’ll be leaving office to go back to the well...the movies, he hurt the people he hears from the least, the poor. He took away child care, medicine, and mucho dollars in the form of public aid.

So does this open the door for the Legalization of Weed? Yes and no. Taxation with WEED representin’.

Let’s go to the grass roots, the City of San Francisco. It is an understatement that the country is looking at us to see how we are going to handle the WEED issue. So what does our City do? They do what they do best, delegate and dilute. I am going to say it again, Delegate and Dilute.

The Board of Supervisors, (because SF is such a fucked up place in terms of trying to do the right thing and then either get greedy or talk about an issue so much people get bored and it disappears, we have a board that is supposed to represent a city as divergent as ours, but all it has done is make everything work slower and gives power to people who shouldn’t be able to reproduce or in some cases, have batteries for a dildo.) elected a Pot Task Force to assist in learning (figuring out?) how to regulate the POT Industry. This is what I know without doing any research, of the thirteen members (sounds like a biker club) most are dispensary owners, most. I think there is one grower and one all around stoner. Greatest gig going in San Francissy right now for that special person who likes to sit around a table and say, “that’s cool with me.”

My feeling right now is like that scene from G2 when Herman Roth is in Cuba with the leaders of Industry and the Mafia bigwigs like Mr. Michael Corleone. In that simplistic but effective scene, Herman Roth (Meyer Lansky) is telling the group about their plans for Cuba. How they are going to set up shop with the help of the local government, Big Business, and of course, the Syndicate while the whole time the great

Lee Strasburg is cutting a cake and handing out the portions to the people he’s doing business with.

That’s what is going on now. The pie is slowly being cut up. There is too much money for that not to happen. Because of personal preferences and prejudices, I’m okay with some of the owners who are on the Task Force, and others, I am highly (in a bad way) suspect of. It wouldn’t be fair at this time to name names, but follow the money...

Speaking of...

If I can get the courage up I might leave the house.

There has been so much going on up north, or as we say back home, up nort’, up there Mendo-way that I feel I need to get up there and see for myself what is happening. Most weekends I’m hearing of town halls and local meetings of the PTA talking about what is going to happen to the area after Legalization. Huge concerns when a third or more of your income is derived by the actions of a long-hair puffy-eyed, overalls wearin’ Marijuany Millionaire named Josh. People are worried, and rightly so...

Also I want to see how people are organizing. We have like six months to get ready for the vote of Legalization on the ballot.

Here’s the deal... The other side is organized. They have money and have been organizing for years making sure that Gays don’t marry and chickens get room mingle and be fabulous, not cooped up without rights.

Our side, face it, smokes dope and watches the Wizard of OZ synced up to Pink Floyd. And that’s on a good day. Creative, yes, but we’re still on the couch!!!

If we are serious about having the ability to smoke POT and not go to prison, we have to get up, stand up and leave the house. I’m really thinking about it.

I implore anyone in California reading this to get involved on some level. The pot busts have gone up for San Fra

ncisco and New York. Surprising you’d think for two of the country’s most liberal and progressive cities. Fires are starting in residential neighborhoods because organized crime is behind indoor growing and gives little regard for safety when dollars are a concern. Not to say that their not in our national forests too. (Remember to stay on the paths now while visiting any government park.)

We have a chance to shine a light into an industry that been made to lurk in parking lots after dark. Transporting product late at night when anything can happen. As long as drugs are illegal good cops will go bad by being in the right place at the wrong time with too much money involved for a guy or woman with a few kids trying to make it on 60 large a year when the drug runner you’re busting throws away in one night in a club more than you make in a month. Or a lab technician who got a little between her nails and with a simple sniff or lick, changes her views on something she once thought so abhorrent.

These drugs are funny business, no?

And to end with the most fucked up, a drug bust gone wrong. What happens when police go to the wrong house with bad intel. And yes, dogs will be killed.

Everything is the way we want it until we change it.

Sorry for an over balance of parenthesis today.

(More Later)

Who Gets What They Want in This World?

After my Celtics handed the Cleveland Cavaliers the unexpected defeat last night, sending the Cavs home for the rest of the season, the big question is; Has Lebron James made his last dunk for Cleveland? Is his career over there in O-Hi-o and starting in the Big Apple next year?

I think that is such a funny word career. It’s like the word ‘towel,’ for me. If you say enough, it loses its meaning. I mean, what is career anyway? Someone’s life or someone’s accomplishments?

I have a theory. My theory is when it gets down to it; we don’t care about anyone else but ourselves.

Look at this way, Lebron James is too big for Cleveland. An entity like Lebron, the Uber-draw, needs to be shared and exploited to the greatest number of people possible, just like producing a play on Broadway instead at the Community Theater in Canton. Just imagine how much more money he can make in NY opposed to the state he was born in and where his family and friends still live. Think about how many more lives could be enriched in a greater populated area. How many more people get to say, “I saw Lebron James in the flesh and it was awesome!” Because that is what it is all about, what you and I experience in this life, and what it means to us.

Let’s go a little deeper about what we want.

Last Tuesday night after watching ‘Lost,’ I said, “WTF, who introduces new characters in the third to last episode of a series? I guess Lost does, because they did. Did I like it? No. Did it help to make sense of what is going with the wackiest island since Gilligan and the Skipper got caught in a hut’s door? Yes. Do I like the way Lost is ending up? I don’t know.

I’ve invested what, six years following Jack, Kate and the gang. I care how this show is going to end. I’m wondering if they are going to end this series correctly. That means I need answers and I better be satisfied.

Leaving the island and going across the sea and over to the shore...

The Sopranos did it right. It ended perfect. Tony and his family live on in our minds as we try to resolve where they are now and what they would be doing. A lot of people didn’t care for the Sopranos ending. After David Chase delivered one of the best written and ground-breaking TV shows of all time, people thought he should have changed that one last episode and he should have given the people more of what they wanted. What? Tony dead?  I thought it was perfect. Others didn’t.

What happens if I don’t get all my questions answered concerning Lost? Am I pissed? The only show I’ve watched religiously since the onset of ‘The Simpsons,’ and now I’m going to tell him how to do his job? How to write the perfect series? What do we want as people?

We want what we want. It is that simple.

One of the greatest movies ever made without a doubt is ‘Casablanca.’ Great cast, dialog that we’ve basically incorporated into lives as throwaway jokes or clichés we like to hear like, “We’ll always have Paris” or “Round up the usual suspects.”  Could Casablanca been made now? Could a movie be made today where the hero doesn’t get the chick? There would have to be a sequel to satisfy the hunger of the audience for what they want. We can’t leave anywhere unsatisfied. Not when it’s all about us...

We live a world where it doesn’t matter what a person has done, it is what is in it for us. What do we walk away with?

It hard to believe that crazy Dan Rather was cutting edge once, the Lebron of his game. If you are of a certain age, there’s a word naughtier than what the English use to refer to their mates as...See you next year word, this word is worse...Nixon.

Nixon was worst. He really did what people are complaining about now. He had a secret army and government. He spied on Americans. He tried to stop John Lennon from living in NY, which we now know is every superstar’s right. Maybe we all owe a great debt of thanks to John Dean, but also to Dan Rather. Nixon was riding high even while impeachment was looming. But it all change with this exchange  between Nixon and Rather when Dick was getting perturbed with the tone of Dan Rather’s questions during a White House press conference. Nixon thinking he’s being smart asked the CBS newsman “if Mr. Rather was running for office”, most liking his. Dan Rather replied, “No sir, are you?” That put an end to Nixon. It all changed after that. Nixon could be gotten to...

Dan Rather lost his job and career reporting about George Bush’s bogus military career. Whether Rather was set up or the source of his information was gotten to, Dan Rather was discredited and fired by CBS for that story. That is after spending some forty years with that news outfit. But it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t us or our career.

The Tea Party freaks me out. I’ve been in the anti-war movement for most of my life and I’ve never seen a group of activists being this readily accepted by mainstream society before like this, on this level. How can they be taken so seriously?

Oh yeah, they’re white.

Think of all the groups that have been marching and protesting since those original apple people took the first infringement of intellectual property in the Garden of Eden and then later complain that it wasn’t they’re fault. Who ever put that apple on the tree is to blame. Those two naked kids were just doing what felt right.

Teabaggers are crying about how unfair this president is. Just look at the fourteen months out of the last 244 years and you can see where this country has gone all wrong.

I am supposed to believe that all the problems we are facing now, started with Obama?

You know what the problem is? People (‘Baggers) don’t accept the ending of the last administration. In the eight years that it took to bring this country down, not one of the ‘Baggers feel that George and Dick’s Excellent Adventure hasn’t been the cause and blame of what we are facing now. Hell, we could have thousands of gallons of oil being spilled into our native waters by a Halliburton hand being involved and still not one ‘Bagger points a finger Houston-way.

Anger doesn’t flow in that direction. Somehow it’s the president’s fault. Somehow Obama has does something not wrong, but not right concerning our unctuous gulf coast. I guess it’s a matter of having the right cast and being in the right place. Obama is the perfect person to blame if you don’t understand what is going on with America right now. And the White House is the perfect local for the anger of a nation.

What are our other choices? That the reason where we are now has something to do with us? No way, when it comes to real life, we let other people write our stories. Dictate the tone and mood. What characters get heard and which ones will remain silent, or even die off. (Please not Hurley or Axelrod.)

When it comes to show biz it better have a happy ending that works for me. They better get it right, or I’m going to be pissed.

More Later...