You know something?

Marijuana is less dangerous than chocolate.

Think about it.

Chocolate can kill your dog.

Last week, the feds raided, confiscated and shut down two medical marijuana dispensaries here in West Hollywood California. They did the same to some 26 similar establishments in the state of Montana. Dispensaries and growers. No arrests, no charges, just big, armed dick, officious intimidation and humiliation. I’ve been to and patronized one of those West Hollywood dispensaries and I’m here to tell you they were as careful and thorough as as any I’ve ever visited.

Why?

Shut up before you even attempt the “gateway drug” or “physically addicting” contretemps. Forgive me but that shit is silly. There are zero legitimate studies to prove anything remotely resembling as much and a cornucopia for the contrary. No one has ever died from smoking pot. No one has overdosed on it.

But enough chocolate will kill your dog.

Besides, both states allow for it’s legal cultivation, distribution and sale. The insult to injury as well as established industry lies in the pledge by the Obama administration Attorney General, one Eric Holder, ostensibly at the behest of POTUS himself, to not pursue the purveyors of medicinal marijuana any longer in the states where it was approved by vote of the citizens thereof.

So, why?

You’ll have to bear with me, because although the answer is short, the story is long.

Once upon a time, there was oil and paper and Dupont. Dupont was mad at hemp because it still made better ropes for the navy than the newly invented nylon. Then Rockefeller and Hearst got mad too. They were all mad at hemp because it did each of the things they specialized in better than they did so they made it illegal. They made cannabis illegal too because black men were encouraged to have their way with white women after smoking it in the form of a reefer and it was an obvious and convenient way to demonize both. They made both the same thing. It was a pretty good strategy in light of our relative sophistication at the time. The great unwashed ate it up. Then Dick Nixon had has his way by making it a schedule one narcotic and creating the DEA so he could persecute and prosecute the peace loving, antiwar hippies he was so desperately afraid of and here we are.

Told you it was a long story.

The answer is greed and it still is.

Look, what’s going on here is this: There is no goddamn way the government is going to relinquish control over an industry as lucrative as this. Certainly not to a bunch of independent thinking entrepreneurs as opposed to the historically complicit corporations they’ve been doing business with for a century or more. It really is that simple. There, I said it. That’s what’s happening.

We just bombed the shit out of Libya. We’ve been bombing the shit out of people for fifty years to protect the interests of our government and it’s corporations or corporations and our government. They understand the genie is out of the bottle and they are absolutely committed to tipping at it until those trusted corporations can usurp control of a commodity so remunerative, that were it fall into the hands of regular Americans, the middle class would have a fighting chance at reestablishing itself and the plutocrats and oligarchs would face the most serious run for their money they’ve seen in decades. In many ways they are as anxious for it to be completely legal as we are. But they will trample their own pudenda to see it implemented, regulated and controlled to their benefit, not ours. Not yours, not mine.

Free market my ass.

Think about it.

In the meantime we bathe in oil and the plastics and textiles that come from it and we waste more paper, plastics and textiles than we used to actually use. We are at the nadir of our chemical romance renaissance, both pharmacologically and otherwise ridiculously. All of it can and should be replaced with congruent to superior products made from hemp. Hemp, at worst an environmentally neutral, renewable resource and arguably the most versatile and efficacious plant known to humankind, does all of it better and cheaper than the prevailing model and the average farmer could, would and should make a killing from growing it. Hemp makes cotton look Fischer Price. Local economies would be empowered. Innovation would transpire. Manufacturing would spontaneously combust as a result of suddenly being able to make stuff we use and need in our own backyards.

Talk about a revolution……

So see it’s not just the pot. In fact it’s barely the pot except where big pharma rears it’s ugly head. It’s the hemp. Old Republican lizard brains agree with the younger more moderate reptiles. It’s too profitable and therefore dangerous to fall into the hands of mere mammals.

Following the money indefatigably leads to the big picture. Now you understand what they are so afraid of. The federal government doesn’t give a shit if you get high. Trust me, they’d prefer you’re impaired. They damn sure don’t give a mad fuck for your safety. They only care about seat belts and airbags because it’s good for insurance companies. They only require helmets and limit second hand smoke because it’s good for insurance companies. The government doesn’t care how long you live. They just want you to die as cheaply as possible. If your disease is of a protracted nature, they’d be happier if you’re not insured. They just want to control you. They just want you to die with as little residual burden as possible.

We can talk about the drug war and it’s egregious cost and absolute, comprehensive, systemic failure. Our behemoth prison system where we literally incarcerate more people per capita than any other state or nation on earth, or the fact that we outspend every other country combined on our ability to make war and kill everyone we disagree with. And I’m happy to point out that the rich keep getting richer as a result, while the poor keep getting poorer. The concentration of wealth in this country has never been so severe as it is now. The gap never so wide. Far less than one percent now own half of us. Think about that. Four hundred individuals own half of everything we are and have. Shut up, stop your brain and think about that one, sobering, fact.

In light of all this, does the notion that they seek to control medical marijuana surprise you at all? This isn’t about pot. This isn’t about you’re ability to get high or avail yourself of medicine that just might mitigate your condition.

The forest hates the trees.

I bet it’s easier to actually consume enough chocolate to kill yourself than it is to smoke enough pot for the same result. This is absurd. It’s goddamn ridiculous.

Who’s your daddy?

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” -MLK

Drinks for my friends.