Friday, February 19, 2010

Protect the Plant!

It’s HempCon week here in Los Angeles, and though I’m not a smot poker, I’m all in favor of the legalization of Mary Jane. Simple and plain, I don’t believe that a plant should be made illegal – the concept just seems ridiculous to me. That’s why I’m distressed over some shit that’s been going down in Los Angeles for some time now: marijuana dispensaries/cannabis clubs are getting shut down and raided left and right thanks to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich (pssst… I voted for the other guy).

Even though President Obama ended all federal raids on these facilities, the L.A. City Council voted in favor of shutting them down. One of the justifications being that some of them were near schools. That’s hilarious to me, since every school I’ve ever been to had a liquor store (or two) just around the corner. Are you telling me that it’s easier to walk into a liquor store to snag some cheap wine or beer than it is to walk into a cannabis club and walk out with a prescription? You can forge an I.D., sure, but a doctor’s prescription? Not so simple. Anyways, Los Angelenos will have the opportunity to overturn the ruling with a ballot measure later on in the year. That’s why the legalization movement needs some organizing, and that’s where sober people like me come in.

Promoting HempCon 2010 and his new film Light Up America, legendary stoner Cheech Marin spoke at the L.A. Convention Center on Thursday and said: “It's a movement whose time has come. It's inevitable. Society since the Bible has needed a socially acceptable intoxicant, and here it is. This has been our drug of choice. It's ... much healthier, has more benefits than alcohol.” I don’t disagree with anything he said. But if pro-legalization activists are serious about their cause, they’re gonna need to find a respectable voice to convey that message to voters. We need a pro-marijuana advocate whose eyes aren’t glazed. That leader has yet to reveal him or herself onto the scene. And that’s the problem with (us) liberals. We fawn over our own idealism before facing the realistic prospects of victory and failure. That’s why when we do win – even on that rare chance when we do win, like getting Obama elected – we don’t know what to do with it afterwards… ‘til we lose everything we worked so hard for all over again. Wake up everybody.