Ten Reasons Why MMJ Is Cannabis Commerce’s Ball And Chain

Part 9: MMJ trivializes recreational and industrial use

Hemp fans, we haven’t forgotten about you.

Trivializing recreational and industrial use is an massive hindrance to cannabis commerce as an economic force.

Both areas are exponentially more lucrative than MMJ can even dream of becoming. Why? Industrial use will include contributions from Big Pharma, Big Agra, and possibly Big Tobacco.

Unleashing that trio of GDP chart toppers will supercharge the industy.

That’s just the corporate stuff.

All manner of green innovations, introduced by concerns ranging from startups to huge cannabis consolidations, will come out of left field — revitalizing our toxic, eroding landscape in the process.

Meanwhile, mainstream media, smitten with MMJ as it is, barely acknowledges the existence of recreational use or the promise of industrial use.

It’s enough to tear your hair out.

CNN talking heads routinely ignore cannabis cornerstones worth $115 billion in the network’s nightly fearmongering. The persistent mantra emanating from CNN’s stable of economics “experts:” Everything sucks. Nothing can save us from doom.

Really?

Fellas, is there really no economic force exhibiting all the pot-ential in the world?

Why, yes. There is.

It’s called cannabis commerce.

You may never hear about it, because business media types steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the ten-feet-tall, bud-laden plants blooming in front of their noses.

For that set, MMJ and its make-believe variant of “medicinal use” is all there is. They have a hard time grasping that the noble-sounding phrase “medicinal use” describes a bunch of stoners getting high and some truly ill folks wildly guessing which strains will heal them.

Real medicinal use is conducting clinical studies on cannabis’ effectiveness against cancer, thank you.

The same studies we already know MMJ blocks.

While bogus medicinal use dances, recreational use and industrial use remain on the outside looking in, faces pressed against the glass, wistfully watching the waltzers at the grand ball and chain.

What makes me say that medicinal use, MMJ-style, is all “make-believe?” Glad you asked.

1. You pretend to have a disease, or exaggerate whatever ails you, in order to obtain a state medical marijuana card.
2. The “referring physician” makes believe he’s really concerned with evaluating the merits of your “disease,” as opposed to pocketing your $100 fee in the minimal time possible.
3. Once you’ve paid $100 to the doctor and $90 to the state, you must now pretend to be “a patient,” discoursing in patient-speak, because being a healthy human being disqualifies you from purchasing a naturally occurring herb.
4. You pretend it’s perfectly OK to pay a $90 renewal fee every year to the state and another $100 fee to the referring physician every year you renew your license — even though not one citizen pays a dime in renewable annual fees for alcohol, tobacco, or prescription drugs.
5. You accept the premise that the Hooters chicks working behind the counters at “medical marijuana centers” can star in dual roles as doctors and pharmacists for the maybe 25% of patients who actually need, not want, MJ. We’re witnessing a first in the history of American medicine: a nice rack qualifies a budtender to diagnose and dispense. Before this progressive concept took shape, persnickety patients used to insist that practitioners go through the inconvenience of acquiring degrees from medical and pharmaceutical schools. That’s so yesterday.
6. The DEA pretends to look away because MMJ is now a “medicine” — even though its official position for eighty years has been that cannabis is a poisonous Schedule One drug. That stance has landed some 45,000 “offenders” behind bars. So, which is it, poison or medicine?
7. Dispensaries pretend they’re a real business, when the town, county, or state they’re in can vote them out at any time — without restitution.

The game of MMJ make-believe isn’t even remotely helpful when it comes to repealing prohibition. It fact, it kills it completely.

It’s hyocritical to the nth degeree.

We’re duty-bound to extract the hypocrisy from our legal system — not promote it.

Let’s talk a little bit about recreational use.

I’m confident everyone knows what recreational use is. If you’re tuning in from the Andromeda galaxy, it’s lighting up a big, juicy dooby without having to pretend you’re a damned patient.

I’m no longer addressing the “stigma” attached to recreational marijuana use. I’m not being defensive about the right to get high a second longer.

Therefore, I won’t be wasting valuable keystrokes regurgitating the rationale for recreational use.

And I’m not going to address the demonization tactics keeping prohibition alive — that just plays into the hands of the entities perpetuating them.

Recreational use is real. It’s natural. It’s historic. It’s all around us. It’s like God. It is God. It’s being aligned with the universe. It’s the past, the present, the future “rolled” into one.

And it’s high time MMJ activists quit demeaning it! Visualizing forms of cannabis commerce outside their own petty fiefdoms would be constructive. Easier said than done.

That leads us to the mystery guest, industrial use.

Now . . . finally . . . industrial cannabis — This Is Your Life.

Imagining industrial use requires vision, green leanings, and a belief in the free enterprise system.

It requires farmers and cultivators. Lots of farmers and cultivators.

For you futurists out there, here’s a tantalizing taste of what could be.

Vertical farming could be the wave of the future for the magical weed.

Imagine:

• Dead automobile plants in Detroit repurposed into giant grow houses
• Big Tobacoo getting in the game
• Making farming sexy again
• Revitalizing rural areas
• Rising rural land prices
• Transforming the clothing industry
• Transforming the paper industry
• Replacing oil-based plastics with hemp derivatives
• Feeding cattle with hemp instead of corn

Industrial use can either be HUGE or a complete dud. It requires a pretty daunting prerequisite: ending prohibition.

It is possible, although I wouldn’t go with probable, that the USDA has the power or the desire to decriminalize hemp, MJ’s non-psychoactive sibling. It’s only the most useful plant on God’s green earth.

Hemp has quite a few vociferous supporters. There’s no doubt the versatile fiber replaces any number of toxic substances currently depleting the earth’s resources. It’s comforting to imagine fields and fields of it adding vital oxygen to the biosphere, a restorative tonic for flora and fauna.

I want to hop on the hemp bandwagon. I really do.

But … the hemp bandwagon doesn’t make a whole lot of appearances around these parts. The stops it makes are sporadic, at best. And there aren’t enough travelers on board to revolutionize poteconomics.

Potentially, hemp’s a fabulous ride. The problem I have with the malleable substance is that we have to guess how much enthusiasm there really is for it. Just try asking the most vociferous hemp advocate you know if he or she has planted hemp seed one yet. The answer, 99.999% of the time, is going to be no. Then ask them if they know who’s really cashing in on hemp anywhere on earth. That answer’s also going to be no.

In comparison, ganja mania is ever-present.

There are certainly isolated pockets of support for hemp, but there’s hardly a groundswell of enthusiasm for its common uses.

Let’s examine these:

• Biofuels  Where’s the public clamor for existing biofuels made out of, say, corn ethanol? It’s not exactly in your face. Sure, there are some vehicles, usually SUVs, displaying E85 [“E” for ethanol] biofuels badges cruising around . You’ve got to look for them, though — these are very much in the minority. So, even if hemp proves itself a superior biofuel to what’s already out there, that still leaves it a superior performer in a category that’s not exactly exploding.
• Fabrics  Hemp clothing may be more expensive to produce than its cotton counterpart because it requires more processing. If true, that negates inherent advantages like requiring less water and a natural resistance to “pests.”
• Plastic substitutes There’s been some progress utilizing hemp for car parts in Europe. At this juncture, what there is of it cannot yet be termed evolutionary progress by any stretch of the imagination.
• Foodstuffs  I see evidence of an upswing in hemp natural foods, but not nearly enough of it to call it a game changer.
• Cattle Feed   Parts of the hemp plant humans can’t eat cows can. How many cows are eating hemp in the US now? Not one. It’s a corn-crazed world in strict accordance with the Monsanto Corporation’s surrealistic GMO vision. So who knows how popular hemp cow chow might become if and when it’s legal?

I’m just not hearing enough about hemp pioneers carving out their fortunes in Canada, where raising hemp is already legal, to get all tingly about it. Contrast this with the mega-fortunes pot pioneers have made in BC buds.

Then there’s the annoying reality that hemp elitists have proven themselves just as divisive to the cause of ending prohibition as MMJ elitists. They’re hung up on avoiding the “stigma” of pot use. So they disassociate themselves from Satan’s seeds — they’re all for legalizing hemp and letting pot rot in prohibition hell.

My reaction?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Time, space, and rationality prohibit me from exhibiting more tolerance for hemp elistists.

Taking the position that cannabis shouldn’t be used for recreational toking is like maintaining that barley shouldn’t be used for recreational drinking. Try that argument on a guy who glugs down six brewskies every Broncos game and see how far it gets you.

Cannabis Commerce is now and will remain 100% anti-elitist. Period. Cannabis was put on earth for every reason.

In summary, recreational marijuana is a force of nature; hemp is a force of conjecture.

Given the chance the chance to strut its stuff on the world economics stage, industrial use could be a beautiful thing.

Recreational use is already the real deal.

Final section preview

If you’ve read this far, I’d be surprised if a certain question hasn’t popped into your head at least once. Let’s see how close I can come to guessing it: “Why is this otherwise passionate Lory Kohn guy so heartless when it comes to patients and patient rights?”

Ah, yes.

The patients.

The precious patients.

The precious pampered patients.

The precious pampered privileged patients.

Them.

The chosen ones MMJ advocates believe in their heart of hearts are the only earthlings ennobled to take nourishment from marijuana — while the rest of us wait to be reincarnated into new life-forms with equal privileges. Spider mites — if we’re lucky.

I’ve been dying to address “the patients” throughout this report. So far, I’ve resisted the temptation. However, the cannabis gods want their way. “Do it. Do it, today,” they tell me — and I must obey.

I have to prepare you for it.

You’re about to read the most outrageous commentary about MMJ patients ever.

First, I have to tell you that I’ve been building the attack slowly . . . but surely.

I’ve warmed up for it with Cannabis Commerce in the USA and Is the Grass Really Greener  in The Netherlands. This year alone, some forty-odd other articles and videos wrote themselves, too. I’m confiding this to let you know that I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck and stumble upon the title you’re about to click …