Part 9: MMJ trivializes recreational and industrial use
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.
- You pretend to have a disease, or exaggerate whatever ails you, in order to obtain a state medical marijuana card.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
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 andwhen 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 …
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Dynamic MMJ laws force businesses onto the streetPart 2: MMJ limits cannatax to a fraction of what it could be
Part 3: MMJ limits job incubation to a fraction of what it could be
Part 4: MMJ limits cannabis' contribution to GDP to a fraction of what it could be
Part 5: Ironically, MMJ blocks clinical research into cannabis’ healing properties
Part 6: It's taking the tranquilizing drug of gradualism
Part 7: The foot-in-the-door theory is flawed
Part 8: Emphasizing MMJ in the present pushes true legalization back to the future
Part 9: MMJ trivializes recreational and industrial use
Part 10: Fuck the patients
[Bonus] Part 11: It keeps 45,000 pot "offenders" imprisoned
[Bonus] Part 12: It keeps the DEA in business
[Bonus] Part 13: Cities and counties can vote it out anytime
7 comments
Thomas Chong says:
Jul 25, 2011
You must remember medical marijuana has opened the door that can never be shut again so rather than oppose or criticize the the “medical approach”, embrace it. The truth is we all smoke for a medical reason whether we know it or not. Stress relief is probably the number one “medical” reason we healthy people smoke it. “It relaxes me”. ” Helps me enjoy my time off” or helps me enjoy doing boring things. Airline pilots use it for long flights. Athletes use it to wind down after a hard game or practice. Stress relief. But the most compelling argument has to be the “take it or leave it” qualities. Pot is not physically addicting. Studies have shown people who smoked for years can and have stopped cold turkey with no physical side effects. And the good news is stopping a heavy pot habit can be beneficial to ones well being. So don’t get cute and knock the medical approach and realize the number one harmful addiction in America is junk food.
This addiction is killing Americans faster than drunk drivers. Over eating leads to heart problems, diabetics, and a host of other ailments that is encouraged by our so-called American culture of television ads and sit/coms that promote unhealthy habits as a way of life rather than a way of death. Pot, hemp, cannibis was given to us by our Creator when the Universe was created.”I give thee Green Herb and it shall be for meat” Genesis 29. And it was the disgraced President Nixon who gave us the DEA criminal gang and the money draining drug laws. So lets support the medical approach toward pot and educate the masses about the many ills pot can help with instead of trying to be ultra clever with the outlaw comedian approach….tc
Lory Kohn says:
Jul 25, 2011
I could take exception to several of your points. However, you are the co-author of the immortal lines:
mama try to tell me
try to tell me how to live
but I don’t listen to her
cause my head is like a sieve
So you can write whatever you want, whenever you want to write it, and I’ll be grateful for the contribution. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Don McAdams says:
Oct 15, 2011
Len Richmond’s movie is excellent. Under your picture of the youtube video, you state that, “Schedule 1 drugs can’t be tested on humans.” This is actually not the case. NIDA has a mandate that no Schedule 1 drugs can be tested for any benefits, but tests for potential harm are ran all the time. For a host of research, I recommend, well, Len Richmond’s movie. As something just as valuable, if not more so, is this 20 minute seminar from Dr. Abrams, http://projectcbd.org/Medicine.html#CME . He has over 30 years of NIDA funded MJ research that he talks about, as well as other research being done around the world, Dr. Guzman’s work from Spain being the most ground-breaking to date, mitigating glioblastoma multiforme, or brain tumors. Then I would suggest Dr. Tashkin’s NIDA funded 30+ year study confirming no link to MJ and lung cancer – it even suggested a protective effect from the cigarette smokers. I agree with Tommy Chong and Jack Herer – all use is medical. That being said, the MMJ initiatives may have a huge flaw of not offering enough, especially in the way of research, but it was a necessary step. We would never be talking about full legalization or repealing Prohibition 2 in a serious tone today if it wasn’t for the MMJ road paved for US. And yes, certain indicas high in CBD are better for physical treatments, while sativas high in THC and THCV are better for mental treatments, so recommended strains for the ailments isn’t entirely voodoo… You do bring up a necessary reminder for US all, though – no matter if we’re doing a medical or recreational attempt, research should always be included in the wording…
Lory Kohn says:
Oct 19, 2011
I disagree with your theory that MMJ is paving the way for full legalization, as opposed to blocking it — but respect your opinion. More on this soon. btw, is cannabis effective against spam?
Don McAdams says:
Oct 25, 2011
There is some truth that if Cali would have fully legalized cannabis in ’96, we could likely have 16 legal states today instead of medical states. The growing plethora of medical research could very likely have kept cannabis in a medical box for some time, and may have slowed the repeal / legalize progress. Considering how rigid the government still is on “legalizing,” though, medical really was (and unfortunately still is for the most part) the best avenue to get some freedom. I agree that there needs to be a break from medical to legal, and that would have been nice to see happen already. I believe that its lack of harm and vast medical efficacy will create a rapid shift from medical to repeal very soon, though, and that, almost unarguably, would have never been possible had cannabis not been a hot topic already these past several years, and that would have never happened without mmj initiatives being passed by the People. Perhaps it’s not really a paved road. It’s more like a dirt trail, and we need to get on the interstate. I agree with your sentiment of abandoning the medical model now, that time has come, but it’s not as easy to say for the 34 states that have no mj allowances… Our legalization init is lagging in Ohio, and still has all the hoops to get through yet, while the medical init here has jumped through the last hoop and is now collecting the half million signatures needed to get it on the ballot for 2012. I’m still gonna support both efforts, even though I have no qualifying medical condition…
Lory Kohn says:
Oct 25, 2011
Don, thanks for providing those links and sources to the groundbreaking research that has been performed.
You seem to like to write a bit — how’s about writing an article for CC clarifying what research can and can’t be performed on Schedule One drugs in the USA, and perhaps contrasting those regulations with international regulations?
I will admit that there have been benefits that have evolved from the flirtation with MMJ. For example, it has really pushed the envelope in medibles. I’ll be at my “caregiver,” Evergreen Apothecary today, listening to customers’ tales of how medibles have been helping them with their conditions, a variation on the “treat yourself” theme …
air jordan 11 says:
May 27, 2016
I want to say – thank you for this!