Pubdate: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Page: 13A Copyright: 2009 The Sacramento Bee Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376 Author: William Preston Robertson Note: William Preston Robertson is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Sacramento. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California) A MIND UNLEASHED BY THOUGHTS OF LEGAL POT I don't smoke pot. As a teenager I tried it once with a group of friends. After that I became the only teen I've ever heard of who didn't experience peer pressure to use drugs. When offered a joint by a non- acquaintance, my pot-smoking pals would snap awake from their stupors and scramble to stop the joint-sharing Samaritan. "Um, heh-heh, that's not such good idea, man," they'd tell him. "Bill's 'naturally high.' " I don't think they meant it in a John Denver, Rocky Mountain, "let's see if high-altitude sickness gives you any buzz" sort of way. There was too much fear and self-preservation in my stoner friends' voices for that. But it was still nice to have friends looking out for my welfare. I guess. This is just to say I don't have a personal stake in the topic before us, which is namely, legalizing pot, a.k.a. grass, tea, giggle weed, muggles, boo boo bama. Or, as it's known in the tough part of town, and by that I mean, of course, the state Legislature: marijuana. Recently, state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, proposed AB 390, a bill that would decriminalize marijuana and allow it to be sold - - and taxed - openly in California to adults 21 and older. The reasoning, as I understand it, is that since California is looking for new funding sources, it might not be a bad idea to legitimize what is already one of the larger agricultural industries in the state and give California, as it were, a piece of the action. Economically - and I say this with the kind of credibility that only a man who still counts on his fingers can have - AB 390 makes good sense to me. There's no doubt that supply and demand for the product already exist. Indeed, the muggles market has shown a long-term stability through good times and bad. Which is more than you can say for that speculative lemming stampede called the "Dot Com" bubble. One needn't worry about any "Pot Com" bubble. This isn't just a simple issue of new tax revenue, either. Which, on a personal level is a bit disappointing. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Republicans stalwartly defending stoners against tax-and-spend liberals? No, the impact of a legalized boo boo bama industry reaches much deeper into the economy than mere taxes. Online, I found that pot cultivation is every bit as sophisticatedly developed a business and art as winemaking. Web sites presented comprehensive lists of the latest cultivated herb strains with photos and eloquent descriptions detailing bud size, aroma and nuances of the induced high. They had names that sounded less like wines, though, and more like crosses between tomato varieties and failed local bands from the 1970s: Silver Haze, Early Misty, God Bud, Turtle Power. And each year, these cultivated herbs compete for the world-famous Cannabis Cup of Holland at an international festival that draws discerning cannabis connoisseurs from around the globe. Translated to the California economy, the implications are enormous. From agribusiness, to tourism and convention businesses, to Cheetos, Twinkie and pizza sales. It boggles the mind. Muggles money - doobie dollars, if you will - would start flowing like, well, wine. Overnight the economy would rebound as tea tycoons and boo boo bama billionaires would do what the wealthy always do: share their wealth and give back to the state. Is it too far-fetched to envision the California Skunk Weed Arena at Cal Expo? Our biggest competitor, of course, will be Holland. Concerned about "brain drain" in their industry, the Dutch won't take it lying down. They'll try to lure away our talent with their more affordable health care and legal prostitution. We in turn will have only the counter offer of our VA health system and the promise of a magnetic levitation train from Disneyland to the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada. It'll be a tough fight, but I have faith in the California entrepreneurial drive to sell something that doesn't actually exist. Well. OK. Obviously I'm being wacky. But at least you understand the kind of mental machinations that frightened my stoner friends. Bolstering an economy with a vice industry, whether that vice is marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes, or gambling, is complicated. There are economic benefits to be sure, but there are economic detriments as well. Vices will exist whether legal or illegal, and someone will be making money from them. And whether they're legal or illegal, their societal impact will exist in their impact on health care costs, insurance rates and crime. We want our vices, yet we feel bad about that. And so to compensate, one vice becomes acceptable while another is not. But why? Why is one drug better than another? I'm just asking. Like I said, I don't smoke pot. These days I don't even drink. Here, to me, is the ultimate irony. Cigarettes are legal, but they give you cancer. And in the last throes of death from that disease, one of the ways to ease the pain is by smoking an illegal drug. A drug called boo boo bama. Maybe that's its real value to the California budget crisis. Powerful stuff. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake