Pubdate: Wed, 24 Sep 2014
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Contact:  2014 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14
Author: Craig Medred

ALASKA POT ACTIVIST POSING AS REPORTER DID COLLEAGUES NO FAVORS

With two words, Anchorage television reporter Charlo Green has become 
a vi-lebrity -- or "viral celebrity," as US Magazine calls it now 
vying with Alaska pol-lebrity Sarah Palin for national attention, and 
proving that.... Well, it's almost scary to go on. Who even wants to 
think about how this state must look to the rest of the country at 
the moment? Reasonable Americans can only be thinking Alaska is the 
airhead capital of the continent.

Granted, Greene's TV sign-off made more sense than Palin's 2008 
vice-presidential blathering about Putin rearing his head, but only 
because Greene used simple, declarative sentences that are easily 
understood by everyone.

Yes, she twice repeated the sentence that starts with the f-word and 
ends with "it."

This is the common vernacular that bids us all -- black, white, 
Hispanic or Native American, native born or immigrant -- recognize 
that someone is upset. Very upset.

And Greene was upset. Greene is upset. She is so upset she put 
together a three-and-a-half-minute YouTube video to demonstrate why 
she made an idiot of herself on Anchorage TV. In it, she reveals 
she's been living not one, but two charades.

"My reporting name is Charlo Greene," she says. "My real name is 
Charlene Egbe. I'm the president and CEO of the Alaska Cannabis Club."

Translation: "My name is Charlene Egbe. I own a company named the 
Alaska Cannabis Club. And I used to play the role of reporter Charlo 
Greene on Anchorage TV."

Thank you, Charlo-Charlene, for further undermining the credibility 
of those of us who actually work in the news business like it's our 
business and not a front for something else.

Normally, it's hard to feel sorry for colleagues or former colleagues 
in the glamorous, makeup-tinted world of broadcast journalism, but 
I've got to admit to a tinge of sympathy for them now.

Not to mention for the supporters of Proposition 2, the initiative to 
regulate marijuana like alcohol in the 49th state.

In one short stint on the TV news, Charlo-Charlene singlehandedly did 
more to undermine the vote in favor of that proposition than the 
"Vote No on 2" crowd has been able to do in months. Until the 
26-year-old former newscaster went bonkers, Deborah Williams, the 
former leaders of the Democratic party and now the front for 
something called "Big Marijuana; Big Mistake," had basically been 
running around making a fool of herself.

Those are harsh words, I realize, but what else can you say about 
someone who appears to have watched the 1937 propaganda film "Reefer 
Madness" and concluded it was a documentary.

"Alaskans should feel as if they had been disrespected, not only 
because of the use of the F word, but also because they did not 
receive fair and balanced reporting on this very important issue for 
our future," Williams said in an official statement shortly after the 
Charlo-Charlene show.

All of which is just another way of stating her opinion somebody 
should have been reporting more of the nonsense spewed by the "Big 
Marijuana, Big Mistake" campaign, like this little gem:

"Alcohol. The proponents of marijuana legalization would like to make 
the issue about whether marijuana is worse than alcohol. This is not 
the point. Alcohol is and will be legal. For a state that already 
struggles with substance abuse, why add another legal drug to the mix?"

"Add another legal drug to the mix?" As if that matters. How deep do 
you have to have your head buried in the Turnagain Arm mud to miss 
the fact that marijuana is already everywhere in this state?

Making marijuana legal will do little more than give the state the 
opportunity to regulate and tax it. And free up some space in our 
jails. And possibly make things a little better in some rural corners 
of the Last Frontier.

There is a growing body of evidence that people who choose to get 
intoxicated on marijuana are less violent -- especially with their 
partners -- than those who opt for alcohol. Domestic violence is a 
huge problem in rural Alaska. Much of it is fueled by alcohol.

The governmental solution to date has been to try to stamp out 
alcohol use. The effort has been every bit as big a failure as the 
national effort at Prohibition. On some fronts, in fact, one can 
argue Alaska's rural prohibition is an even a bigger failure.

Legal marijuana could prove to be the lesser of two evils in a world 
where some argue humans are saddled with an "intoxication instinct."

This alone might make it worth giving legalization a try, because 
what is obvious is that there are a lot of people in this state 
getting high and/or drunk, and all the existing marijuana law does is 
help keep the courts and jails full and add to the chores for already 
overworked law enforcement officers who long ago lost the war on drugs.

The war on drugs long ago morphed into our homeland Vietnam, the only 
real difference being that instead of killing people, we throw them 
in jail. There is no benefit to society as a result. People do not 
emerge from jail to open arms and new career opportunities that 
enable them to advance our society.

They emerge with a criminal record and all the associated problems of 
starting life over again.

Any reasonable voter should recognize that legalizing marijuana, 
regulating it and taxing it to raise revenues (which this state is 
shortly going to need) is the sensible public policy choice. For the 
record here, I don't vote and don't think reporters should because, 
well, it could lead them to make themselves look like Charlo Charlene 
Whateverhernameis.

And she looked bad, and ill-mannered to boot.

Worst yet, it was hard to watch her strange performance on KTVA and 
not wonder: Is that woman stoned or drunk?

Which is just what the Williamses of the world needed, the chance to 
say, 'See, this is how people act when they use marijuana. They 
become irrational potty-mouths.' Then they go to work for the media, 
which just can't be trusted.

And it can't be. Overall, the media is only slightly more reliable 
than the mouthpieces for organizations like Big Marijuana, Big 
Mistake or the Alaska Cannabis Club, which clearly has been 
Charlo-Charlene's job since at least April.

She wasn't a reporter. She was a woman with an agenda posing as a reporter.

The only real question is what agenda: Making money? Legalizing 
marijuana? Becoming a vi-lebrity? There are various possibilities, 
not just one, or there could be none. Maybe she's just a whack job. 
Go watch her video and decide for yourself.

"Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition and stigma has stained 
America, the land of the free and" -- pause, little laugh -- "home of 
the brave," she said. "But we have a chance to start taking back the 
right. Today it's marijuana prohibition and once we get that done 
nationally, we the people will realize we are stronger than ever and 
you will feel empowered to take up what you choose to fight."

Aw yes, "common sense" to quote another of the state's great orators.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom