Pubdate: Wed, 19 Aug 2015
Source: Valley Advocate (Easthampton, MA)
Column: Between the Lines
Contact:  2015 New Mass Media
Website: http://www.valleyadvocate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1520
Author: James Heflin

LEGAL POT? DON'T MAKE IT SO COMPLICATED

Maybe it's marijuana's cultural baggage of Deadheads, dreadlocked 
Rastafarians, and psychedelic paraphernalia that does it, but there's 
something about cannabis that brings out the school marm in certain 
segments of the population. It just makes the members of the more 
conservative contingent feel like their neckties are too tight, like 
their worldview is still endangered by the cultural descendants of 
the hippies who hoisted a green, smoke-wreathed flag in the turmoil 
of the '60s.

But that's a cartoonish, puritanical view of a plant that's been 
around for millennia. Evidence from tombs in Asia reveals cannabis' 
use as a psychoactive substance at least as far back as 3,000 B.C., 
and conjecture places its cultivation as far back as 12,000 years. 
American views were mostly formed in the past century, in the wake of 
Mexican immigration during the Mexican Revolution. Whether the 
resulting fear of psychoactive marijuana was about the plant or about 
the ethnicity of its then-primary smokers is a matter for debate, but 
regardless, it became illegal in 1937.

It was a curious turn for a plant with such close ties to America - 
it turns out the Puritans weren't exactly puritanical when it came to 
hemp. Psychoactive use or no, the strain of cannabis that was 
necessary to rope- and sail-making was all the rage in the Jamestown 
colony. Even the founding fathers had no problem with the stuff. 
Unfortunately, 20th-century legislation did not discriminate between 
industrial and psychoactive hemp.

Maybe the contemporary anti-cannabis crusaders don't realize how much 
of their opposition to marijuana is just a cultural thing. Many who 
voice their disapproval think nothing of imbibing alcohol, which 
certainly offers mood-altering effects and a host of unpleasant and 
dangerous drunken tendencies that don't come with marijuana use. No 
movement for medical alcohol exists because so far, no clear medical 
use for alcohol exists, unless you're a Civil War doctor who performs 
amputations with a bottle of rotgut and a bullet to bite.

Even if most of your marijuana information comes from Reefer Madness, 
you shouldn't oppose legalizing medical marijuana or industrial hemp. 
Not only is cannabis an industrial crop with a host of uses from food 
to fuel and clothing, the science of medical marijuana is fast 
emerging, and the early results have fueled its increasing 
availability as a medicine. It's legit, promising stuff, and its 
potential uses, from treating migraines to cancer and Parkinson's, 
ought to outweigh the discomfort of anti-drug crusaders who at times 
seem to mostly be afraid that someone, somewhere will have too good a time.

Though the pro-cannabis forces seem to be prevailing in the slow push 
for full legalization, the culture clash of pro- and anti-cannabis 
contingents and the complications of legislation and law enforcement 
are creating a bewildering landscape for patients, growers, sellers, 
and even artists to navigate. It's clear that those complications 
have real, detrimental effects, even on people trying their best to 
do things within the law. Take medical marijuana patient Julianne 
Dandy, one of Amanda Drane's subjects in "The Promise of Pot" - Dandy 
uses it successfully for relief from chronic pain. Still, she says, 
"I don't know what's legal or not anymore." She's afraid to take her 
marijuana along on a trip to see family, uncertain what might happen 
during a layover in Texas.

Jim Robinson, owner of Jim Buddy's Vapeshop in Chicopee and also a 
subject in Drane's story, faced a high-stakes gamble in his role as 
"caregiver," someone who's allowed to grow cannabis to supply 
patients. In 2012, new laws allowed caregivers to grow for any number 
of patients. In 2013, the state said caregivers could only grow for 
themselves and one other person. Robinson and others had to decide 
whether to comply, and potentially never recoup large up-front investments.

In "Underground Glass," glassblower Chris Hubbard tells about his 
experiences as a medical marijuana patient and beginning pipemaker in 
Washington state. Law enforcement suspected that his amateur glass 
studio was a meth lab, and sent in a SWAT team. By the time the dust 
settled, Hubbard ended up with a conviction for displaying medical 
marijuana, and costs and fines of around $18,000.

At the Enthusiast smokeshop in Greenfield, manager Kaeli Wickline 
told reporter Hunter Styles (in the story "Cloud Control") that the 
store's pipes and other smoking equipment are supposed to be used 
with tobacco and other legal substances, including medical marijuana. 
"It's still a gray area for us, to be perfectly honest. We don't want 
to cross any lines."

Northampton medical marijuana consultant Ezra Parzybok employs a 
metaphor to explain why this confusion exists: "Say there's a loud 
frat house, and you're going to regulate it. So you put the lady next 
door who always complains about the noise in charge of regulating it. 
The Department of Public Health has been, for years, keeping 
[marijuana] out of people's hands. Now they're in charge of regulating it."

Bay State Repeal recently filed three versions of marijuana 
legalization law, hoping to get the question on the ballot in an 
upcoming election. What those proposed laws provide is exactly what 
the state (if not nation) needs: simplicity. Whether it's your thing 
or not, marijuana is emerging as a worthwhile substance. We owe those 
who embrace it - for any use - laws that leave no gray areas. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom