"We made an industry out of cigarettes, we made an industry out of alcohol and now we're creating an industry out of marijuana – frankly, it's surreal sometimes."

Says Mary Beth Susman, a member of Colorado's Amendment 64 Implementation Task Force, which is about to report on a plan to regulate marijuana in Colorado (which is part of the United States, which criminalizes the production, sale, and possession of marijuana).

On one hand, the task force has considered new rules for what Colorado should do when it inevitably becomes a center of "pot tourism," it has debated whether smokers can use their backyard patios to light up, and it has considered how to deal with "marijuana clubs" that will appear....

How it converts a massive black market into what experts call "problematic adult commerce" on the fringes of society – akin to gambling, drinking, and go-go clubs – all amid lingering legal concerns, could provide a framework for other states to follow....

"The Dutch experiment in legalised prostitution has been a disaster..."

What have we learned from this experiment — that can never work at all or that the Dutch did it wrong? 

The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honourable pimp, taking its share in the proceeds of prostitution through taxation. But only 5 per cent of the women registered for tax, because no one wants to be known as a whore — however legal it may be. Illegality has simply taken a new form, with an increase in trafficking, unlicensed brothels and pimping; with policing completely out of the picture, it was easier to break the laws that remained. To pimp out women from non-EU countries, desperate for a new life, remains illegal. But it’s never been easier.

Legalisation has imposed brothels on areas all over Holland, whether they want them or not. Even if a city or town opposes establishing a brothel, it must allow at least one — not doing so is contrary to the basic federal right to work. To many Dutch, legality and decency have been irreconcilably divorced. It has been a social, legal and economic failure — and the madness, finally, is coming to an end.

The brothel boom is over. A third of Amsterdam’s bordellos have been closed due to the involvement of organised criminals and drug dealers and the increase in trafficking of women. Police now acknowledge that the red-light district has mutated into a global hub for human trafficking and money laundering. The streets have been infiltrated by grooming gangs seeking out young, vulnerable girls and marketing them to men as virgins who will do whatever they are told. Many of those involved in Amsterdam’s regular tourist trade — the museums and canals — fear that their visitors are vanishing along with the city’s reputation.

That reminds me: How's the marijuana legalization experiment going? Because that's the Dutch experiment that's catching on in the U.S. It's appealing to think that if we legalize something, we can regulate it and tax it, and the bad people will withdraw and cede the commerce to upstanding entrepreneurs who will abide by the regulations and pay their taxes punctiliously.

I got to that article via David Frum, who quotes Friedrich Hayek: "To say we cannot turn back the clock is to say that human beings cannot learn from experience."

"So far, few traditional farmers lining up to grow marijuana in Washington state, Colorado."

WaPo reports:

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law....

The Justice Department has not said whether it will try to block the two states from implementing their new laws, passed late last year.....

In addition, marijuana is a crop that can’t be insured, and federal drug law bars banks from knowingly serving the industry....

Both states are in the process of developing rules for a legal marijuana industry....

How can state rules possibly make the industry legal? They can only make chaos that might conceivably move Congress to change the federal law. I don't see that coming any time soon. The Justice Department might say something encouraging, but will the next President's Justice Department stick with whatever position Eric Holder embraces?

Even if you felt sure you wouldn't be prosecuted, would you want to sign up on an official list as someone who is conspicuously committing an ongoing felony? Would you switch from a legal crop and expose yourself like that? And even if some farmers would go ahead and violate the criminal law — presumably because the upside profits are high — does the inability to buy crop insurance and use banks wreck the whole idea?

Dozens of marijuana experts, who have been growing plants for medical use or in secret for illegal use, are educating state officials about the potential for the crop. Probably 95 percent of those people choose to grow their plants indoors, despite higher costs, to control light and temperature, improve quality and increase yields....

Indoor crops generally allow for up to three harvests per season, compared to just one harvest for an outdoor crop, and allow for easier security measures. 

So "traditional farmers" have an entirely separate reason for not responding to the new program. You can't be growing marijuana amber-waves-of-grain-on-the-fruited-plain style. This stuff will be grown in big warehouses, pulling in loads of electricity for intense lighting and heavily guarded with guns! guns! guns!

Oh, but here's a little old lady, "Gail Besemer, who grows flowers and vegetables near Deming, Wash., [who] has expressed interest in a producers’ license."

Besemer already has three hoop houses, which are essentially temporary greenhouses, but could see expanding her business slightly to grow marijuana for a local clientele in northwest Washington.

Slightly! Flowers! Grandma!

However, “I’m concerned about druggies invading my property — ne’er-do-wells invading my property to steal, to get free dope,” she said. “Security would be an issue.”

Where do you get off with that contempt for the consumers of the product you want to grow? Seems to me, these are your people. Don't insult them.

“My family is not particularly excited about me being interested in this. But if someone has an integrated farm, growing a number of different crops, I would think it would be a high profit plant,” she said. “Taxation and security might get in the way of profits, and it might end not being so profitable.”

Yeah, you'd better think about it, lady. There's a reason it's a high profit plant. If it weren't for all these problems, any idiot could grow his own in his house. Take away the obstacles, and it's not a business at all. Which removes half of the attraction for the government, since there won't be anything to tax if there isn't a big rules-heavy structure burdening business. This isn't a game for the little old lady with her flowers and hoop houses. But that's the screwy, sentimental anecdote The Washington Post ties to plant in our brain.

Aggressive prosecution #1: California businessman commercially growing medical marijuana.

Adam Nagourney, in the NYT, gives very sympathetic treatment to Matthew R. Davies — "a round-faced 34-year-old father of two young girls" with "graduate-level business skills" who "paid California sales tax and filed for state and local business permits" and got the advice of many lawyers as he set up an enterprise that plainly and overtly is a felony under federal law. Davies told the NYT:

“We thought, this is an industry in its infancy, it’s a heavy cash business, it’s basically being used by people who use it to cloak illegal activity. Nobody was doing it the right way. We thought we could make a model of how this should be done.”

Cloak illegal activity? It is illegal activity. Federal law is real. Haven't you heard?!

The right way? Cloaking is the right way when you're committing crimes. With your business education, somehow you were all: Hey, what a smart idea I have — being completely out in the open about breaking the law. Why hasn't anybody else thought of this?

And I love the way the NYT suddenly has a pro-business orientation. Davies deserves special grace under the law because he's using the structure of business and because he's excited about making big profits! Compare that to all the articles anguishing over Citizens United and how terrible it is to respect free speech rights when the speech comes from a place that is structured as a business.

“Mr. Davies was not a seriously ill user of marijuana nor was he a medical caregiver — he was the major player in a very significant commercial operation that sought to make large profits from the cultivation and sale of marijuana,” [said a letter from United States attorney for the Eastern District of California, Benjamin B. Wagner, a 2009 Obama appointee.] Mr. Wagner said that prosecuting such people “remains a core priority of the department.”...

“It’s mind-boggling that there were hundreds of attorneys advising their clients that it was O.K. to do this, only to be bushwhacked by a federal system that most people in California are not even paying attention to,” said William J. Portanova, a former federal drug prosecutor and a lawyer for one of Mr. Davies’s co-defendants. “It’s tragic.”

Yes, and it is mind-boggling that those who argue for the broad interpretation of federal power and who scoff at the idea of the 10th Amendment and reserving powers to the state somehow can't grasp the meaning of their general propositions when they encounter an issue where they prefer the state policy to the federal policy. The NYT and other drivers of elite opinion ought to have to face up to the reality of what their legal propositions entail.

And quite aside from the problem of the allocation of power at the federal and the state levels, how about some consistency about equal justice under the law? Let the law — as written — apply the same way to everyone, whether they have a round face and 2 young daughters or not, whether they've gone to grad school or not, whether they have big visions of massive profits or they are living hand to mouth. If the law is wrong, change the law — for everybody. Don't cry over the people you think are nice — like David Gregory and Aaron Swartz. Nonphotogenic and low-class people deserve equal treatment, and cutting breaks for the ones who pull your heart strings is not justice.

"Alligator found guarding 34 pounds of pot in a Northern California home."

"[Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. ] Nelson said [Assif ] Mayar apparently acquired the alligator, named 'Mr. Teeth,' in 1996 to commemorate the death of rapper Tupac Shakur."

It all makes sense. If you had an alligator, you'd name it Mr. Teeth. If you had a big supply of marijuana and an alligator, you'd use the alligator to guard the marijuana. If you wanted to "commemorate the death" of Tupac Shakur, you'd acquire an alligator. I don't even know why banalities of this kind make it into the newspaper. You might say, well, maybe they had an exciting picture they wanted to scare us with. Actually, they have 2 pictures. I especially liked this one:

"Cannabis makes pain more bearable rather than actually reducing it..."

"Using brain imaging, researchers found that the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis reduced activity in a part of the brain linked to emotional aspects of pain."

Jimmy Carter thinks "it's okay" to legalize marijuana.

Well, then!

He took the federalism angle: "That’s the way our country has developed over the last 200 years. It’s about a few states being kind of experiment states. So on that basis I am in favor of it.”

... I think we can watch and see what happens in the state of Washington, for instance around Seattle, and let the American government and let the American people see does it cause a serious problem or not.

"Two students from the University of Colorado Boulder were arrested after they gave marijuana-laced brownies to their professor and unsuspecting classmates Friday."

It was "bring food to class" day. Perhaps they thought it was amusing, considering that "legalization" they have in Colorado now.

[21-year-old Thomas Ricardo Cunningham and 19-year-old Mary Elizabeth] face felony charges including inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means, and second degree assault.

"The Drug War is about control."

"Obama likes control."

And here's the NYT reporting on the way the Obama administration is supposedly mulling over what to do about Colorado and Washington.

Some law enforcement officials, alarmed at the prospect that marijuana users in both states could get used to flouting federal law openly, are said to be pushing for a stern response. But such a response would raise political complications for President Obama because marijuana legalization is popular among liberal Democrats who just turned out to re-elect him.

It's all about Obama!

(Why didn't I have a tag "Obama and drugs" before? All that "choom" stuff and so on....)

ADDED: Meade riffs on Obama and hope and segues into "pocketful of hope... money for dope... money for rope..." and I find the old John Lennon song in my iTunes:

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope 

That makes me think about and "10 For 2: John Sinclair Freedom Rally" which took place in Ann Arbor in 1971 — where I was in town, listening to the live feed on the radio — and John Lennon himself showed up and that "inspired the creation of Ann Arbor’s annual pro-legalization Hash Bash rally, which continues to be held as of 2012."

40 years ago. Obama was 10. It was the year Obama returned from Indonesia to Honolulu to live with his grandparents and go to prep school. As David Maraniss tells it:

A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. 180 Choom is a verb, meaning “to smoke marijuana.” As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.” To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled. When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning “numbing tobacco”) instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,” explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.

Obama likes control!

"Does this mean you should flagrantly roll up a mega-spliff and light up in the middle of the street?"

"No."

If you’re smoking pot in public, officers will be giving helpful reminders to folks about the rules and regulations under I-502 (like not smoking pot in public). But the police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to.

That's the Seattle Police Department, writing that, by the way. Don't you like police department humor?

AND: "I'm not sure where you're suppose to get it," King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg told CNN. "If you stumble across some on the street or it falls from the sky, then you can have it. Otherwise, you are part of a criminal chain of distribution."

The Washington State Liquor Control Board has until December 1, 2013, to establish clear guidelines for the regulation of marijuana sale and distribution. Until then, obtaining marijuana by any means remains illegal.

Also, marijuana possession is still illegal under federal law, but the government hasn't said what it intends to do about Initiative 502. The U.S. attorney's office released a statement yesterday reaffirming its position on the illegality of any action involving marijuana, stressing that federal properties such as military bases and national parks remain off-limits to Washington tokers.

The line between the risk-taking transgressors and timid rule-followers remains, even today. As I said, that's not fair. 

"We're all adults here, it's time we take our freedom back."

Fabulous slogan from ad — viewable at the link — for blu eCigs.

Most living Americans had never before seen a cigarette advertised on television - they were banned in 1971.

But the electronic cigarettes fall outside that law, since they contain no tobacco. That is just one way they fall into what one anti-smoking campaigner calls a regulatory "no man's land."...

Unless they make a therapeutic claim, for example that they can help people quit smoking, they fall in the cracks between federal tobacco regulations and rules covering drug devices like insulin pumps...

In the new commercial, Lorillard appears to have reached into the bag of advertising tricks that got previous generations of Americans hooked on cigarettes, tobacco industry critics say.

"It feels like what they're trying to do is re-establish a norm that smoking is okay, that smoking is glamorous and acceptable," says Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights.

Step back, nanny.

I'm waiting for the day when there will be legal THC-delivering eCigs. And here I am smoking a blu eCig. I've never been a tobacco smoker. So I think these things might be nice for people who want to play-smoke and have a bit of nicotine — which is a stimulant and a relaxant.

Nicotine appears to enhance concentration and memory... It also appears to enhance alertness.... Arousal is increased...  Pain is reduced... Anxiety is reduced...

Research suggests that, when smokers wish to achieve a stimulating effect, they take short quick puffs, which produce a low level of blood nicotine. This stimulates nerve transmission. When they wish to relax, they take deep puffs, which produce a high level of blood nicotine, which depresses the passage of nerve impulses, producing a mild sedative effect.

Anyway, watch the ad at the first link. When I showed it to Meade — who, like me, loved the "take our freedom back" slogan — he said that was the key to understanding the famous "smoking guy" ad for Herman Cain.

"Why did America change its mind about legal marijuana?"

Asks the Christian Science Monitor, reacting to the Quinnipiac Poll — which we were talking about yesterday. Our discussion focused on the gender difference, which the CSM doesn't mention. It just says 51% of Americans support legalization, when in fact, as I highlighted "Men support legalization by a much wider margin, 59-36%, and women oppose it, 52-44%." You can get some different insights into why "America change[d] its mind" if you know the gender profile of that "mind."

But the CSM, gender-blind, speculates thusly:

The dramatic change in public opinion, experts say, has been driven by pop culture and generational shifts, and also a simple reality. While pot is illegal, it is common at parties and concerts....

"With the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes legal in about 20 states, and Washington and Colorado voting this November to legalize the drug for recreational use, American voters seem to have a more favorable opinion about this once-dreaded drug," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, told CBS News. "There are large differences on this question among the American people."

Though boosted by successes in Colorado and Washington, pro-marijuana advocates say their toughest challenge is convincing Congress and President Obama to declassify pot as a Schedule 1 drug – or at least to ensure that Congress doesn't interfere with state experimentation on marijuana taxation. After all, Mr. Obama allowed his Justice Department to begin a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries despite a campaign promise to not do so....

There's one more step needed in this analysis, and it's why I changed my mind. There's too much legal disorder, and it can only be decently cured by changing the federal law. Years ago, the states all agreed with the federal government's ban and helped out with the enforcement. But the states had the power to go their own way, and now that some have, there's a huge enforcement gap, which makes at least some people in those states feel that marijuana is legal. This is confusing to the point of unfairness.

I don't like the federal government lurking in the background and sending mixed signals about whether it will or will not enforce. Those who aren't too risk averse or who are not big rule-followers get to use a product that more timorous or punctilious individuals feel they're not allowed to use. And the medical marijuana approach makes it even worse, creating absurd temptations to lie and dissemble and even fantasize about ailments and the curative effect of the drug.

It's a mess that can only cleaned up by legalizing the drug at the federal level and letting the states take over the lawmaking and law enforcement.

Quinnipiac poll: Americans favor legalization of marijuana, 54-44%.

Men support legalization by a much wider margin, 59-36%, and women oppose it, 52-44%.

Care to speculate on what that gender difference is about?

ADDED: Instapundit: "Is it just that men are more libertarian, and women more controlling?"

AND: Why I changed my mind.

"Marijuana... is still illegal under federal law. State officials say the Justice Department is creating confusion..."

"... by remaining silent about what steps it may take in Washington and Colorado, which passed initiatives in November legalizing the manufacturing, distribution and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana."

After his state approved the initiative, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) called Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and wrote him a letter asking for guidance about how the federal government will react to the state’s new law.

“We need to know whether the federal government will take legal action to block the implementation of Amendment 64, or whether it will seek to prosecute grow and retail operations,” Hickenlooper wrote. He also asked Holder if Justice will prosecute Colorado state employees who regulate and oversee the growing and distribution of marijuana.

What a mess!

"The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Humboldt State University plans to sponsor scholarly lectures..."

"... and coordinate research among 11 faculty members from fields such as economics, geography, politics, psychology and sociology."

Is this bad?
	No. It's the likely/possible future. Get ready. Lots of economic prospects here.
	Yes. Until the feds end restrictions, decent institutions should treat it as off limits.
	Not sure. An institution takes a risk branding itself this way.
pollcode.com free polls

"Now that legal pot is here, will cigarette companies dust off their old plans for mass commercialization?"

NPR explores the coming of legal marijuana:

In the '70s... "there were high-level conversations about adding marijuana to tobacco, creating a line of marijuana cigarettes, and being ready to jump in and market this."

As recently as 1993, when it looked like France was poised to legalize marijuana, Philip Morris trademarked the name "Marley." But when the estate of Bob Marley complained, the company claimed it had nothing to do with the reggae singer.

"Philip Morris said, 'No no, it could be any kind of Marley,... like Jacob Marley, the cheap, cantankerous teetotaler from A Christmas Carol.'"...

Want legal marijuana? Write to the President:

"[T]he hypocrisy of pillorying a guy for using his employer’s equipment to grow marijuana..."

"... while his employer offers training in how to create a pair of substances — including one with its own mind-altering properties — that together probably do more damage to the state’s health and well-being than marijuana ever could."

Wisconsin State Journal columnist purports to detect "hypocrisy" after a University of Wisconsin researcher is arrested for growing marijuana in his university lab, when the university teaches beer brewery and has a big ice cream making plant.

Fat-choked dairy products in general are a focus of much study at the university, which regularly provides technical assistance to Dairy State dairy producers.

Given its status as the drunken-driving capital of the United States, and federal statistics that put its obesity rate of 27.7 percent, Wisconsin’s love affair with beer and ice cream might be far bigger threats than a couple joints.

Care to think about the Wisconsin economy without beer and dairy products? And the notion that more marijuana would help us out of our obesity... I'm having trouble with that line of reasoning. Wouldn't you keep eating or eat even more? Seems like your argument demands a focus on the drugs that make you skinny....

What drugs make those skinny rocks stars dreadfully skinny?...  I've always assumed that the drugs make them forget to eat, or maybe they can't afford food or the drug drives down appetite. What drugs do this?...  I want to add some authentic detail into a play I'm involved with....

The classic rock hard drug is heroin, which would definitely cause that gaunt look, and coke would be the 2nd choice. I would research those drugs...

Google "coke bloat". Makes you skinny, except in the face and tummy....

Heroin. If you're talking about the standard Janis-Joplin-oh-my-god-she-looks-like-a-skeleton-but-damn-she's-still-kinda-hot thing, it's heroin. If you're going for the where-are-her-teeth-and-what's-that-purple-thing-on-her-lip thing, methamphetamine.

So, there you have it. What you want is: heroin. Bonus: You'll be growing a very pretty flower!



Okay, all you nonhypocritical University of Wisconsinites: Cultivate your gardens!

The economics of legal(ish) marijuana in Colorado and Washington.

It won't be cheap for users. And it will be hard for the producers — or the states (with their taxes and fees) — to make money.

"Why are Mexican troops up in the mountains of Sinaloa and Guerrero and Durango looking for marijuana..."

"... and why are we searching for tunnels, patrolling the borders, when once this product reaches Colorado it becomes legal?"

Understanding social media: the cop's "Cough."

In response to the Reddit query: "Where/how could an aspiring pot smoker such as myself buy weed on campus/near campus? I want to try it but have no idea how to get started at UVic, despite its apparent widespread use. Thanks!"

Via Metafilter (where the commenters seem to have a little trouble understanding what the cop was doing).