@[email protected] ,

Over the next few days, I may have to edit for clarification and erratas, but here you go. **I do not concur with you, and here's why!"

California Decriminalized marijuana when Gerald Ford was still President*. I was in high school when it went into effect and the penalty for less than 28.34g (1 Oz) was $136.00 (first offense, penalty went up steep from there, but even then, still just a fine for the misdemeanor that stays on your record forever*, and the arrest consisted of being merely cited with a regular old traffic ticket, where you promise to appear in court by signing the ticket. State and local law enforcement would of course, remove the dope from your possession as.... ahem... ahem.... evidence, lolz.

Maybe I need to stop here, and relate that even most traffic tickets in California are, arrests. Here's how it works :)

• You get pulled over for something stupid, usually legit - you fucked up. The motorcycle cop (in those days, a Harley (yoz... w00t), and in the 80's mostly Kawi's (Kawasaki's). He's all jackbooted out like a pro, it's awesome, but in your Brezhnev indoctrinated mind (iow, in all of my contemporary's, minds), a very scary encounter, even though, as I can swear, Motorcycle cops were the least likely to incareratge anyone, generally going so far as to coach you on staying the fuck out of trouble.

Anway, if it's not just a warning (you're scared shitless regardless, coz in your mind, cops can (and in truth actually did) act upon you just like Eric Honeker's Stazi routinely did, and take you to the hineyhole hotel, or worse, leaving you grovelling, barfing blood curbside, assuring themselves that you had been sufficiently edjumacated.

I know that all of the GenZ pussies out there trigger on this, but you know what? having been on the receiving end of corporal police punishment several times, I can say without reservation that on the morrow, it was much better being beaten and battered than having to call mom and dad from jail coz you were doing stupid teenager shit.... As no teenager throughout history, since our ancestors were baboons.

You learn real fricken' quick. Bottom line - you don't go to jail (minors and adults - your potential for a career, or your current career, are not jeopardized). Beside the point though, right? Let's continue withe what the penalties are for your eggregious transgressions against humanity, shall we?

So... you got pulled over, your busted bitch! what does having weed look like in the late 70's?

For anything greater than an ounce in quantity, or if you were a minor - it was still a felony.

The date you mention in your post allowed for medical marijuana, and possessing the Schedule 1 drug required the proverbial "card and letter" (Doctors recommendations, not litterally a prescription) to get a pass from state and municipal law enforcement. Again... Minor? Felony. Adult w/o the recommendation? Misdemeanor for less than an Oz, and a felony if greater than that with a trip to the hineyhole hotel with a set of matching bracelets. You were also expected to talk the talk - "It's your Medicine", etc., and although everyone knew it was utter nonsense, speaking dope speak satisfied the cops and you could be on your way if you weren't driving while impaired (which is ALWAYS a DUI).

Depending upon the municipality (generally county by county), you were expected to keep your dope... er... medicine, inside the labelled container that the medical marijuana dispensary issued it in when you purchased it.

Although it's completely decriminalized, or legal, as you prefer to say, marijuana is still a felony to posess in California, depending on the quantity, i.e., an obscene amount (more than a reasonable person would consider personal use) - but you can litterally drive around with a trunkload nowadays in places like Humboldt County and law enforcement doesn't even care - a box, (100lbs) or more though? Well, that's a different story and comes under provisions designed for people with compliant and permitted grows.

And there's the fricken' rub. Marijauna is NOT legal in California - it is REGULATED!* Consider that you don't pay tax on water, brocolli, candy bars, or yummy dead cow; because it's food. The same thing goes for Cinnamon, Rosemary, Thyme, and Oregano too. Why would you pay a sales tax on Marijuana then? It's a food, just the same as everything I've just mentioned - especially the herbs. You can cook with it, sprinkle on your Rice Crispys, etc. Unless you are purchasing pre-rolled joints, there's no expectation necessarily that it isn't going to be used instead of poppy seeds when you bake your bread. But taxed it is. It's regulated, taxed, and most insidiously, it's a revenue stream for a State Government that can't even remain solvent or balance own budget (but I digress).

If you test dirty for weed in a urinalysis, different things can happen - Are you a union employee? ILWU? Teamsters, an electrician? You are subject to sanctions, which can include being suspended or losing your job - These are federal entities, and you may know someone who almost lost their livelyhood (like my ex-girlfriend, who is a union electrician that installs HVAC systems on roofs). If you work for a municipality, like, city hall, say... as a trash truck driver - in my hometown? You'll lose your job. Still, to this day.

If you somehow find yourself in a position where you cross dicks with federal law enforcement while you have a couple of joints in your top pocket... Dude! That's a fricken' felony - even though they prolly won't put you in a federal detention facility and charge you with posession of a schedule 1 drug.

Don't want to believe that? Well, I was actually there when it happened to me - it's called ZT Seizure The Coast Guard Stole my home. No food, shelter, or clothes for myself, girlfriend, or little baby - not even diapers!

I'm going to mention that, for my entire life, I only ever voted one time in favor of an initiative to legalize marijauna (because it was never legalization). And it's most certainly not the proposition that everyone nowadyas turns to in claiming that dope is legal in California now - coz it ain't. It's actually the one before that, when Obama was President, and it was going to pass, that did more for what common sense folks were after, and in all the years since NORML and other California initiatives have been battling to legalize weed the one during the mid-terms back then was the only one that promised to actually make marijuana legal.

Let's say that again - Make marijuana legal. Make WEED legal. Because it's a fricken' weed, it grows on the side of the freeway, like other weeds, it's an herb, it grows wild as a weed species just like Rosemary and Oregano - or in your garage under lights.

So why did the Obama era California proposition (Prop 19) fail, notwithstanding the fact that the Obama administration's US Atty General stated that if we did pass it, the federal government would come down on us like a hammer and crush every aspect of regulation and legalization "with the full force and effect of the federal government" (paraphrased).

Here's the timeline....

1973 - Oregon, and not California, was the very first to so-call legalize marijuana. Even Colorado followed suit long before California got around to it.

1973 - March. Berkeley Marijuana Initiative I defunds and prohibits cops from prosecuting stoners w/o the express permission of the City Council. Oakland followed suit about two years ago by defunding their police department from investigative actions with respect to psychedelic mushrooms. I heard the've basically done the same thing in Arcata a few months back, maybe including Eureka too, but moving along....

1976 - The Moscone Act, which I spoke of at the beginning of this article. If you were a kid like me, and the cops caught you with a two fingers dime bag of weed, it was almost like the flip of a coin; sometimes they would take you to jail on a felony, and sometimes they would make you pour your own bag out onto the asphalt and grind it into dust with your feet, making fun of you as you cried.

1996 - Proposition 215 creates the medical marijuana industry. When my brother started complaining one day that he needed his medicine, I snapped at him, admonishing him for being a fucking hypocrit - "Don't call it medicine bro, it's dope! You know it, and I know it. I got you stoned your very first time back in 7th grade and you got a medical marijuana card so you can get high! You're not sick, and it isn't medicine for you. If you need to speak in those terms when a cop stops you, kewl, but don't bullshit me. You're a stoner. Fess up and be truthful around me coz you calling it medicine is a lie - you don't have glaucoma, your're not on chemo, etc."

2005 - Oakland follows suit in municipal defunding/deprioritization, taking a belated queue from their neighbor, Berkely.

2009 - In a grand act of Federalism (as it should be) the US DoJ wants to defer to the states to determine their own destiny with respect to prosecuting marijuana stuffs. Obama himself shoots that down (some friend, huh?) and directs the Attorney General to take a hardline on the evil weed.

2010 - The Governator signs SB 1449 - honestly? I don't think this did squat beyond what the Moscone Act did in 1973, but okay, two decrims are better than one, right?

Also in this year, Prop 19 goes down in flames, partly coz Arnold signed SB 1449, and scary language coming from Obama's Atty General pushed the initiative into the trash can. But Prop 19 only provided for the regulation and taxation of recreational weed.... moving forward...

Okay, I gotta take a second here to convey that IANAL, and previous laws plus another milestone initiative to come conflict, or at least to me, leave things in a somewhat ambiguous state. I'll get to that when we get there, but in the meantime, I just need to say that, as a layperson who's read through most all of this at one time or another over the years, I'm not really sure how SB 1449 changes anything much, if at all, beyond what the liberties of The Moscone Act in 1976 bestowed upon us. :/

Train kept a rollin'.... (Tyler, Perry)

2011 - Dunno what happened but at the federal level, Obama must have seen the light. The DoJ decides to defer to states and not prosecute when holders and sellers are in compliance with state medical marijuana laws (Farms, distrubutors, dispensaries, and consumers,). California state still only has medical marijuana. Right after this however, California comes down with their own banhammer, jailing landlords who unknowingly rent to anyone growing buds in their home, farmers, and other growers. It's not quite as ridiculous, nor quite as horrifically terrifying, as it was pre-ford w/Reagan's xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Soon thereafter, Mendocino breaks out and comes down with its own banhammer. High Times posterchild Eddie Lepp is busted not once, not twice, but three times during this sand-shifting era, for growing fields that are 60,000 plants strong right alongside a California state highway ( inf full view of All* passersby. Woody Harrelson foots the bill, in part or in whole, for the first couple of rounds, but ultimately, Eddie receives life in Federal prison, later commuted to 10 years, which he serves (I'm a little off on the timeline, but wtf?). My Brother (who I got stoned for his first time while ditching school together in 7th grade) worked on Eddie's farms as a confidant and manager of field hands and trimmigrants for many years, BTW.

2016 - Two time California Governor Jerry Brown annoints a "Pot Czar" to set tarrifs for an upcoming explosion of industry... created by Prop 64, which creates the regulatory environment for marijuana growers; farmers are certified, inspected, and grow in compliance. You don't even realize that the marijauna culture that draws field hands and trimmigrants from all parts of the globe are employed, living in tents in the mountains and lovingly raising the buds you used to smoke But these salt of the earth families that survived the Reagan, Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama years are now also being raped by counties and state government with incredible tariffs for the first few years.

Nursery's close, properties are foreclosed upon, caravans of humvees towing wood chippers wind throught the mountains of Humboldt in processions including Cal Fire, Fish & Game, Feds, and Guardsmen representatives of the U.S. Army's 40th Infantry Division, mow through, slashing and burning and turning product into pulp. County code enforcement offices in all local municipalities weaponize the use of Abatements ($10,000 per violation, per day- no one can freaking afford that) and uses their authority to bring local law enforcement to arrest growers. An abatement could mean growing tomatoes too close to a blue line, or an empty greenhouse that is covered (but unused) - you have to prove yourself innocent. That's right, it's illegal, but you have to challenge the counties in court, and then ulitmately be heard by some appelate or state or US Circuit Supreme Court.

Innocent homesteader families, that had never ever ever grown buds lost their entire lives as a result of those abatements. I'm sure that you can appreciate that off-grid families that had settled in the wilderness of Humboldt and Trinity Counties, as subsistance farmers, raising goats, sheep, and a small amount of cattle for a living that they would sell to their neighboring homesteaders, who would consume and then sell back to those good people, cords or wood that they had bucked up over the previous year. A lot of people like to pontificate about right and wrong, and how economies can be better in their little marxist fantasies, but they're so totally kewl with crushing mom & pop agrarian, subsistance homesteaders that they pretend to champion. Fucking hipocryts? or apathetic consumers in large, air conditioned, metropolitan areas wielding their votes against that which they claim to champion?

Look! If you're a homesteader, with a spouse and a couple of kids, living in the mountains, raising lambs to make a living, depending on the vegetables you grow and the cow you bought last year for your meat, income, and sustinance (and this is waaaaay more prevalant that some city slicker bitch can comprehend), just one day, of one cited violation, in an abatement letter.... literally ends your fucking existence.

And that's what has actually happened... while you jot on over to your local dispensary with the large-breasted honey showing only a little more than her breasts to you while you select from her wares at your friendly neighborhood dispensary.

Next? What happens? Well, what happened was that the weed industry dies, which it in fact did, but you had no idea whatsover - you now buy the majority of your dope from Walmart, Coca Cola, and Cox Cable companies (do you even realize this?), the distribution channel of which runs from Salinas and the lower San Joachin Valley areas like Buttonwillow to the dispensaries originating from industrial, computer controlled mega parks built inside concrete tilt-up concrete walls for the warehouses and shipping terminals that put your fucking dope on the shelves of your friendly neighborhood dispensary.

Before I finish, I want to state again that weed is a weed. It grows along the side of the freeway, in your backyards, and it's free to pick, smoke, and cook with. If you voted for Proposition 64, or worse... you didn't fucking vote at all, then this state you are living in is by virtue of your own doing.

I promised to circle back around to adress he future (now past) of what originally Nixon's drug war evolved into (CAMP, under Reagan, for example). I you actually take time to read the legislation that I've cited so far, you'll come to the unequvical conclusion that it's still a mess, not just an economic or criminal nightmare (try making Whiskey in large quantities - you'll go to federal prison coz the Jim Beam and Jack Daniels companies don't want you to compete with them. Proposition 64 legalizes the possesions for citizens over the age of 21... HUH?. That's right. And once again, IANAL, but... it may be, that if your a 19 year old, well, is it a felony to possess a couple of joints? I dunno, but Prop 64 offers no protections on its own from prosecution of having weed in your pocket, as a felony, on its own... I'm all ears, if you're fresh out of high school and of the age of consent, are you protected under the Moscone Act or SB 1449? I dunno. I thoght I'd just throw that out there, no matter that in reality, you're not gonna be prosecuted for smoking dope with your eighteen year old girlfriend in her car, but she's nevertheless going to jail for a DUI.

I truly wonder, when many folks soundboarding like you just were, if they truly understand from a ground zero PoV, what Campaign Against Marijuana Production was all about, with its jackbooted Nazi's jumping from helicopters and yes, litterally disappearing hippies to turn them into informants, while incarcerating families of homesteaders who may have been growing a mere twenty or thirty plants back in the day, litterally hoisted up into huge douglass fir trees with ropes and pullies, lowered each day to be watered, with that sustinance carried on the backs of the husbands, wives, and children living in those mountains of Humboldt? When those helicopters suddenly descended from nowhere upon these families of hill people the fear of God sent them tumbling down canyon cliffs in attempts to dissapear rather than be aprehended by virtual paratroopers rapelling from those choppers.

Around that same time, the Virginia Slims brand of cigarettes had a successful multi-million dollar marketing campaign targetted at metropolitan women entitled, "Hang in there - You've come a long way Baby".

Fast foward back to NOW - today: My brother, in all of his simplistic, singleminded selfishness, thinks that "Iss awl gud". He can go down to the local veteran owned dispensary in Murietta California and buy a bag of weed for a not too bad price anytime he wants, pay the sales tax, and be stoned again within the hour at the helm of his fricken' gamboy/plarystation/wii/nintendo/xbox (whatev it is, I'm not a gamer so I dunno). And that's fucking liberty to him, with his WWF wrestling cable TV shows, and Supermarket purchased homecooked meals that his wife is so famous for. I cringe.

To this day, when you drive up & down say, highway 299 or 36 in Humboldt, there are Dept of Fish & Game CheckPoints searching for the spoils of poachers (i.e., deer)... I and everybody else in Humboldt County calls Bullshit. It's all a clever facade to search any closed are of vehicles on the road for marijuana. "And that's the truth. Pfffph!" (in the words of Lily Tomlin, whilst rocking in a gigantic rocking chair in a onesie; and sucking on her thumb, with her legs dangling about, several feet above the ground).

In closing, and as the Universal Studios gate guard so famously said in the film, "Joe Dirt"...

"Don't church it up son! It's Dirt! Not Deertay."

Nah mon.... @[email protected] , no offense, but I don't think I see things in the same way that you do at all.

#tallship #cannabis #despotism #taxation #tarrifs #you_fucking_fools_what_have_you_done?

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