I was gonna write my column, but then I got high: The Cannabis Thread

Mark it down as yet another Merrick Garland half-measure. Still, it's a start.

 

It quite literally is the most he can do.

The Single Convention created four Schedules of controlled substances and a process for adding new substances to the Schedules without amending the treaty. The Schedules were designed to have significantly stricter regulations than the two drug "Groups" established by predecessor treaties. For the first time, cannabis was added to the list of internationally controlled drugs. In fact, regulations on the cannabis plant – as well as the opium poppy, the coca bush, poppy straw and cannabis tops – were embedded in the text of the treaty, making it impossible to deregulate them through the normal Scheduling process. A 1962 issue of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs' Bulletin on Narcotics proudly announced that "after a definite transitional period, all non-medical use of narcotic drugs, such as opium smoking, opium eating, consumption of cannabis (hashish, marijuana) and chewing of coca leaves, will be outlawed everywhere. This is a goal which workers in international narcotics control all over the world have striven to achieve for half a century."​

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs | Wikipedia

 

It is the proper thing to do, but they’re crazy if they think this will help come November.

 

Even federal legalization, which is long overdue, wouldn't do much. It's not like Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma and the like would change anything. Hell, prohibition only ended in Mississippi in 1966...

 

If you're worried about Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma, then bless your heart.

Texas on the other hand ....

And truth be told, Okies might have enough of a residual libertarian bent left after Stinky that they might go for it.

 

yadda yadda yadda

Ibid.

 

Tokelahoma is not like the others here.

 

Federal legalization is a big deal for costs. Not only will it allow for access to banking, it can be sold wherever, taxes probably will come down, which will hopefully end the illegal trade that still exists in states where it is legal.

 

Also, you'll be able to travel with it now, I presume. No more worrying about whether it's legal or not in whatever state you're going to.

 

I haven't been to Oklahoma, but I've smoked more ganja in Mississippi than any other state I've called home.

 

So a neighbor down the street has a buddy who grows his own. Hooked me up with two ounces, which, to a kid who went to college in the late 90s and seldom purchased my own prior to legalization, feels like I have an enormous quantity of ganja. Some really good strains, too.