Anthropology

May… [their] pipe and pot always be within reach.

Interestingly, as this was about to go to print, I received an email from “Robin,” which said, “I may have some info about the DEA & IRS, who had a secret meeting in Chicago in regards to the info you had in your book… If you want to know more, you can call me…”… Moroccan gentlemen have traditionally kept their smoking herbs in a small ceramic containers. The wise old… [elders] of the village are commonly blessed with the saying, “May… [their] pipe and pot always be within reach.”

Well, I gave him a call, and this is what he had to say. He was a state licensed medical grower and had attended a family function. There he began chatting with an uncle who served in a three letter agency, and had just returned from a “secret” meeting in the Midwest. As the drinks flowed his uncle became more talkative. He said that in attendance were agents from IRS, DEA, FDA, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and other government officials, including the sitting Governor of Michigan.

They were gathering together to join forces in an attempt to control the medical marijuana business, and had a plan to accomplish that task within five to seven years. Michigan and Connecticut were to be test cases for their plan. Was this info valid? Who knows. In court it would be called hearsay.

I did look at the Michigan and Connecticut medical marijuana programs, and found that the Michigan governor had just recently, December 30, 2013, signed a medical marijuana bill, which for the first time created the legal classification: “pharmaceutical-grade cannabis,” which will be sold only through state licensed pharmacies. And, the “licensed facility shall irradiate all pharmaceutical-grade cannabis … before delivering that pharmaceutical-grade cannabis to another person.”

“It’s time to get out of the marijuana out of houses and put it somewhere else,” Michigan state senator, Rick Jones, said. “Let the pharmaceutical companies grow it and sell it in pharmacies.”

Patients and caregivers enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program, enacted by voters in 2008, would still be allowed to grow and possess medical marijuana under current state law. Those who want “pharmaceutical grade” medical marijuana would have to surrender their existing medical marijuana cards and could no longer grown their own.

Anyone wishing to manufacture, distribute, prescribe, or dispense marijuana would have to obtain a license from the Michigan Board of Pharmacy. In many 2012 the law signed by Connecticut’s Governor Dannel Malloy, requires a licensed pharmacist on site to dispense cannabis. And interestingly enough in both states, there has been much bureaucratic foot-dragging and political problems in establishing their quasi-legal medial marijuana dispensaries that still conflict with federal law. Plus there is the federal hindering of financial and other operational aspects of a now “legal” business. Stalling for time?

But isn’t the game over, with Colorado and Washington [and Oregon] legalizing recreational use of cannabis? Or could the federal government try to put the genie back in the bottle? Trumping people’s will and actions for freedom, in favor of overreaching governmental control and profit for commercial interests?

Original Book (The 15-Ounce Pound):
May his pot and pipe always be within reach
Artwork Fair Use:  H4m240m4r1

Anthropology

Hemp flowing…

Anthropology

There will be oil

Anthropology

Cannabis goes green