Comparing pot use to something else that’s none of the government’s business.
Before I launch into this analogy, I would like to say that I understand how many will find it inappropriate, and that I came up with the notion while stoned out of my mind.
I’m starting to think about cannabis as having a similar journey and backstory to Olympic gold medalist and transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner. Until recently, like Jenner, trailblazers on the weed front have organized in secret closets and basements, hoping one day to live safely, truthfully, and freely in the great wide open. And, like Jenner, marijuana—aka Mary Jane—has been an accomplished, harmless, and friendly sexpot all along . . . but has recently undergone a full makeover and is beginning to dress things up with PR campaigns, professional packaging, couture oils, and all-important accessories.
Let’s start with the name. Bruce took the name Caitlyn (notice her refusal to use the letter K—as in Kris, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall, and Kimye) to reflect her change (and independence). Marijuana, on the other hand, has reverted back to cannabis, after being identified first as marihuana, then bad-mouthed with slurs such as loco weed, grass, pot, killer bud, the Devil’s weed, dope, schwagg, even shit (as in “THE shit”). Antidrug propaganda created “marihuana” in the 1930s—a sad attempt to scare the public with a “new” and terrifying substance (used by jazz musicians!), even though the plant had been sold in pharmacies for over a half-century in America. Marihuana sounded “foreign” (read: Hispanic), and Reefer Madness was used to incite fear, round up immigrants (especially during the Great Depression), and scare the masses to outlaw it. (By 1931, cannabis was illegal in 29 states, and in 1937 it was criminalized through the Marijuana Tax Act.)
The legal documents for the new Ms. Jenner’s identity will be challenging. It can take months for name- and gender-change applications to be approved (what I wouldn’t give to be in the DMV line that day), and these ID docs—often requiring background checks—affect everything from bank accounts to Social Security cards, to say nothing of her Twitter handle. Similarly, those in the cannabis community have had challenges of their own: States requiring medical-marijuana patients to sign a registry (including Washington) are forcing them to admit to a felony at the federal level, clearly in violation of HIPAA laws. For canna-businesses, both dispensaries and recreational stores have been unable to utilize banking and insurance services for fear of criminal investigations, while at the same time navigating massive tax payments to the IRS.
Sadly, anyone in the LGBT community is butting up against conservative moralists, gender assumptions, and entrenched cultural ideals on a daily basis. The process of cannabis’ conversion has been similarly dramatic and life-altering—going from the tyranny of the War on Drugs to only recently being accepted and fully legalized in four states. It’s as if the subject has lived two entirely separate lives.
As with one’s sexuality, your use of cannabis doesn’t affect anyone else. It’s a private matter (that is, until I Am Cait airs on E! in August), and one your employer, and the government, should have no say or stake in. While it’s been argued otherwise (as in Elinor Burkett’s New York Times article “What Makes a Woman”), Jenner’s transition doesn’t undermine feminism or women’s identities, it doesn’t challenge masculinity, it is not immoral, and it doesn’t hurt others. Correspondingly, ganja doesn’t hurt others—that is, unless you’re hot-boxing or too stoned to drive (or, in Jenner’s case, haven’t had experience driving in high heels and crash while avoiding paparazzi). Pot also doesn’t undermine the other legal drugs you may be drinking, smoking, or popping.
Fighting gender stereotypes and stoner stereotypes, of course, are not the same. Being a pothead is a choice, while Jenner’s identity is baked in, so to speak, a part of her biology (though surgery, plastic or otherwise, is not a requirement). But just as transitioning individuals must be taken seriously and their choices respected, those who partake of cannabis need their rights recognized. Sadly, many parents have their children taken from them for marijuana use (including medicinal), while others lose their jobs; veterans with PTSD cannot access it for relief; and over 650,000 citizens a year lose their freedom when arrested for marijuana-related offenses.
The opposition to Jenner has been fierce, phobic, and ridiculous. (A campaign is underway to take away Jenner’s 1976 Olympic Gold medal in the men’s decathlon.) When a man becomes a woman, it’s a complex issue that may take some explanation, patience, and, above all, tolerance and compassion. The legalization movement is also locked in debate, full of nuances, ignorant tirades, continuing arrests, and Washington’s own version of medal take-aways: Despite legalization’s convincing statewide victory, hundreds of city councils are banning marijuana in their jurisdictions.
Times are changing. Just as Jenner went from Wheaties cover boy to Vanity Fair cover girl, cannabis has gone from “The Marihuana Menace: Assassin of Youth” to this month’s scientific centerfold in National Geographic. In the end, both Caitlyn and cannabis are elevating the dialogue—about personal truths, the right to choose your own path and be legally recognized and protected, and what it means to be free.
-
An Introduction, Marijuana Machines, and Our Top Doc Goes Green
The Feds finally hint that weed is not evil.Michael Stusser’s column appears weekly on HigherGroundtv.com as well as the Seattle Weekly and other newspapers around the country.
Many of us seek an elevated state of mind. Our jobs stress us out, our relationships are challenging, world news is depressing, and we just want something to take the edge off. A glass of wine. A Valium. Or, in my case, a few hits of this funny weed called cannabis. I’m not apologizing; I’m overjoyed. Shockingly, the citizens of my fair state voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use, and, in addition to the massive tax revenue it’s generating for our political pinheads to spend wildly, it’s giving the rest of us yet another way to ease the pain—and occasionally burst out in uncontrollable laughter.
The prohibition on marijuana will come to an end. That’s a fact. While Washington is ahead of the curve, nationally a majority of our citizens support legalization of both recreational (54 percent) and medicinal (78 percent) marijuana. The real question will be what side you were on when the pot leaves came tumbling down. As with civil rights, gay marriage, and gun control, there are resistant, plodding, dimwitted late adopters who will oppose legalization just as the Temperance Movement (know as “drys” in their time) did while propping up the 18th Amendment. I try and be nice to these modern teetotaling crusaders. Maybe they just need a hug. Or a push. Or a puff.
Wonderful things are happening in the world of legal kush. Cartels are losing money and splitting town, domestic violence and teen drug rates are plummeting in legal states, and in places like New York that have decriminalized cannabis, arrests are down 75 percent. Best of all, as I write this, I am stoned to the bejesus on legal herb.
And while it’s great that Washington got the ball rolling with Initiative 502, our weed laws have serious deficiencies. Unlike the other four jurisdictions that legalized ganja—Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia—our stupid-ass statute doesn’t allow citizens to grow their own. While you and I may not want to devote our entire basements to grow lights and stinky Mary Jane plants, if we’re going to legalize an herb, we might as well allow citizens to be poticulturists. (DIY home brews got nuthin’ on the ganja-thumbs!)
Initiative 502 also did not address the medical-marijuana system that has been in place since passage of the Medical Use of Marijuana initiative in 1998. The resulting unregulated collection of dispensaries and collective gardens not only helped thousands of citizens cope with a wide variety of ailments, but opened the door to fly-by-night operators who don’t card, don’t pay taxes, and don’t look any different than the black market we’re attempting to snuff out.
Hearings intended clean up this Wild Weedy West are underway in our dysfunctional state legislature, with proposals ranging from the ridiculous (Sen. Ann Rivers originally wanted to eliminate smokeable pot) to the moderate (Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells envisions a single tax structure, home grows for all, and allowing well-established, rule-abiding dispensaries to get licenses). It’s looking as though the medical market will be folded into the recreational system (read: screwed), and patients may not only have to join a mandatory registry (I can see the NSA drooling now), but pay taxes on their meds.
In addition to addressing these ongoing issues, this column will ponder what it means to be high. It will explore the ways people are getting high (Weed-of-the-Month Club!), making money on people getting high (Marley Natural), and using cannabis for medicinal purposes, as well as an occasional rant about how hundreds of thousands of (mostly African-) American citizens are still being arrested every year for marijuana-related offenses. In short, I hope to elevate the dialogue on the legalization movement.
Let’s start with the latest on the weed watch.
• Last week the new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said that for certain medical conditions, marijuana may be helpful. The reason this is noteworthy is that marijuana’s therapeutic properties are news to the federal government, which still believes cannabis has zero medicinal value, listing it as a Schedule 1 narcotic along with meth and LSD.
• Washington got its first pot vending machine! Located in the Seattle Caregivers medical dispensary, the ZaZZZ machine contains edibles as well as bags of weed (but no Doritos). The high-tech contraption scans not only your medical-marijuana card (the automats are not yet in recreational stores), but also your driver’s license, then cross-checks the data with the biometrics from the machine’s camera. According to ZaZZZ’s maker, American Green, they’ll soon add security that will require customers to provide fingerprints or retinal scans, and track all purchases. Intrusive databases and speedy, anonymous, machine-distributed weed? Yeah, that’s not gonna set off any pothead paranoia alarms.
But what does the ZaZZZ portend? I worry that as we move from bud-tenders selling organic flowers to machines spitting out disposable vape pens, THC-infused energy drinks, and GummyBear edibles, the more this new era will look like fast food, Big Pharma, and cigarette machines of old.
-
Driving While Stoned and Native Americans Pow-Wow Over Pot
Several tribes will discuss this weekend whether they want to get into the cannabiz.
Michael Stusser’s column appears weekly on HigherGroundtv.com as well as the Seattle Weekly and other newspapers around the country.It should be noted that I’m not exactly a shill for the marijuana industry. (Though product samples can be dropped off at the Weekly offices: make sure to mark packages “Legal Marijuana” lest they be confiscated by the federal post office.) That said, when there’s positive news related to cannabis, given my predilection for smoking the stuff, I have every intention of highlighting the study, report, innovation, or miracle cure—if only to counter the hundred years of Reefer Madness propaganda that came before. (They did have cool posters . . . ) With that pot-infused preamble in place, it’s time for a joke:
What’s the difference between a drunk driver and a stoned driver at a stop sign? The drunkard hauls right past, while the stoner waits for the sign to turn green.
A study released last week by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows no link between marijuana use and car accidents. And while that’s no green light to smoke a fatty and jump into the Caddy, it’s yet another death knell to the “Just Say No” talking points.
Data from the Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers showed that booze increases a driver’s accident risk sevenfold. The road risk for people who test positive for marijuana, after adjusting for other factors, is the same as driving sober. Translation: Measurable amounts of THC in a person’s system doesn’t correlate to impairment as drinking and driving do. “At the current time,” states the NHTSA report, “specific drug concentration levels cannot be reliably equated with specific degree of driver impairment.”
In defense of the pharmaceutical industry (who are also welcome to send in samples), the use of painkillers, stimulants, and antidepressants also showed no statistically significant change in accident risk.
After alcohol, THC is the most common substance found in car crashes, and its presence increased the odds of smashing into something 25 percent. That risk, however, disappears after adjusting for variables like gender, age, and race. For example, men and young people are more insane drivers than women and the aged—and they’re also more likely to smoke ganja. Once you adjust for these factors, “the significant increased risk of crash involvement associated with THC . . . is not found.” Another complicating factor has to do with THC staying in the bloodstream for weeks on end, so while you may test positively after a fender-bender, you may also have been mellowing out (and unimpaired) for days.
Clearly, it’s best if people don’t drive under the influence of marijuana. Hell, some people shouldn’t be driving under the influence of their own power . . . because they suck. I’m only 50 years old and can barely see at night; they should revoke my license because of the odd raccoon-sized floaty-things that periodically drift across my retinas. Sorry, I digress. The most important thing for marijuana users to note is, while you’re not nearly as bad as the boozers on the road, it’s best to get baked and remain couchlocked. Who wants to fire up and sit in a steel cage, anyway? Stoned driving’s just not cool, man.
TRIBAL MARIJUANA RIGHTS RECOGNIZED
The Justice Department announced in December that it would allow Native American tribes to grow and sell marijuana on their sovereign lands, which sounds about right, since THEY WERE HERE FIRST.
Tribal governments are now trying to figure out whether they want to get into the ganja game, and have scheduled a national conference on the matter to be held here in Washington on February 27.
The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, representing about 50 tribes, passed a resolution last year opposing legalization on their lands (partly due to health and safety concerns for their youth), while Washington’s Suquamish said they were exploring their options for production and sale. The Yakama tribe, with more than 10,000 members, also wants no part of legal weed, and outlawed it on both their own land (1.2 million acres) and the ancestral property (10 million acres) they ceded to the federal government.
So long as they do it in accordance with the federal guidelines set up for states that have legalized marijuana for recreational or medicinal use, any of the 568 recognized Native American tribes can grow or sell the plant. One key sidenote: When you leave the rez in a non-legal state, you damn well better leave the Kalamazoo Kush and Chinook Chronic behind, or you’re liable to be busted, big time.
The first Tribal Marijuana Conference will be held at the Tulalip Resort Casino. Tribes will pow-wow, so to speak, to discuss the future of cannabis on their territories, including cultural issues it may raise and concerns about substance abuse. Hopefully they won’t have to sit through Tulalip regulars like Engelbert Humperdinck, Billy Idol, or Tom Jones. These wonderful people have suffered enough.
-
We’re Going to Have a Weed Party
Washington legislators are doing everything they can to keep marijuana users from smoking together. It’s time that stopped.
It’s time for us to come together and smoke marijuana.
Over and over, legislators at all levels in Washington state have prevented us from doing just that by hampering public marijuana use—in fact, a recent law makes providing a place for public use a Class C felony. Lawmakers are making it impossible to promote and celebrate cannabis. Thus it’s time for some civil disobedience.
As an example of how cannabis can be used to elevate our civic engagement, let’s look at a state that’s getting certain things right: Colorado. Not only is the state working with its medical-marijuana dispensaries to expand patient care, many jurisdictions have licensed, members-only marijuana clubs where adults can safely use and learn about cannabis in a social, alcohol-free environment. In Seattle? Not allowed!
Colorado is also considering various social pot-use initiatives that would allow vape lounges and cannabis cafes. Another proposal would allow adults to bring marijuana into bars, theaters and restaurants. These establishments would all have dedicated smoking areas for adults, and smoking would never be visible from within 25 feet of any public space.
Colorado’s also leap years ahead on public events involving ganja. The best one I’ve seen so far was a collaboration between Edible Events, a cannabis company, and the Colorado Symphony. Called “Classically Cannabis” in the symphony’s High Note Series, it was a Bring Your Own Bud evening, including swag tables full of lighters and rolling papers, a designated smoking patio, and a parking lot full of food trucks for when the munchies kicked in. (Don’t get mustard on your tux, man!)
We legalized weed here in Washington. That’s a fact. (So is the $70 million in tax revenue we collected in our first year, which the legislature had no problem spending.) It’s also a fact that legislative pinheads are getting in the way of the public actually using it. “Once people have the right to acquire cannabis, the next logical step forward is figuring out what do they do with it,” says Hilary Bricken, head attorney at Seattle’s Canna Law Group. “People are saying, ‘So I can have it, but where can I use it and not feel like a criminal?’ ”
A voter-approved initiative banned cigar lounges (and all indoor smoking in public places) in 2005, and the mayor is attempting to shutter all private hookah lounges as well. We’ve already discussed the city’s no-smoking ban in parks. And now, with the passage of this summer’s draconian Bill 2136, marijuana clubs can’t exist either: “ ‘Marijuana club’ means a club, association, or other business, for profit or otherwise, that conducts or maintains a premises for the primary or incidental purpose of providing a location where members or other persons may keep or consume marijuana on the premises.” While designed to kill cannabis clubs, the law is (most likely) illegal, as it makes it impossible for medical patients to provide marijuana to other patients.
Even the Seattle City Attorney’s office thinks this is overkill. “We’ve supported creating adult-only areas where people can legally consume marijuana in order to avoid the problems caused by people using marijuana in public spaces, like streets and parks,” said Deputy City Attorney John Schochet. “Unfortunately, the blanket felony ban on ‘marijuana clubs’ in HB 2136 makes that impossible under current law. We hope to get that fixed during the next legislative session.” In the meantime, you’d be a fool to risk being arrested with a felony conviction on the line.
The Evergreen State needs to get some basic elements about legalization in place so as not become a laughingstock, and because the voters demand it! We need to be able to grow marijuana for personal use. (All the other legal states have this in place.) We need to decriminalize marijuana and expunge all records of those who were arrested and imprisoned for nonviolent marijuana-related offenses. And we need to allow and accommodate the actual smoking and vaping and ingesting of cannabis in adult spaces such as vape lounges, stoned cinemas, culinary tastings, art events, and Bud & Breakfasts.
The fact is, not only do people use marijuana, but they support the legalization and taxation of the plant for recreational purposes. It’s fun! It’s social! It’s no longer taboo! You’ve seen beer gardens and cocktail classes and wine-tastings galore, right? Oktoberfest, anyone? Walla Walla wine tours? Craft-beer workshops!? Hell, Smirnoff Vodka just signed as the official sponsor of LiveNation at 25 music festivals, and Blu, an e-cigarette (owned by Imperial Tobacco) sponsors IndyCar, handing out samples of their toxic-sticks at auto races! Marijuana may be safer than alcohol, but it’s still being shunned and shamed and banned throughout the state.
Well, guess what? In order to get it right (and rolling), I’ve decided to host a series of Higher Ground Cannabis Cultural Events. It’s not a club. I won’t sell tickets, and I won’t sell weed. We also won’t pass joints around—as, shockingly, this is a felony offense (considered “possession and distribution,” with potentially five years in the slammer and a $10,000 fine!) The gig will be BYOBong—and we’ll all get along. It will be educational, instructive, and a way to exercise our rights. I’ve lined up one of Seattle’s best bands, and we’ll have a few surprise guests to elevate the dialogue. We’ll proudly and safely use cannabis in an adult-only environment, and have a damn fine time!
