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.

Calling out cannabis testing in sports.

Mixed-martial-arts superstar Ronda Rousey is obviously, pound for pound, the most kick-ass fighter in the world, and not to be messed with. She has also ignited a firestorm with her articulate and accurate attack on the idiocy of marijuana testing in her sport. “Rowdy” Rousey made her argument when her friend and training partner, Nick Diaz, was suspended for five years by the Nevada Athletic Association after testing positive for pot.

“I’m sorry, but it’s so not right for him to be suspended five years for marijuana,” Rousey said at a UFC press conference in Melbourne last week. “If one person tests for steroids, that could actually hurt a person, and the other person smokes a plant that makes him happy, and he gets suspended for five years. Whereas a guy who could hurt someone gets a slap on the wrist.”

To make matters worse, UFC fighter Diaz, a popular star in his prime, has a valid medical-marijuana card (from California) and stated he was using medical marijuana for ADHD as well as pain management (of which there is plenty in his brutal full-contact sport). In an absurd side note, Diaz was suspended after a match with the great Anderson Silva, who also failed a drug test—for steroid use. Silva’s punishment? One year. Diaz was suspended for five for having weed in his system—though to be fair, it was the third time in his career Diaz had tested positive for marijuana, making him perhaps not the sharpest tool in the UFC shed. For Diaz, 32, a five-year penalty is essentially a lifetime ban in a sport that takes its toll (and, in my opinion, should be outlawed, along with boxing, NASCAR, motocross, and tackle football).

The whole idea of drug-testing athletes is to see if they’re using substances that may give them a competitive advantage in their chosen sport. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that cannabis is hardly a performance-enhancing drug (at least until couch-surfing becomes an Olympic sport). Diaz has claimed to use cannabis to heal his body between matches. The World Anti-Doping Agency—one of the many institutions drug-testing MMA athletes—states in its rules that marijuana may not be used “during competition”—and thus it’s quite possible Diaz was not in violation, but still had THC in his system from previous use. (A small amount of marijuana is allowed in the urine samples WADA tests, but one of the three samples taken from Diaz the day of the fight had more THC than is considered acceptable.)

Plenty of athletes over the years have admitted to using marijuana, not as a PED but to relax and unwind—including the world’s greatest runner, Usain Bolt; NBA stars Chris Weber and Allen Iverson; beefcake Arnold Schwarzenegger; and swimming god Michael Phelps.

As in martial arts and boxing, NFL players do a lot of head-banging, and use ganja to manage pain, stress relief, depression, and even help repair neurological damage. And they also get suspended for it. In addition to the dozens of players who have been sent to substance-abuse programs for testing positive for pot, long suspensions were recently given to receivers Josh Gordon (Cleveland Browns) and Martavis Bryant (Pittsburgh Steelers) for firing up. Funny thing about the NFL: They have two separate drug policies—one for PEDs and another for recreational drugs.

Since Washington state legalized cannabis for recreational purposes, our Seattle Seahawks should be able to fire up for fun and not be fined (or suspended) for it, right? Sorry—the commish isn’t going for that. (Though a nonprofit called the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition is working to allow medical marijuana to treat ailments for NFL players.) Thing is, if ganja can give professional athletes relief—from joint pain, headaches and concussions, lack of sleep, soreness, and muscle inflammation—they should have it available. If nothing else, it will give these athletes much-needed liver relief after being prescribed a plethora of addictive and highly toxic painkillers and sleep aids by team doctors.

The only organization that seems to be getting it right on marijuana is the Olympics! The World Anti-Doping Agency (good Lord, does everyone use the same lab?) is responsible for drug-testing athletes who are training and participating in Olympic competitions all over the globe. While cannabis is on the agency’s list of prohibited substances (though not explicitly banned by the International Olympic Committee), they recently upped the allowable amount of THC in an athlete’s system from 15 ng/mL to 150—most likely because they didn’t like the idea of suspending 90 percent of their prime snowboarders and skiers.

The WADA lists various competitive advantages of each drug on their Prohibition List. For cannabis, these include “better focus” and “diminished stress.” Now that I think of it, this may be an advantage in synchronized swimming, dressage, canoe slalom, racewalking, trampoline, and whatever the hell a steeplechase is.

Rules on cannabis and sporting should obviously be changed, and, like full legalization, this will ultimately need to take place at the national level. Nick Diaz had a valid and legal (in California) use for medical marijuana, but ran into a state (and a Commission) that invalidated his legitimate needs. We’ll give the great Rowdy Ronda Rousey the last word on the subject: ”I’m against testing for weed at all. It’s not a performance enhancing drug. And it has nothing to do with competition. It’s only tested for political reasons,” said the champ. “I think we should free Nick Diaz.”

Evidence, textual and physical, about the Bard’s indulgence.

Wanna know how William Shakespeare was so far ahead of his time in regard to wondrous wordplay and wildly imaginative scenes and sonnets? Well, it could be that the loquacious Bard was hitting the bong! According to a recent report in The Independent, forensic analysis of 400-year-old fragments found cannabis residue on pipes and stems scattered on Shakespeare’s property.

A team from the Institute of Evolutionary Studies in South Africa conducted a chemical analysis of the 17th-century artifacts, excavated in 2001, from Stratford-on-Avon, and found marijuana on eight of 24 clay samples on the grounds, including four pot-positive pipes from his own garden.

Lead researcher Professor Francis Thackeray (University of Witwatersrand) thinks weed may have helped inspire history’s greatest playwright, pointing out a line from Sonnet 76.

“In Sonnet 76 he writes about ‘invention in a noted weed.’ This can be interpreted to mean that Shakespeare was willing to use ‘weed’ (cannabis) for creative writing (‘invention’),” Thackeray went out on a limb to explain. “In the same sonnet it appears that he would prefer not to be associated with ‘compounds strange,’ which can be interpreted, at least potentially, to mean ‘strange drugs’ (possibly cocaine). Sonnet 76 may relate to complex wordplay relating in part to drugs, and in part to a style of writing associated with clothing (‘weeds’) or literary compounds.”

Two additional pipes from the excavation area did indeed test positive for cocaine—or coca leaves—said to have been brought back from Peru in the late 1500s by Sir Francis “Vacuum-Cleaner” Drake. While these coca-contraptions were near Shakespeare’s domicile, they weren’t actually on his property, so it’s doubtful Bill was hitting the crack pipe.

Plenty of stuffy scholars are scoffing at the notion Shakespeare used cannabis (while probably themselves scraping dusty ancient snuffboxes for residue). “I suppose it’s remotely possible that Shakespeare and his family were getting a buzz from what they were smoking,” harrumphed Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt, “but I very much doubt that it played any meaningful role in his life.” Not willing to give up his own afternoon hot toddys, the English prof continued, saying, “Alcohol is a much more likely stimulant for Shakespeare’s imagination, and even that is probably unimportant.” Uh, FYI, Prof, #MarijuanaIsSafer.

Given his place and time, you couldn’t really blame the brilliant Bard for craving a little pick-me-up during his famous 18-hour writing binges. Tea, coffee, espresso, and RedBull were unavailable then, and everyone, including the Sweet Swan of Avon, has a vice. In fact, Brits had been hitting the pipe for centuries, as well as using hemp for paper. (Pope Innocent VIII put a damper on open use when he singled out cannabis as an unholy sacrament of the Satanic mass. #ReeferMadness) In fact, in 1563 Queen Elizabeth I issued a formal decree forcing land owners of 60 acres or more to grow cannabis or be smacked with her cane (and a £5 fine).

It is of course possible that this is much ado about nothing, and that someone else was smoking ganja out of the Bard’s bud-pipes. Nevertheless, I have decided to throw some scientific evidence of my own (read cockamamy hearsay) into the marijuana mix, proving once and for all that Shakes was a sacred stoner: It’s said that Shakespeare coined over 2,000 words in his lifetime, including eyeball, gossip, gnarled (gnarly, dude!), unreal (Bro!), dwindle, puking, laughable, rant, hobnob, buzzer, besmirch, beached, bedazzled, cold-blooded, zany, addiction, arch-villain, new-fangled, swagger, and drugged! Heigh-ho and Great Tilly-Valley, that’s buzzed brainstorming at its best!

And more obvious evidence—his inspired insults! No poet could come up with linguistic gymnastics such as beslubbering, clapper-clawed, beef-witted, loggerheaded, flap-mouthed, bum-bailey, unmuzzled, onion-eyed, and miscreant without being high as a pox-marked pignut!

To inhale or not inhale, that is the question. A report from Psychology Today notes that cannabis can evoke psychotomimetic symptoms, or what’s known as “peak consciousness,” allowing users to break free from pedestrian associations and connect seemingly unrelated concepts—a key element in creative thinking. Whether or not Shakespeare smoked salvia or imbibed indica, I bid you adieu with wondrous and trippy words from The Tempest, Act III, Scene 2—evidence he’s high on life, or weed, or the wings of angels.

At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any reason.—

Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.

(sings) Flout ’em and scout ’em,

And scout ’em and flout ’em.

Thought is free.