"Starting early next year, any adult with a craving or curiosity will be able to stroll into a strip mall or downtown shop in Colorado or Washington State and do what has long been forbidden..."

"... buy a zip-lock bag of legal marijuana."

No, not any adult. Only adults who think federal law that isn't being enforced still counts as law and who feel bound to follow the law. And, I, for one, feel that this discrimination against us rule-followers is unfair. Why are we — of all people — the last to be free?

I am the person who — when the fences were torn down at Woodstock and the hippies were declaring "It's a free concert now" — would have respected the rights of the landowners and the concert promoters.

If something is to be legal, make it truly legal, or explain to me why there is some special reason to fence out those who still believe in order.

Professor Nutt has a new drug, to get you drunk without drinking.

"Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and former drugs advisor to the U.K. government, said the drug would be consumed as a cocktail drink and targets neurotransmitters in the brain to mimic the pleasurable effects of drunkenness...."

"I’ve done the prototype experiments myself many years ago, where I’ve been inebriated and then it’s been reversed by the antagonist [i.e., antidote]," Nutt told the BBC. “That’s what really gave us the idea. There’s no question that you can produce a whole range of effects like alcohol by manipulating the brain.... I think this would be a serious revolution in health ... just like the e-cigarette is going to revolutionize the smoking of tobacco... I find it weird that we haven't been speaking about this before, as it's such a target for health improvement."

Nutt is seeking funding, but I don't think he'll get it. For one thing, wouldn't the government need to approve this drug and wouldn't it say no? Another thing is, drinking has a whole culture to it, which gives it a social and political acceptability that you'd never get for a new drug that gets you high. Drugs aren't supposed to get you high. That might be an acceptable side effect, but it can't be the end itself. You need some tradition behind your recreational drugs. That's why eventually they'll allow us to use marijuana and not just for the medicinal use. A tradition has developed around it over the years.

Marijuana may be legal(ish) in Denver, but the neighbors can still call the cops over violations of the odor ordinance.

If the olfactometer says you're over the stink limit, the fine is $2,000.

And, by the way, there's a great article about the difficulties of legalizing marijuana in the new issue of The New Yorker: "BUZZKILL/Washington State discovers that it’s not so easy to create a legal marijuana economy." But you'll need to subscribe to read it. Odor ordinances are the least of it. There are big problems with trying to eliminate the black market. Just one is: Young people under 21 aren't going to be allowed to buy legally, and these are a huge part of the marijuana market. Life isn't going to change for them. Another is that the state is seeing legalization in tax terms, which means it's tempted to overprice — which sends folks back to the black market — and it's getting addicted to a cash flow based on heavy users (because it's probably true that something like 20% of the users will by 90% of the product).

Obama's IYLYPYCKYP fix isn't legal.

Jonathan Adler argues:

According to various press reports, the Administration argues it may do this as a matter of enforcement discretion.... In other words, the Administration is not changing the law. It’s just announcing it will not enforce federal law....

Does this make the renewal of non-compliant policies legal? No. The legal requirement remains on the books so the relevant health insurance plans remain illegal under federal law....

I've got to run, but if I had more time I'd try to compare this to the efforts at "legalizing" marijuana in Washington and Colorado — a gigantic felonious conspiracy —  while the Justice Department says it won't enforce.

Having voted to legalize marijuana, Coloradans now vote to tax it.

Heavily.

Well, of course. You legalize it so you can tax it. To repurpose an old Obama-and-marijuana quote: That was the point.



Obama's appearance arrives at 0:57, after which a commenter (Howard Fineman) opines: "One of the reasons Barack Obama is so popular, especially among younger people, is that he seems so real, he seems to acknowledge the reality of things. It's kind of almost like a dog whistle kind of thing. Older people can't hear it. Younger people hear it. And that's one of the things that they hear. He seems to be willing to be honest."

I need some medical marijuana for my hearing. I'm old. I was old back in 2006 when that clip came out. Yes, I voted for him, but not because I believed he was a new kind of honest. And now, in 2013, watching that, what I hear — on the sound wavelengths that penetrate my old head — is the word "seems," screeching out of Fineman's word montage: He seems so real... he seems to acknowledge... He seems to be willing to be honest.

"Seems" and "willing."

Willing... like: Okay, I'll go along with this looking-honest bullshit for you folks for a while. So follow me, little puppies. I've got a new kind of reality kind of thing to kind of like show you. Can you, like, you know, hear it, kids?

And I got a big laugh out of Kathleen Parker, at the very end saying, "The thing people can't stand is the lies." I then rewatched the clip and lingered over the part where they showed Bill Clinton saying he "experimented" with marijuana and "didn't like it" and "didn't inhale." I found that very refreshing.

That's the kind of honesty I like right now. It was a lie, and you knew it was a lie when he told it. There was none of this feeling of oh, wow, look at the reality, man. What felt real was: There's a politician that will smile and lie straight to our faces. He's a liar.

Those were the days.

"Buying marijuana in Denver is a downright pleasant experience."

"Customers wait in a well-appointed waiting room.... When their names are called, they will follow an attendant through an atrium where they can buy t-shirts or smoking paraphernalia, and into a quaint shop where they can peruse the wares."

There, they will find a wide array of aromatic marijuana flowers in glass jars, pot-infused products — mints, beverages, or something to satisfy the sweet tooth — as well as pre-rolled joints and servings of cannabis concentrates.

Customers are rung up on a computerized point of sale system. They get a receipt — a receipt! — after paying for their marijuana. They are free to walk out to their cars, drive their marijuana home, and smoke it.

It's a remarkably clean system. It doesn't feel like a violation of Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, the federal law that governs controlled substances, even though it is. It's a safe, stable, professional environment.

How incredibly strange! Would you feel free to violate federal criminal law like that? I note the line "when their names are called." You have to give your name? Would you give a fake name? We're in a transitional phase, and it can't go on like this. Can it?

I think it's unfair, but that's me, a scrupulous law-abider. I don't like this gray zone, where something is open as if it's legal, but the feds maintain the power to crush you whenever they want. The risk-takers get their drugs, and those of us who scrupulously limit ourselves to legal substances look on and wonder.

"Obama plays 27 holes."

"After morning briefings on the crisis in Syria...."

6 ideas for Obama supporters on how to spin this:

1. Impressive to work on a Saturday, when most ordinary golfers head straight for the course.

2. 27! Wow! Most golfers poop out after 18 holes.

3. A round and a half. A circle followed by an elegant a semi-circle. Creative! Who but Obama thinks of such things? Brilliant!

4. Oh, how much new is there really on any given day about Syria? What difference at this point does it make?

5. Why do you think they call them "briefings"? They're brief.

6. You don't want to get into the weeds — in briefings as in golf. NOTE: You've got to be careful with the "weed" imagery. The mind drifts here, but the point is: Jimmy Carter micromanaged, and Obama is not like Carter.

"This one here is the original sinsemilla, Bob Marley's favorite. And this one here is the chocolate skunk. It's special for the ladies."

Pot tourism in Jamaica, modeled on those wine tours people do in northern California.

Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm where deep-green marijuana plants grow out of the reddish soil. Similar tours are offered just outside the western resort town of Negril, where a marijuana mystique has drawn weed-smoking vacationers for decades...

"I can get stronger stuff at home, but there's something really special about smoking marijuana in Jamaica. I mean, this is the marijuana that inspired Bob Marley," said a 26-year-old tourist from Minnesota who only identified herself as Angie as she crumbled some pot into rolling paper.

I have a problem generally with traveling to foreign countries. Is this what they mean by broadening the mind? Isn't it mind-expanding enough to consume the powerful Minnesota marijuana while playing Bob Marley records and contemplating the man who no longer lives anywhere in his natural habitat? Do people from Jamaica journey to Minnesota to think about Prince? (And he's still around. You might entertain the hope of actually seeing him.)

My mind is already sufficiently expanded to contemplate Bob Marley solely by reading about him and remembering hearing his music, and it's also expanded enough to imagine how bad I would feel getting near criminal activity in a foreign country.

I picture: "He was a 20-year-old American boy, up against a system he didn't understand, spoken in a language he couldn't speak...." Can you handle your legal problems in the language of Jamaica?



Yes, of course marijuana is still illegal in Jamaica. Here's another quote from Breezy, the Jamaican pot farmer quoted in the post title:

"The government needs to free up marijuana soon, man, because it's a natural thing, a spiritual thing.... And the tourists love it."

Ah, but what sort of bland old rule-abiding travelers would clog up the place, ruining the ambiance, if it weren't a crime? What's marijuana without the transgressive edge?

"Jury Nullification vs. The Drug War: NJ Weedman on His Unlikely Marijuana Acquittal."

"I should be 10 months into a 10-year prison sentence," says Ed Forchion aka NJ Weedman. 'The only reason I'm standing here is because I happened to know about jury nullification. And I used it.'"

"Marijuana grower killed — and nearly decapitated — by booby trap he set to protect plants."

"Police say Daniel Rickett was drunkenly riding a quad bike when he ran into his own piano wire trap. Hikers found the 50-year-old's body lying near four large plants."

All that to protect 4 plants?!

Here's a recent segment of "This American Life" about the extent of marijuana growing in Mendocino County, California:

A few years ago, Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman was trying to find a way to deal with the proliferation of marijuana in his county. Allman wanted to spend less time dealing with growers who were growing small, legal amounts, so he could focus on other problems — including criminals who run massive marijuana farms in the Mendocino National Forest....

By "legal amounts," they mean not illegal under state law. The "legal amount" is 20 plants. The giant operations consume many acres of federal land (complete with irrigation systems and pesticides). Why don't the feds police their own land?

ADDED: Some answers to that last questions here. For the millions of acres of national forests, the federal government is regarded as a property owner:

When the ownership of a piece of land, government land, is considered proprietary, the government is said to have taken over none of the state's obligations for law enforcement. In other words, state and local law enforcement officers still handle calls for service as if the land were privately owned. The sheriff or city police will respond and they'll handle calls without regard to the property's ownership.

But the federal government can use its legislative power to regulate this land, which isn't something private landowners can do, and it could choose to take over the law enforcement if it wanted. Given the scale of the "massive marijuana farms" — protected by armed guards who shoot at ordinary people who traipse about in the forest — you'd think the feds would take responsibility. It seems crazy for local police to handle that, and it's the federal government's marijuana policy, in conflict with what many states are trying to do, that's the foundation of the problem.

"The Obama administration on Thursday said it would not sue to undo laws legalizing marijuana in 20 states..."

"... although it will monitor operations in those states to make sure they do not run afoul of several enforcement priorities."

In a memo sent to federal prosecutors nationwide on Thursday, James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, laid out eight priority enforcement areas. They are aimed at preventing marijuana sales to children, illegal cartel activity, interstate trafficking of marijuana, and violence and accidents involving the drug.

But:

Last week, the White House said President Obama did not support changing federal laws regulating marijuana, which treat the drug as a highly dangerous substance with no medical purpose.

NYT editorial: "Mr. Holder’s dithering helps no one."

The issue? Telling Colorado and Washington how the feds will respond to their vote to legalize marijuana.

The status quo is chaotic and untenable. If you live in Denver or Seattle and you are thinking of applying for a license to sell marijuana, you have a right to know whether federal prosecutors will move to seize your property and jail you.

Holder's had more than 7 months to come up with an answer. And he did say he would answer. So it's not as though the answer is (deliberately) no answer — that is, the feds intend to say to these states: Go ahead and bumble along in the shadow of the federal law, knowing that, anytime we want, we might spring.

The NYT also repeats the argument that enforcing the anti-marijuana laws is "racially biased, with African-Americans far more likely than Caucasians to be arrested for possession despite similar rates of use across ethnic groups."

"Wash. State Police Dogs Must Unlearn How To Smell Pot."

Headline at Talking Points Memo.

If you read the article you'll see it's a lot more complicated than that. For one thing, the new law only decriminalizes the personal possession of marijuana and only up to one ounce. How do you detect the remaining marijuana crimes? Yet it seems that the best approach is to have a dog that doesn't alert on smelling marijuana, so that it's easier to show probable cause and get a warrant to search for the drugs other than marijuana.

Presidential Green Crack.

In the comments to "The cynicism question: What do you want — ἁτυφια or τύφος? Lucidity or smoke? Clarity or choom?," Meade directs us to Presidential Green Crack:

Strain Name: Presidential Green Crack
Grade: A+
Type: Sativa
Looks: shades of green and gold
Smell: smells really good, like clean green bud
Taste: almost tasteless, no skunk taste
Effects: creativity, precision to detail
Potency: I give this 4 out of 4 buds
Reviewed by: sharyna
Good Strain For: tedious work

That's not political satire — I don't think. That's an actual review of a strain of "medical" marijuana.

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade said:

Strain Name: Presidential Green Crack
Grades: From college and law school? N/A
Type: Redistributionist
Looks: clean
Smell: clean AND articulate
Taste: almost tasteless, but definitely a skunk
Effects: creative spinning of details
Potency: I give this 4 out of 4 Pinocchios
Reviewed by: internal administration investigation
Good Strain For: relieving stress of 3AM phone calls

Since the days of TV, have we ever had a fat President?

And will the Chris Christie surgical approach to defattifying play politically? What does this approach to problem-solving say about presidential qualifications?



Also: How Newt Gingrich could have been President, how Obamacare is going to have to cover weight-loss surgery, and why Obamacare should lead to the legalization of marijuana.

"I sort of panicked. I thought I was going through an anxiety thing because so many people were coming after me."

Said Ian Bay, a skateboarder and wearer of headphones at the 4/20 marijuana celebration in Denver, who suddenly saw hundreds of people running toward him.

"Across the country, the business of growing pot is fast becoming mainstream."

Says the Wall Street Journal:

But it turns out that trying to make a profit in this business is harder than expected. When grown and sold legally, marijuana can be an expensive proposition, with high startup costs, a host of operational headaches and state regulations that a beet farmer could never imagine. In Colorado, for example, managers must submit to background checks that include revealing tattoos. The state also requires cameras in every room that has plants; Mr. Klug relies on 48 of them....

When grown and sold legally?! Why is the Wall Street Journal writing that? You can't grow and sell marijuana legally. This is all a crime under federal law.

Prices for pot, meanwhile, have plummeted, in large part because of growing competition. And bank financing is out of the question: Federal law doesn't allow these businesses, and agents sometimes raid growers even in states where it is legal.

Doesn't allow? You mean: Makes it a felony. Growing marijuana is a criminal enterprise. And there are no "states where it is legal." It is illegal in all of the states under federal law. The states are in the United States — haven't you heard?!

... Pink House Blooms is a $3 million-a-year business, with 2,000 plants in a converted warehouse in an industrial part of Denver... To get started on this scale, [Elliott] Klug says he sank more than $3 million — some of it borrowed from family — into the operation. He says Pink House Blooms is profitable, with demand up 30% some months....

His advice for anyone who wants to become rich by legally dealing pot: "Start with lots of money."

Shouldn't that be: Start by not worrying about what "legally" means? This man is attracting attention, getting his name and these big numbers in print in the WSJ, which presumably loves to profile the risk-takers of business.

Last December, President Barack Obama said his administration had "bigger fish to fry" than going after recreational users. 

Nice for the recreational users to know they aren't big enough, but what solace is that for the man trying to become rich by dealing pot? He is trying to be the big fish. He's trying to get rich in a market that anyone who refuses to commit crimes cannot enter. What a terrible situation! And yet the prices are already plummeting, we're told, because of all the competition. Klug's hope of getting rich is premised on the illegality.

"Feds scoop up medical marijuana patient records in Oregon investigation..."

"Because marijuana is still illegal on the federal level – and it’s only by letters of understanding that the U.S. Department of Justice has held off taking action against medical marijuana growers, suppliers and buyers – related records can be seen as evidence of wrong doing."

"Bill Althouse, a Colorado activist who identifies himself as executive director of the Campaign to Regulate Alcohol Like Marijuana..."

"... offers some modest proposals for alleviating this disparity, including..."

• If a child sees a parent consume alcohol, Protective Services may remove the child from the home.
• If a parent has one drink, it will cause loss of custody of children in a divorce case.
• No alcohol may be served by the drink anywhere in Colorado.
• All publicly viewable consumption at sporting events, backyards , political rallies, fraternal organizations, breweries, vineyards, farmers markets, and picnics, even if the alcohol is free, is a crime.
• Alcohol consumption outside a private home is a crime.
• No alcohol advertising is allowed except for adult only publications.
• All alcohol production and sales must be a monopoly selected by the State.
• All craft beer is illegal, only large brewers may be licensed as retailers
• All alcohol sales are package sales only, must be in child proof containers and placed in plain dark paper exit packaging stapled shut before leaving the store.
• Non Colorado citizens will be limited to one bottle of beer per purchase.
• Colorado citizens will be limited to a six pack per purchase.
• Home brewers must grow their hops under artificial lights in a separate locked space and brewing must also occur in that locked space. Using sunshine is a crime.
• Alcohol retailers must only sell alcohol and nothing else.
• Outside investment in beer production or hops growing is illegal.

Haven't used my "other Althouses" tag in a long time.

Remember: I am not responsible for the sayings and doings of other Althouses.

"Thief steals woman's phone — then posts picture of himself smoking weed to HER Facebook page."

"The thief didn't know that her cell phone was linked to her Facebook account and set to automatically post pics."