Calhouns Can(n)ons

Lordy, The Land of Duh Keeps Getting Bigger

Story in the Tribune yesterday, “State issues guide to legal pot use.” Our AG Jerry Brown – who failed to show up at Mr. Lynch’s medical marijuana federal trial in L.A. – has how issued “guidelines "– which can be ignored any time local sheriffs or cops please, and totally ignored by the Feds any time – are a breathtaking example of hypocritical cynicism at work. Doesn’t get any finer.

First up, apparently the great sin of medical marijuana is – profit. Weirdly, profit is the driving force for the development of all our other drugs – grotesque, obscene, mind-boggling profit on drugs that regularly either kill, maim, or bankrupt thousands of people a year. But for medical marijuana, Sorry, no profit. That would be . . . bad.

So there goes any attempt at government oversight on quality control or potency regulation or product safety (not dosed with THC or rat poison. Not that FDA oversight has been any great shakes, lately.) Nope, having those kinds of things might require the grower make a profit to justify all that expense. And it’s clear that our AG doesn’t care about what happens to people using medical marijuana to alleviate their suffering. So some people might die because the weed was adulterated. So what?

So, none of that. Sick people prescribed medical marijuana for relief of their pain and various other symptoms, will be at the mercy of amateur “loving hands at home” (or in the back yard), “compassionate caregivers” who may not know bubkis about growing pot, but hey, since it’s all non-profit and simply a hobby, who cares? So long as there’s no profit involved, local police and sheriffs can – IF THEY WISH – leave them alone. Or not, depending on whether, say, a local police chief is in need of some political distraction and so whistles in the feds to stir up a few newspaper headlines. Then, those “compassionate caregivers” are sitting ducks for the Feds.

Sitting ducks because they’re required to register with the state. So at any moment they can be hauled away to federal court in L.A. where no truth, let alone the whole truth, will be used to slam them into federal prison – no questions asked, not a whisper of the term “medical” allowed.

So much for what is called a “road map” [that] would serve as a shield against the federal government, which has waged war against the state’s pot rules by conducting raids and mounting court challenges.” notes the Tribune. “Hopefully the feds will back off in instances where people are really following these guidelines,” [AG] Brown said Monday in a telephone interview.”

Hopefully? The Attorney General of the State of California decrees some guidelines that continue to set up citizens for federal punishment and the AG is “hopeful?” the feds won’t continue to destroy people? Hope?

For sheer cynical manipulation, Jerry’s phony “guidelines”are hard to beat. ESPECIALLLY since he was nowhere to be found during other medical marijuana trials.

So much for our War on Drugs, which in the case of medical marijuana, is simply a War on The Sick.

Well, hell, Let ‘em die. Jerry’s ass is politically covered. Local enforcement agencies’ get a free ride. And the feds have lists of ducks in a barrel they can go shoot any time they wish to jack up their conviction statistics.

American justice and compassion. Finest kind.

And the Land of Wow Just Got Smaller

Again, yesterday's Tribune reports that Cuesta Equipment out on Broad St. (across from the Airport) is closing. Dang! I loved that place. It was a treat to wander around in there gawking at the enormous array of unfathomable whazzits and kerdinkles and whatchamacallits and framisdamnises and doohickies and What the . . . .?s -- large, really, really large, small, tiny, row after row of them, stacked in bins, on shelves, hanging from the rafters. A dreamscape of cunningly wrought . . . stuff.

And 99% of the stuff was as unfamiliar to me as objects dug out of an ancient Chaldean tell -- stuff archeologist will someday also dig up and wonder at, turning the objects every which way in a puzzle -- religious icon? piece of art? fastener on a war chariot? Part of a toilet? What's a "toilet?" A religious ceremonial device, perhaps?

This was no "hardware store," selling dish pans and brooms. No sir, this was all about hardware -- really serious, build-big-stuff hardware! And as such, being there was as magical as being allowed inside an enormous cabinet of curios, free to wander about and gawk and wonder. I will miss it.