they tell us to not to
That’s my “si” vote for legalizing the product that makes the drug cartels in Mexico rich. I’ll probably be found dead in a ditch, my head mailed back home. That’s how they operate. The news outlets don’t even report on them for fear of this fate.
In other news I moved my neighbor over to Oakland. He had boxes labeled “poems” and “songs” and “art”. I realized he was just like me, saving every scrap of paper he’d written on that was more than a receipt with his signature. I have a large walk-in closet with floor to ceiling shelves, all dedicated to this vanity project.
There’s a journal from 1993 when I was living in my van in a parking lot at UNH. A cop told me no overnights allowed, so I went to the chief of police and told him I was too poor to both pay for college and rent a place. The chief agreed to let me camp out for the summer school session.
I’d forgotten that whole time of my life, it was only two months long, after all. A gal in a dorm would let me take showers, a high school friend would bring me sandwiches.
But the journal itself is not filled with great ideas. I question my future. I wonder how I’ll turn out. I tell myself I’ll stop drinking and start eating healthy. I talk about God. The eighty or so journals I’ve kept for almost 20 years no longer interest me. Can someone give me the okay to chuck them?
The problem with chucking them is that you would find them at the dump and then cherish them for their found value and store them in another area of your apartment until you decide to throw them out cause they are not cherished anymore and then you would find them at the dump and bring them home as a missing part of yourself from 20 years ago.
Or you could bring them all to Ocean Beach, have a bonfire and burn up the past 20 years of your life like they didn’t exist and move on. You could invite your friends to come and read some of your darkest most secret thoughts to you just before they throw the journal into the roaring fire.
sounds to me like a great 40th birthday party… count me in.
Comment by al — November 3, 2010 @ 9:24 pm
When is the FIRE that cleanses everything?
Comment by chrome1 — November 3, 2010 @ 11:08 pm
If you mean my 40th birthday party, it’s only 13 years away…
Al, that’s the funniest thing ever. I think the darkest secret is that I didn’t have a lot to say and very little insight in my 20′s. I was a babbler.
Comment by Rolston — November 4, 2010 @ 6:57 am
You could also donate them to another junk-loving hauler who will diligently store them in his/her garage.
Although the campfire 40th birthday party sounds like much more fun. I’d try to make it up to SF for that!
Comment by dastard — November 4, 2010 @ 11:50 am
No way weed is what’s making drug cartels rich. It’s too bulky and too inexpensive.
If you gave every attendee a journal a week before the fire I’m sure they could each find one strong quote to read before burning the journal and you would really come off sounding like a thoughtful soul.
Comment by Lyle_S — November 4, 2010 @ 7:31 pm
you wish you that you are 27
Comment by chrome1 — November 4, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
my old neighbors own property in Mendicino, by Clear Lake. They found a huge pot farm on their property, run by organized crime. Mexican organized crime. They tapped into a spring and had acres of weed being watered on schedule through pipelines. The landowners set up surveillance cameras and found little Latino dudes with guns on film. OK, maybe they werent Mexican, but who has 15 grand to gamble on an irrigation system the cops may bust? And Clear Lake now gets an algae bloom and is impenetrable on the south end due to fertilizer runoff from so many pot farms. I suppose some wineries are to blame too.
But the underground tunnel they just found that ran 6 football fields underground from Mexico to the US was running weed. Not coke. Mexican drug cartels sell a lot of weed. Look into it.
Comment by Rolston — November 5, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
OK Jon. I’ll look into it.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP325/
Note that I’m rooting for California to do this. Just don’t believe the Cartels will be crying if it passes.
Comment by Lyle_S — November 6, 2010 @ 11:54 am
Glad for the info. My little niblet was also about domestic weed produced by Mexican cartels operating in California, which this report seems to exclude. I’ll look around for those estimates. But it would seem that pot is indeed not the leading fund raiser for Mexico. That would be coke right? That shits expensive.
My girlfriend is reading a BBC online article that puts yearly drug revenue at 13 billion, so 20% of that is 2.6 billion dollars. A lot of people get murdered for 2 billion dollars. Wouldn’t we want to cut that little bit out of their bankroll? Keep it in California for mountain bike trails?
Comment by Rolston — November 6, 2010 @ 8:13 pm
We’ve had cases in Wisconsin where large pot farms were being grown on other people’s land without the owners even knowing. Not sure if it was cartel related but I don’t know what qualifies as a cartel, either.
Whether it’s 2%, 20% or whatever, sure, let’s cut it out. I’m not sure what sort of impact legal weed would have on our society but I’d like to find out. We know pretty much everyone experiments with it at one time or another, why should our legislation miss out on the fun?
Don’t mountain bike trails make themselves? If it costs money to make a trail, something is wrong.
Comment by Lyle_S — November 7, 2010 @ 7:36 am
after I save the Arctic wolf I am going to tour central Mexico to end the drug war. “El Mundo Sin Drogas”
I believe the only people getting rich off the drug war are American politicans who justify their existence with frivilous legislation to fund commitees to explore other frivilous commitees. THe people of Mexico were raped of their northern lands by the cocksucker James Polk (democrat). And Mexicans have long memories so that land in Mendocino is California Norte as far as they are concerned. A border is just a fence built by a gringo. We are going to have to boycott Mexican weed and only buy American legal weed if we want changes.
Comment by oggy — November 7, 2010 @ 1:17 pm
Oggy is right. Legalizing weed doesn’t remove the demand for Mexican weed or even ‘illegal’ weed. Assuming the whole country decided to legalize it, here’s how I think it would flow:
1. USA legalizes it.
2. Mexico legalizes at least the production and export of it.
3. USA regulates the fuck out of the marijuana industry (FDA style). Mexico doesn’t.
4. USA places a monster tariff on the import of marijuana (similar to tax on sugar cane, which protects our corn industry).
5. Marijuana is more expensive than before we legalized it. People want cheaper weed.
6. Mexicans smuggle in or grow illegal plants, undercutting the legal market.
The scenario might be more interesting if only California flips the switch. Maybe we’ll hear the rest of the country complaining about the California drug cartels!
Comment by Lyle_S — November 8, 2010 @ 11:55 am