Pubdate: Fri, 08 Mar 2013
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/qFJNhZNm
Website: http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Bill McClellan

READY TO ROLL (A JOINT) SO I CAN JOIN A COMMUNE

Several of my young colleagues were talking wistfully about 
establishing a commune.

"I'm in," I said, although I had not been invited.

There was an awkward silence. Perhaps the commune they had in mind 
was not going to have a shuffleboard court.

"What skills would you bring?" one asked me.

That might have been meant as a trick question. I'm always asking for 
help with the computer. I can't master the new phone system. I bump 
into things. I would not be a lot of help if the commune wanted to 
build a barn. So I considered the question. What skills would I bring?

"I can roll a joint," I said.

That dates me, I know. I come from a time when most young people 
smoked pot. You couldn't go to a party or a concert without somebody 
handing you a joint. And if you dropped in on a friend, he or she was 
liable to toss you a baggie and invite you to roll yourself one.

I could do it. I wasn't one of those faux hippies who needed a 
rolling machine. On the other hand, my joints weren't artistically 
perfect, and I certainly was not able to roll a joint with one hand. 
What a skill that was! I've seen guys roll a joint with one hand 
while holding a conversation. It was amazing. You'd listen to them, 
of course, but your eyes would be riveted on the hand with which they 
were rolling a joint. Girls used to flock to those guys. It was as 
good as being in a band.

What happened to those guys? One day they were the hit of the party 
and then the party changed. I'm sure some people continued smoking 
weed, but for the most part, it went underground.

Now it is re-emerging. Colorado and the state of Washington recently 
legalized the recreational use of pot. A number of states have 
already legalized its medicinal use. I got an email last week from 
"Marijuana Majority" with the news that state legislative committees 
in Hawaii and New Mexico have approved bills to decriminalize 
marijuana possession.

More startling - and much closer to home - was the news Thursday that 
St. Louis police Sgt. Gary Wiegert has joined Show-Me Cannabis as a 
lobbyist. Show-Me Cannabis favors treating pot like booze. Regulate 
it and tax it.

Wiegert is a sergeant in the Third District. He is also past 
president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association. Show-Me 
Cannabis is not his only client. He also serves as a lobbyist for the 
St. Louis Tea Party. The Show-Me press release touted his police 
background and his work with the Tea Party.

"We are very excited to have Gary on the team. He can speak firsthand 
to the failure of cannabis prohibition, demonstrates the strong 
bipartisan appeal of the issue, and will be taken seriously by the 
legislature."

I called Wiegert to see if the department had any problems with him 
working for Show-Me Cannabis. He said the department knew he was a 
lobbyist, but perhaps didn't know he was working for Show-Me. But why 
would the department have a problem with Show-Me if it didn't have a 
problem with the Tea Party?

As Dylan would say, the times they are a changing.

They are a changing too fast for some people. Eight former chiefs of 
the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a statement earlier this 
week urging the administration of President Barack Obama to nullify 
the laws in Colorado and Washington. The former chiefs were upset. 
"It's outrageous that a lawsuit (against the two states) hasn't been 
filed in federal court yet," one said.

Their concerns were a little overwrought, I'd say. We're not talking 
about replacing Francis Scott Key and the "Star-Spangled Banner" with 
John Lennon and "Imagine." "Imagine there's no countries. It isn't 
hard to do. Nothing to kill and die for. And no religion, too."

We're not disbanding the military, opening the borders and declaring 
world peace. We're not even talking about legalizing all drugs. We're 
just talking about pot.

The eight retired generals from the War on Drugs were joined in their 
condemnation of the laws in Colorado and Washington by a United 
Nations agency, the International Narcotics Control Board.

As my friends from the Tea Party would say, we don't need no U.N. 
bureaucrats telling us to overrule the will of the people. State's 
rights, dude! As the old hippies would say, Power to the People!

While my support for these reforms has to do with my desire to do 
something useful in the commune, I am also thinking of the guys who 
knew how to roll a joint with one hand. That talent went 
unappreciated for years. Maybe their time will come again.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom