Pubdate: Wed, 06 Jan 2016
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2016 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

DOWN THE WEED RABBIT HOLE

Apparently there is a third marijuana legalization petition that has 
been given the thumbs up by Michigan election officials - and it's 
not the investor-backed plan from the Michigan Responsibility Council 
that made some waves last year. This new one comes from a group 
calling itself MichICan and its petition is called Abrogate 
Prohibition in Michigan 2016.

This particular effort has been running under the radar for a short 
while but its plan is pretty much the most radical of all proposals 
so far. It calls for the legalization of marijuana without 
restrictions of any kind. In the words of the petition: "The 
agricultural, personal, recreational, medicinal, commercial, and 
industrial use of cannabis in any form shall be a lawful activity."

That's the MichICan plan in a nutshell. In case you didn't understand 
it, the petition later states: "All prohibition on the use of 
cannabis in any form by any person is hereby null and void..."

In addition there shall be "no excise tax, no fines, no regulations 
to diminish use..."

That's pretty much the whole enchilada. Now there may be many folks 
who harbor such a hope in their hearts, realistically most of them 
don't expect anything near that.

I went to the YouTube feed for Abrogate Prohibition Michigan called 
Let There Be Pot and was confronted with some head-banging music 
accompanied by some sort of slideshow streaming images that have 
something to do with marijuana - magazine covers, molecular diagrams 
- - along with some classic motorcycle stills.

It's a little interesting but certainly not the kind of 
organizational message that makes me think this group can get it 
together and run a viable petition drive and do enough educational 
work to get voters behind the cause. On the other hand, politics have 
gotten kind of strange these days and the MichICan project seems to 
follow the Donald Trump formula - say outrageous things, entertain 
the masses (with head banging music), and they will come. Nobody's 
actually voted for Trump as of yet so we don't know if that strategy 
works. But just like Trump is making political pundits' heads 
explode, the idea of totally unregulated marijuana is the kind of 
thing that makes the heads of the reefer madness contingent break 
into pieces and splash pieces of brain matter all over the place.

This brings me to more things that make the heads of the anti-weed 
contingent spin, wobble, explode, and other unusual things. Many of 
these things can be found online. While watching the images from the 
Abrogate Prohibition video on YouTube I glanced to the right and saw 
a title called "Weed Grandma Shows Us How to 420 Braise It." This 
edition of the Bong Appetit series featured a tiny, 91-year-old woman 
known as Nonna Marijuana preparing a meal of weed-infused chicken 
cacciatore and gnocchi.

Nonna Marijuana claims that she does not eat her own infusions. "I do 
not get high on my own supply," she rhymes.

Nonna Marijuana cooks cannabis meals for her daughter who suffers 
from seizures due to brain trauma in a car accident many years ago. 
"I was taking so many drugs I was very strung out on 
pharmaceuticals," the daughter said.

Anyhow, Nonna Marijuana is a hoot as she goes through preparing the 
meal with the host from Bong Appetit - joking, flirting, and playing 
the straight gal as her daughter and the Bong host get sillier and 
sillier as they eat her food.

In a follow-up video, "Nonna Marijuana Responds to You Tube 
Comments," she continues her shtick. In response to one comment 
suggesting that she get high she says, "Thirty eight years ago I did. 
I inhaled once, I slept for over 12 hours, and so it's not for me. I 
don't like the taste of it; I don't like what it does for me, however 
if you need it, by god go ahead and use it."

And in response to a guy who chides her for her activities, she says, 
"Oh wake up Christopher for crying out loud. Grow up; keep away from 
the drugs that the pharmaceutical companies would like you to try."

Check her out, and while you are there check out some other 
head-exploding offerings. There are a ton of them there. For example, 
"2 Chainz Smokes Out of a $10,000 Bong."

2 Chainz is a rapper who also has a series called Most Expensivest 
Shit wherein he consumes really expensive stuff and talks about it. 
There are other episodes in which he samples a $1,000 ice cream 
sundae and one where he has a $295 burger.

When he goes into the shop the clerk starts showing him bongs that 
cost $600 and up. But when 2 Chainz says, "The name of my show is The 
Most Expensivest Shit," he pulls out the Armageddon. 2 Chainz quips, 
"Cuz it's the end of the world if you hit that motherfucker."

In his later musing, 2 Chainz says, "It was made out of glass, it had 
chandeliers, it did everything except glow in the dark."

I'm not exactly sure why 2 Chainz toking out of a $10,000 bong would 
make anyone other than 2 Chainz' head explode, but I really think it 
has that effect.

If they still have any brain matter left, maybe "How Much Weed Does 
Snoop Dogg Smoke?" will finish them off. Everybody knows that Snoop 
loves weed, and on this Reddit Ask Me Anything session, the hosts 
give Snoop's responses to various questions. In response to the 
question how much weed he smokes each day, Snoop responds, "81 blunts 
a day seven days a week."

Hmmm... that's a brain-exploding amount. The hosts doubted that he 
actually ingested that amount but it was a spirited discussion. In 
Negril, Jamaica, one time I watched two Brits try to smoke a pound of 
weed in 24 hours. They couldn't do it.

I also watched Nigerian Afrobeat master Fela Kuti chain smoke spliffs 
through a concert in Detroit. I can't remember for sure if it was 
when he played at the Fox or if it was at the Majestic. I'm a little 
confused. I may have got a contact high.

Anyhow, back on YouTube there are plenty of videos to scare your 
non-marijuana cooking nonna. Another episode of Bong Appetit is 
titled "Cold Stoned Sundaes With the Cannabis Creamery." It shows how 
a family in the ice cream business has crossed the weed threshold in 
a new generation. The dad in the family tells how long ago he made 
some kind of grapefruit sensimellia thing for the Grateful Dead some 
time many years ago. And he kind of remembered it recently when his 
son started asking about cannabis-infused ice creams. Well one thing 
led to the next and now there is a cannabis creamery with ice cream 
that will make you silly and needs to be kept away from the kids.

Another edible instruction is called "How to Make Weed Hot Chocolate" 
and taught by a guy who refers to himself as a chocolate-maker and 
ethnobotanist. Right away I think some folks will find the 
"ethnobotanist" tag to be a little weird. But this guy knows all 
about chocolate and you have to get cocoa pods to make this. 
"Cannabis and chocolate are perfect complements to each other," says 
the ethnobotanist. "Cocoa paste has about 50 percent cocoa butter 
content." That cocoa butter is what extracts the good stuff from the 
cannabis for this concoction. By the way, turmeric is used in the 
recipe. I've heard that populations that eat a lot of turmeric (like 
in India) there is a much lower incidence of Alzheimer's.

Anyhow, the reason this kind of talk makes people's heads explode is 
they just don't want people to get high on marijuana. And when they 
see all these different means of copping a buzz it drives them crazy. 
They're putting it in their food; they're spending their life savings 
on a $10,000 bong.

And at the extreme is the Abrogate Prohibition proposal, which pretty 
much lets anybody do anything they want with marijuana without the 
carrot of tax revenues. And that's just too much for the majority of people.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom