Harshing your mellow

July 1, 2008 12:39 PM

The environmental cost of large-scale pot farming
posted by serazin (63 comments total)

wow, thanks for this serazin. i had no idea.
posted by CitizenD at 12:48 PM on July 1, 2008

Step 1: Legalise it.
Step 2: Regulate it.
Step 3: Tax it.
Step 4: Subsidize sustainable, healthy growing initiatives.
Step 4: Use the vastly increased public resources to deal with non-compliance.

Until this happens, we're just pissing up a rope.
posted by jimmythefish at 12:49 PM on July 1, 2008 [10 favorites]

It is the state's largest cash crop, generating nearly $14 billion, more than grapes, vegetables, and hay combined.

And no taxation without legalisation.

Now can anyone in Sacremento think of a way to close that massive Republican budget shortfall?
posted by three blind mice at 12:49 PM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Very interesting article. And yet another reason to just stop the farce that is the drug war and start regulating these growers like any other farmer/business.
posted by rooftop secrets at 12:50 PM on July 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Hey, this is in my neck of the Emerald Triangle, where a large pot raid took place just last week. Didn't touch 215 growers or dispensaries, though.

I agree that outdoor grows need to go away - it's a menace to hikers and the environment. Plus, outdoor pot sucks compared to quality indoor herb.
posted by porn in the woods at 12:50 PM on July 1, 2008

Yeah, the big biker gang run farms are gonna be like that, but the ones I know are hand carried, sun fed west coast operations using grow bags placed in trees, bat guano and shrimp compost. The biker run grow-ops parallel industrial agriculture on so many levels... all the more reason why we would we be better off if it was legalized so that they could be held up to public scrutiny.
posted by Null Pointer and the Exceptions at 12:52 PM on July 1, 2008

Is there some reason the word "farm" or "garden" can't be used for these operations? The article must have used "grow" as a noun at least 30 times.
posted by yath at 1:01 PM on July 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

I'm all for legalization, not just here in CA but everywhere. However, the article says that they aren't having issues with legal growers, that it's primarily cartels from South America that are doing the dangerous growing. How does legalization and taxation have any impact on that, aside from possibly giving the sate more money to track down and shut down these operations?
posted by mikoroshi at 1:02 PM on July 1, 2008

Interesting read on the same day that a story about a CA bill to legalize marijuana for everyone hits the wire.
posted by revmitcz at 1:05 PM on July 1, 2008

I'm gonna weight in on the side of sanity here and submit that we should avoid legalizing marijuana at all costs. As everyone with any sense knows all too well, marijuana is the weed of the Devil and is the root of most of the social ills we've had to endure since the sixties (it's a gateway drug, even. You know that, don't you?). Any money made by the government on the sale of legalized marijuana would just be blood money - SATAN money - and would only bring us more trouble that we already have.

Well, that's off my chest, anyway. If you need any more level-headed advice from me, I'll just be over here in the fallout shelter my father built under the garage, sipping a whiskey and smoking my pipe.

A TOBACCO pipe, you smart-aleck!
posted by Pecinpah at 1:13 PM on July 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

Plus, outdoor pot sucks compared to quality indoor herb

I strongly disagree. Good, well- grown outdoor is far superior, it's clear and strong and doesn't make you feel burned out.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:14 PM on July 1, 2008 [4 favorites]

I don't smoke anymore, but I think it should be legal and taxed. Pot farmers should follow the same laws everyone else does.
posted by RussHy at 1:19 PM on July 1, 2008

Henry Alden, vice president of Walala Gualala Redwoods Inc.

I know Gualala is a teeny little town, but it's still nice to spell it correctly.
posted by stefanie at 1:21 PM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

However, the article says that they aren't having issues with legal growers, that it's primarily cartels from South America that are doing the dangerous growing. How does legalization and taxation have any impact on that, aside from possibly giving the sate more money to track down and shut down these operations?

Because we could all buy American.
posted by triolus at 1:23 PM on July 1, 2008

How does legalization and taxation have any impact on that, aside from possibly giving the sate more money to track down and shut down these operations?

For a clear example of why legalization would take the wind out of all cartel-type operations, take a look at how prohibition made it possible for organized crime to make incredible amounts of money and grow extensively just by trafficking alcohol.

If pot were legalized it would be possible for many people to simply grow their own, in their yard. It's a fucking weed, after all. Aside from that all cigarette manufacturers would dust off their "pot is now legal" playbook and you'd be able to buy a taxable carton of the stuff next week.
posted by odinsdream at 1:28 PM on July 1, 2008

In addition to winning the War on Drugs, drugs are now salting the earth to curse future generations.

And this is so much better than cops needing to outfit breathalyzer guns to detect THC as well how?
posted by Gucky at 1:36 PM on July 1, 2008

How does legalization and taxation have any impact on that, aside from possibly giving the sate more money to track down and shut down these operations?

Because instead of having to make six phone calls, or making a risky trip to see the corner boys, or jumping through hoops to get a medical card for "headaches" or "back pain" or "cramps", we could just go to the store. Like, when I want beer, I don't have to go to great lengths to See a Guy - I can just go to the corner store, or the grocery store, or BevMo, or Trader Joe's, etc. And the illegal grow ops would very likely wither away to nothing, because they wouldn't be able to compete with the legal farms. I mean, I know there are still moonshiners in some parts of the country, but they occupy a vanishingly small niche in a world where you can buy alcohol legally from pretty much anywhere.
posted by rtha at 1:43 PM on July 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

Pecinpah wrote "it's a gateway drug, even"

...but only because you have to go to a drug dealer to get it.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:48 PM on July 1, 2008 [7 favorites]

I don't smoke anything, but I can see the sense of legalizing, regulating and taxing the hell out of the stuff. As long as there are severe consequences for operating motor vehicles, or any equipment that could endanger others, while under the influence, I don't have a problem with it.

If we had an enlightened president, he could let the states make their own laws and instruct the feds to quit wasting their time, and our money, on enforcement.
posted by acetonic at 1:55 PM on July 1, 2008

It's pretty blunt (no pun intended):

Allman wants to clarify one point: "There is a ser-ious distinction to be made. Many medical [legal] marijuana growers are some of the most responsible citizens around. They buy soil in bulk, use rat traps instead of poison, water with timers and drip systems. They have very little physical impact on the land. I'm not up against legal growers. The ones I'm concerned with are the ones polluting the environment in the name of huge profits. The plants are seasonal, but the environmental damage lasts forever."

Also, regarding the effect of legalization on drug cartels and other illegal importers, there's nothing about domestic legalization laws that would necessarily make it legal to import marijuana. You could easily legalize possession and growth here in the U.S. but still let the Feds bust anyone trying to sneak the stuff in across the border. Or alternately, require that the tax be paid by the grower/importer — if the cartels don't pay for the right tax stamps, they'd just end up getting busted.

What you'd end up doing is putting the cartels in direct competition with legitimate businesses, in an area where the cartels don't have any advantage. They have a lot of experience at smuggling drugs, but I doubt they're going to beat out RJ Reynolds when it comes to manufacturing and distributing marijuana products through legitimate distribution chains. And they're probably not going to be able to compete on quality with hobbyist growers in the boutique market, either. There's just no place for them.

You don't see Mexican drug cartels doing a lot of legitimate business — the profits aren't big enough and there's too much competition. Legalize pot and they'll be forced out. It won't eliminate them, just like ending Prohibition didn't eliminate the organized criminal enterprises that had sprung up to fill the demand for alcohol, but it will force them to possibly scale back and find other avenues for profit.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:56 PM on July 1, 2008

I basically agree with the sentiments in this thread but we should also think about what legal agriculture actually looks like in this country. The person who told me about this article was pointing out that if we just legalize pot farming, it’ll be monocroped in Iowa like corn or cotton and the issues of pesticide and fertilizer runoff, water table and soil depletion and destruction of small-scale farming practices will be major issues.

Save the planet! Grow your own!
posted by serazin at 2:05 PM on July 1, 2008

How does legalization and taxation have any impact on that, aside from possibly giving the sate more money to track down and shut down these operations?

If marijuana were legalized there would be almost no large scale illicit growing operations because most of the profit would go out of it, just as there is no large scale illegal alcohol production any more (although the problem has not apparently vanished entirely, but obviously it is not remotely on the scale it was at during prohibition).
posted by nanojath at 2:10 PM on July 1, 2008

Thanks for the post, Serazin. The Berkeley Ecology Center site has all kinds of great info, and Terrain often has wonderful articles.

I've recently began thinking about this exact problem, thanks to this article in [paid subscription req] Harpers: The Many Uses of the Daniel Boone National Forest. It talks about "assault, murder, rape, turkey-baiting, timber theft, drug trafficking, body-dumping, ginseng poaching , looting of archaeological sites, DUI's and off-road vehicle violations, illegal camping, fishing and hunting out of season. Marijuana is grown in the southern half of the Daniel Boone, and every fall, especially at Halloween, the woods are set afire."
Thanks to the Bush admin, the Forest Service now has one law officer for every 291,000 acres, and attacks and threats against Forest Service employees "have increased more than fivefold in the last decade."

It's well worth picking up a copy of Harper's.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:15 PM on July 1, 2008

From this month on tobacco is banned while cannabis is ok in Holland.

The owners claim the law, which will allow customers to light up potent tobacco-free pure cannabis joints but ban milder spliffs in which tobacco is mixed with cannabis, threatens to put hundreds of them out of business.
posted by ersatz at 2:20 PM on July 1, 2008

The environmental cost of large-scale pot farming
posted by regicide is good for you at 2:20 PM on July 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

Hey--I just had a thought: Why not open up Mars to pot farming? It's got good soil. And surely, it's not illegal there.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:25 PM on July 1, 2008

If marijuana were legalized there would be almost no large scale illicit growing operations because most of the profit would go out of it

I wouldn't be so sure... Bootleg smokes and booze aren't hard to find, if you care enough to look. It all boils down to price; if Johnny McDealer has a better price then people will still go to him. Dealers have a history of not asking for ID.

Pot is also far safer to grow than booze is to distill.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:30 PM on July 1, 2008

There is a larger issue here and that is one of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp is considered a cure-all plant. It's relatively easy to grow, has a million uses (okay that might be an exaggeration), and does not need nearly the amounts of pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers that traditional ag crops require. Getting high is one thing: immoral, degrading, unhealthy, sure, but competing directly with the petroleum, paper, and pharmaceutical industries? Omigod, we must never, ever legalize cannabis sativa. It is simply unAmerican, i.e. bad for business.

http://www.industrialhemp.net/#faq
posted by suelange at 2:46 PM on July 1, 2008

Heh. "Pot farting".
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:57 PM on July 1, 2008

California leads the nation in indoor and outdoor marijuana production. It is the state's largest cash crop, generating nearly $14 billion, more than grapes, vegetables, and hay combined.

And that's with it being illegal and hidden. So many of the things listed here as being detrimental to the environment (diesel runoff, etc) are a direct result of the need to run a clandestine operation. Bring it out into the open by legalizing it, and a bunch of these problems would go away.

Hell, I don't even use the stuff, but when I see an easy way to start refilling the national treasury, which is instead being used to make drug cartels rich, I get so. fucking. irritated.
posted by quin at 2:58 PM on July 1, 2008

The obvious solution is for all those growers to use biodiesel for their generators.
posted by Class Goat at 3:02 PM on July 1, 2008

If they legalize it McDonald's will be all over it. You thought america had an obesity epidemic before? Wait until your burger makes you even more hungry.
posted by srboisvert at 3:30 PM on July 1, 2008

Your favorite environmentally-hazardous strain of weed.... uhh... huh, i forgot what i was gonna say.
posted by porn in the woods at 3:42 PM on July 1, 2008

grocery store, or BevMo, or Trader Joe's, etc

Weed from the corner bottleshop: The weed is all quite potent, but a bit dry. You can buy as little as a $1 spliff or as much as an eighth, but at all levels it's too expensive unless everything else is closed or you don't really want to walk very far. However, finally you can get a Rockstar, a hip flask of vodka, a blunt wrap or pack of papers and and a few nugs all in one purchase. Previously you had to buy everything but the weed in the store, and then step outside for a second transaction with some kid wearing three cell phones, baggy pants, a $200 baseball cap covered in graphics of various guns and an oversized t-shirt so ornately decorated with rhinstone-embedded marijuana leaf imprints you actually find yourself questioning if he might be gay.

Weed from the grocery store: There's only one kind of weed, and it comes in a cellophane baggy on a lurid orange hang tag, found amongst the "ethnic spices" isle, hanging between some bland looking dried peppers and a pale bag of dubious looking horchata drink mix, all in the same plastic bags. The weed looks and smells suspiciously like oregano. Despite this it still costs $20 per gram.

Weed from BevMo: Everything is available from $5 bales of ditchweed to $200 dollar a gram gourmet hybrids grown exclusively in a caviar-seaweed mulch constantly prayed over by Rastafarian priests playing deep, soothing dub. Thankfully, there's also an array of consumer friendly pot - all of which pretty much costs $20 a gram, just like before legalization.

Weed from Trader Joe's, round 1: Decided by a coin-toss, Trader Joe's decides that weed is "produce" to be sold in the "produce" section. Therefore there is only one or two kinds of weed. One is labeled "organic weed" while the other just says "weed". The organic variety costs about 30% more by volume. Both varieties come in the same packaging - a clear plastic shell crudely taped shut, with simple labeling. The weed in both containers looks roughly identical, and it looks like they came from the same farm. In some Trader Joe's, you can find "fresh weed" in the refrigerated produce isle between the bags of spinach and blocks of feta. It looks just like the other weed they sell, except it is slightly moist and refrigerated.

Weed from Trader Joe's, round 2: Realizing the error, the Trader Joe's team moves all weed from the produce isle to the wine, beer and spirits isle. There are now approximately 50 kinds of weed here. Many have hipster and irony-friendly labels such as "Skunk Ass", "Sierra Nevada Golden Glow Grow", "Dude, where's my car?" and "Indica Uber Alles". Upon asking a friendly, Hawaiian-shirted associate which one would be the equivalent of their affordable but highly recommended Monopolowa Vodka offering, you're readily directed to a bag of intense looking but affordable flowers in a plain looking package, labled "Afghani Death Blossoms". It does the trick nicely.

Weed from Trader Joe's, round 3: Same as round two, but the weed has been relocated to the far end of Trader Joe's infamous snack isle - you know the one, filled with nuts, dried fruits, chocolate covered everything and a startling array of popcorn-like objects and something known as "Pirates Booty" which resembles cheese-dusted styrofoam packing peanuts. Free weed samples are given out by an expert bongmaster and spliff roller at a small but comfortable kiosk on an endcap, where samples of lemonade and snacks are also provided.

After lingering for two hours, all hopped up on free coffee and chocolate and more than a little red-eyed, you dumbly shamble down the snack isle to check out. It takes another hour to make it to the checkout line, and you've discovered that your plan to quickly dart in and out of the store has succumbed to an entire shopping cart full of snacks, half of which seem to be variations of "Pirate's Booty", while the other half seems to be about fifty pounds of nuts and another twenty pounds of various kinds of chocolate.

Meanwhile, the locally-hired-artist hand-painted signage in your local Trader Joe's rapidly moves from bland to impressively ornate displays of creativity and whimsy - but things tend to be labeled incorrectly, if the signs are even in the right isles. You mention this to the manager, who replies "Oh, right. I've been meaning to have a chat with him about that, but every time we go on break I forget what it was I was going to talk to him about. Did you find everything ok? Do you need any... snacks? I think I need some... snacks," at which point the manager goes back to trying to build a miniature desktop trebuchet out of pretzels.


And last, but best - weed from the local Farmer's Market: There's two or three stalls selling weed, each with many varieties. Oddly, you remember just a few weeks ago that these same stalls and farmers sold a lot of delicious tomatoes, salad greens, apples, and berries at ridiculously cheap prices. You've often noted the hippy-like nature of the stall operators, and wondered how they could sell vegetables so cheaply week after week. Now you know.

The names on the signs are exotic, hand-inked with colorful markers. The signs also indicate local origins, growing conditions, hybrid types and organic or inorganic status. The weed is ridiculously cheap, as well as lush and outrageously delicious - but much of it is also poorly groomed or otherwise rather wild looking. Some booths have entire plants hanging in them. When you ask for a twenty dollar bag the rather faded looking hippy farmer shrugs, picks up a large machete and hacks off about half of a plant and stuffs it into your burlap shopping bag, spilling weed everywhere. He or she starts to ask "Is that enough... no, wait..." and then also puts a large brownie in your bag and then, with a large metal scoop, shovels up about a cupful of what looks like beige sand or salt, drops it in a baggy and also puts that in your bag. "A little table kief. Good for cooking or sprinkling on spliffs! Have a great weekend!"

Which you do. Though you don't remember much of it, you do remember eating everything in the house, including a sandwich involving peanut butter, ice cream, bacon and pancakes that sounded like a good idea at the time but was proven otherwise - much like the attempt at repainting the bathroom about the same time. Something about being inspiried by the color of fresh blueberries in vanilla ice cream "soup", which involved rushing off to the local hardware store with a handful of blueberries and a bowl of rapidly melting ice cream as "color samples".
posted by loquacious at 3:43 PM on July 1, 2008 [222 favorites]

well. we know why your name is loquacious now, don't we?
posted by msconduct at 4:17 PM on July 1, 2008 [4 favorites]

well. we know why your name is loquacious now, don't we?

Now you do? You must be new here. ;)
posted by loquacious at 4:25 PM on July 1, 2008 [7 favorites]

Hey--I just had a thought: Why not open up Mars to pot farming? It's got good soil. And surely, it's not illegal there.

This has actually been proposed as a method of starting to terraform Mars and increase the oxygen levels.

No, seriously. Using genetically modified hemp suitable for high altitudes and cold climates, it was proposed to plant millions of hardy hemp (not sensimillia) plants (around the poles, AFAIR) to free up water and increase oxygen.

It might actually work, too.

Yes, many of the folks over at JPL or CalTech partake - why do you ask? You say that like it's a bad thing. Look, you really should talk to Feynman or Sagan before outright denying recreational marijuana's positive role in Cosmology, (astro)physics and other realms of the sciences.

No, I don't have a link handy. I suppose I'd start by googling "hemp+mars+terraform".
posted by loquacious at 4:37 PM on July 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

All that, loquacious, and not one mention of the weed selection at Whole Foods?
posted by dw at 4:43 PM on July 1, 2008

Great post and I love the responses, especially loquacious's narrative of how legalization would unfold. The stupidity of the WOD never ceases to astound me. Its human and financial costs must be as large as those of the WOT. Oh, and don't forget:

Drugs 'er baaad, 'nkay? Don't do drugs, 'nkay?
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:46 PM on July 1, 2008

loq, my favorite is purely for your last sentence.

I recall once conceiving of a use for these little blue's clues pawprint post-its I have (I love Blue from Blue's Clues if you didn't know that already). My brilliant idea: I was just going to put them all over. One on the door, one on the toaster, whatever. So they'd all indicate "A Clue!" and nobody would really know a clue for what, but maybe they'd try to string it together. Some kind of "chaos and possibility of language formation" theory was involved.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:50 PM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

All that, loquacious, and not one mention of the weed selection at Whole Foods?

Whole whats? Isn't that a subsidiary of Pottery Barn?

Oh, fine. The weed at Whole Foods is sold from what used to be the "olive bar". Even people who really like olives could never figure out why Whole Foods would dedicate an entire store within a store to olives, but I digress.

There are approximately 400 kinds of weed at the bar. Most are sold in bulk from bulk bins. The bins appear to be clean, but if you inspected the inside or underside of the bins you'd probably walk out of the store a distinct shade of unpleasant green which was neither envy nor plant envy.

Some of the weed is sold in highly complicated looking recycled-paper packages that look like they were designed by Art Center or fashion school dropouts, and other boutique brands are packaged in reusable tins (which are promptly thrown away after collecting a dozen or so). The tins have brightly printed, life-affirming quotations all over them by notable, peaceful world figures.

However, even the least expensive bulk weed they have in stock is about 3x overpriced, and appears to be infested with what appear to be organic mites.

Just before you make a selection from a bin with only a mild mite infestation, some young rasta looking kid warns you off and asks you to meet him outside, where he hooks you up with a nice bag for about half the price. "Real hippies only come here to shoplift," he says knowingly, pulling a vegan deli sandwich out of the cargo pocket of his surplus Army jacket and munching on it before walking away.
posted by loquacious at 4:59 PM on July 1, 2008 [13 favorites]

The store that would be the first to stock legal weed would have to be 7-11. Half the shit on their shelves seems to have been created with the munchies in mind.
posted by jonmc at 5:01 PM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

loq, can I be your neighbor?
posted by LordSludge at 5:05 PM on July 1, 2008

Legalized Weed: Marlboro "Greens", etc. are quickly introduced, which contain enough pot to get you high but, more importantly to Altria, are still mostly tobacco to keep you addicted.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 5:46 PM on July 1, 2008

I don't want my kids to smoke pot, but I don't want them to drink or smoke cigarettes, either, and so I've got my work cut out for me -- and meanwhile, let's collect that revenue!
posted by davejay at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2008

including a sandwich involving peanut butter, ice cream, bacon and pancakes that sounded like a good idea at the time but was proven otherwise

Off-topic, go get yourself microwaveable pancakes from Trader Joe's and a pint of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream, cook the pancakes, and dollop on some ice cream. Wait a bit for melting, then enjoy life a bit more.
posted by davejay at 6:20 PM on July 1, 2008

loq, can I be your neighbor?

You're kind of far. Did you invent some kind of teleportation device or extremely fast vehicle of some sort or are there some interesting particulars to geography that I've been entirely unaware of for thirty years?

Otherwise, you have my blessing. But I don't see why you'd need my permission to buy or rent a home near me. I'm sure as hell not leaving California if I can help it. Things are getting interesting around here.
posted by loquacious at 6:24 PM on July 1, 2008

loquacious: You forgot that at Trader Joe's, all the weed would be prefixed with "Trader Jah's". And goddammit, if they put weed next to those dark chocolate covered almonds, my heart would stop.
posted by Mach5 at 6:41 PM on July 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

What about Starbucks, loquacious? I hear tell they need help with the ol' biz plan, after all.
posted by mwhybark at 6:42 PM on July 1, 2008

What an amazing coincidence! If you replace the words "marijuana" with "hogs" and "drug cartels" with "industry," you basically get this article.

Like, whoa! Dude! Who would have thought that using unsustainable and irresponsible methods is bad in all agriculture?
posted by Panjandrum at 6:45 PM on July 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Starbuck's weed would be over-dried and over-priced.

But on the shelves they'd have some pretty decent vapourisers at a good price.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:33 PM on July 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

You forgot that at Trader Joe's, all the weed would be prefixed with "Trader Jah's".

This is why I love MetaFilter. *takes notes*
posted by loquacious at 7:47 PM on July 1, 2008

Great article -- and it comes from a great place: Terrain Magazine, a publication of the Ecology Center in Berkeley, CA. Both the magazine and the Center's website are high quality green living resources -- zero percent flakey, one hundred percent effective and intelligent. We'll be hearing more about these guys as we slide into the abyss.
posted by gum at 7:59 PM on July 1, 2008

You know those Total Greek yogurt+honey things? The crack cocaine of yogurt? If When weed is legalized and taxed, Trader Jah's will start offering little plastic tubs with two compartments: one will have some neatly rolled joints, and the other will have chocolate-covered somethings. It will be organic and $6.99, and it will become a thing that everyone brings to parties.
posted by rtha at 8:40 PM on July 1, 2008

"...There should be a California redemption value for soil bags."
posted by hortense at 10:04 PM on July 1, 2008

I agree with liquidwolf.
posted by MNDZ at 10:36 PM on July 1, 2008

You know, it's likely that states actually would be able to legalize marijuana on their own under an Obama administration. I think Obama has said he supports decriminalizing marijuana, at least for people with small amounts.
posted by delmoi at 11:39 PM on July 1, 2008

rtha: that idea brings tears to my eyes
posted by Mach5 at 7:16 AM on July 2, 2008

rtha: that idea brings tears to my eyes

Doesn't it, though? I hope there's a mefite who works for TJ's product development....
posted by rtha at 8:22 AM on July 2, 2008

You know, it's likely that states actually would be able to legalize marijuana on their own under an Obama administration. I think Obama has said he supports decriminalizing marijuana, at least for people with small amounts.

Not so clear. Politics of change apparently means keep changing your stated position.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:57 AM on July 2, 2008

re indoor growing:
many people have chosen to stop growing indoors. global warming, anyone?
posted by mendocino at 9:02 AM on July 2, 2008

The store that would be the first to stock legal weed would have to be 7-11. Half the shit on their shelves seems to have been created with the munchies in mind.

Seriously though, I haven't been stoned in a while but whenever I walk into the 7-11 I get a serious contact high. They sell D grade DVDs, just all kinds of beef jerky, Car Mod magazines, Ice Cold Fountain soda, doughnuts and they have a whole case of those hotdog rollers devices but instead of just a few sketchy hotdogs they have like taquitos and terriyaki hotdogs encased in filo dough and fucking jalapeno laced bagel dogs with havarti and cocoa powder and I don't even know what the fuck all just rolling over and over on their little treadmill. I'd have to be higher than giraffe pussy to even fucking look at that thing straight on, as it is I kinda graze over it with the peripheral vision and I still hear a little echoey Lee Scratch Perry yodel when I do.

Not to mention that when I was in there this weekend trying to cop a couple king cone ice creams for me and the kid the dude behind the counter was so tore up that he kept trying to give me back change when I'd just handed him the 4.79 that those shits cost, I wanted to tell him to lie down and I'd whip him up a special chillout slurpee and man the register for a while till he got his shit together.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:26 AM on July 2, 2008 [6 favorites]

Sweet, I'll start walking...
posted by LordSludge at 10:14 AM on July 2, 2008