Good morning, Sodom and Gomorrah. Good morning, sinners. No, that wasn't your radio set on the blink again.
While that Big Audio Dynamite lyric struck me as appropriate for some weird reason, here's another multicultural band with a fitting song to help you celebrate today. Read along!
And here's the quintessential scene from the quintessential bad brothers of bong. And oldie but a so very goodie.
There is no reason for me to be bumping down zman's epic tome, but I think Whit missed me a bit, so I thought I'd pop in here to GTB HQ before I return to the hellsite that is twitter dot com. And why actually produce a post for the first time in months now, you ask? 'CAUSE WEED, that's why. More specifically, how some recent scientific study showed that cannabis may prove useful in some cases fighting this fucking god awful never-ending shitshow pandemic.
"Compounds in cannabis can prevent infection from the virus that causes Covid-19 by blocking its entry into cells, according to a study published this week by researchers affiliated with Oregon State University. A report on the research, “Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants,” was published online on Monday by the Journal of Natural Products."
Puff, puff, prevent folks. Think it's time to get Luniz to cut a new track.
Happy 4/20, people. It's an old story by now, but for the few uninitiated...
1971... Five friends at San Rafael High School in California ("The Waldos") coin the term "4:20" as a euphemism for smoking pot. April 20th becomes a popular day to spark one up, as does 4:20 pm. Note that the Boston song "Smokin'" clocks in at 4 minutes, 20 seconds, and if you multiply the title numbers in Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 And #35," you get 420. Dude!
--From songfacts.com
Now more than ever, weed is in the social conscious, and the punny headlines everywhere reflect it:
On the evening of Thursday April 28, 2016, a video of Laremy Tunsil smoking a bong appeared on the internet. The NFL draft began a few minutes later. Predictably, a great deal of hew and cry ensued--Tunsil was a dominant player at the University of Mississippi and was projected to be a top 5 pick but he "fell" (I use quotation marks because this guy would posit that his fall was much worse and more painful) all the way to #13 due to the video. Various talking heads stated that Tunsil lacked judgment, that he needed to get his act together, the he needed to get straightened out, that this would be a wake-up call for him, and myriad other cliches insinuating that Tunsil is a criminal ... despite the fact that smoking marijuana is legal in all of Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, the District of Columbia, and the cities of Portland and South Portland in Maine and Keego Harbor, Michigan, and that possession has been decriminalized in 14 other states including Mississippi! In fact, first-time possession offenders (of 30 grams or less) in Mississippi are merely fined $100 to $250, roughly the same penalty as parking in a handicapped spot on the Ole Miss campus. Clearly the people of Mississippi and their legislators don't think this is a big deal.
In apparent accord, about 48 hours later the leader of the free world said this:
Obama on his approval ratings: "The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major" #WHCDhttps://t.co/cU4YnxkHkv
Everybody laughed. Probably because many other elected officials admit to smoking dope in the past, including Presidents Clinton and Bush 43; Vice-President and former Senator Al Gore; current Senators and Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz; former Senator/Democratic Party Presidential nominee and current Secretary of State John Kerry; former Senators Rick Santorum and John Edwards; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; current Governor Andrew Cuomo; and former Governors Jeb! "sorry mom" Bush, George Pataki, Sarah Palin, Howard Dean, Jesse Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
So Tunsil's in some elite company. Literally millions of people voted for these guys despite the fact that they burn. Why the hell should anyone care if a fat college kid in Mississippi--again, where smoking dope is decriminalized--gets high from time to time? You mean to tell me that marijuana use and the potential resulting lack of mental acuity is more important when critiquing offensive linemen than potential Commanders-in-Chief of the world's most powerful military force? Stoners are qualified to have access to nuclear launch codes but not to play offensive tackle for one of the twelve worst teams in the NFL? Get the fuck outta here.
A few hours before President Obama started joking about toking, the New England Patriots drafted Malcolm Mitchell, a wide receiver from the University of Georgia. Mitchell made a name for himself off the field as well. ESPN.com posted a heartwarming story about him last year. Mitchell came to UGA "reading at about a junior-high level." When asked how he expected to survive academically at the flagship of Georgia's public education system, Mitchell said "It's not that hard [to get through]." Mitchell blew his knee out in the 2013 season opener, and with all the sudden free time on his hands he decided to learn to read at the adult level. He read some children's books and grew into more age-appropriate literature--his proudest accomplishment is reading all the Hunger Games books in two days. His love of reading was further nurtured and developed after he blundered his way into a book club comprising middle-aged women. Seriously.
Mitchell went on to write his own children's book, available at readwithmalcolm.com. Predictably, NCAA rules prevent Mitchell from promoting his book on any UGA-related website.
Am I the only person who finds this story troublesome? First, how did Mitchell manage to get into college? Second, how was he getting through UGA before he decided to learn to read at an adult level? Third, why wasn't anyone at UGA working with him to improve his reading skills? Fourth, would he have ever improved his reading if he never hurt his knee (i.e., if he had no free time to practice reading)? Fifth, would he have graduated if he continued to read at a middle-school level? Sixth, why did he have to join a club of elderly women to find people to discuss literature with--couldn't he have found this resource in an English class or with other students or maybe even his teammates and coaches? Seventh, why isn't there an NCAA investigation into all of the foregoing issues?
So Tunsil is a bad guy for engaging in a non-criminal recreational activity while in college (which the leader of the free world laughingly reminisces about doing in college), and the University of Georgia's complete failure to educate a student results in a feel-good story? I just don't get it.
The D.C. Board of Elections has officially certified Ballot Initiative 71 for November’s general election. If passed by a majority of D.C. voters, Initiative 71 will repeal all criminal and civil penalties for the personal possession and limited, private cultivation of marijuana. Passage of this initiative will be yet another step towards sensible marijuana policies in our nation’s capital, so make sure your voter registration is current if you are a D.C. resident so you can vote “yes” on November 4. - See more here.
The measure, if enacted, won't open the door to marijuana sales, but it will legalize possession of up two ounces and at-home cultivation of as many as six plants, as well as paraphernalia. Current law bars D.C. from adopting laws related to the sale of marijuana via ballot measure, though the D.C. Council is thought to be working on separate legislation that would allow for the regulation and taxation of pot in the District.
Political analysts believe that the measure is almost certain to pass (and by 'political analysts', I mean, 'I') in the significantly left-leaning Nation's Capital. However, if history is any guide, Congress may step in to override the will of the voters. In 1998, after DC residents passed a law legalizing medicinal marijuana, Republicans used the appropriations process to attach riders prohibiting the District government from enacting the law. Congress succeeded in blocking implementation for 10 years. D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton has serious flow on this topic, "“We will not let history repeat itself. Republicans tried to prevent D.C. from voting on an initiative in 1998 to legalize medical marijuana, and after voters approved it, blocked its implementation with an appropriations rider for more than 10 years. We are not surprised that Republicans are threatening to again use the power of the federal government to block the will of the voters of a local jurisdiction. Many Republicans abandon their professed support of local control of local affairs when they have an opportunity to bully the residents of the District, who cannot hold them accountable at the ballot box. We have already begun working with our allies to protect the will of D.C. voters.”
The early returns on legalization in Colorado and Washington have generally demonstrated the banality of legal toking, and in at least a few statistical examples, the opposite results of those predicted by fearmongers like Rep. John Mica (R-Fla), who said, "We are going to have a lot more people stoned on the highway and there will be consequences."
Andrew Sullivan, a long-time advocate of legalization, said today, "One longstanding theory is that more pot use will mean less alcohol use. You can’t infer than from this data, but it sure looks encouraging. Can you imagine what prohibition will look like in retrospect if it emerges that legalizing weed saves lots of lives?"
Well, yeah. It'll look like a lot of other things that an increasingly irrelevant generation of mostly white men in power clung to in order to protect a status quo that maybe didn't need protecting. We'll still see raging at the dying of the light, without question, but I'd wager that we'll see legalization at the Federal level within 10 years.
Sooner, if Congress gets its hands on some legal D.C. weed.
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