try where it's illegal. Though it may be frowned upon in some places today, human beings have been smoking marijuana pretty much since time began. In fact, just last month I was reading an article about the oldest stash of marijuana in the world. The greens in question were over 2,700 years old and they were found in a grave in the Gobi Desert. Since the deceased wanted to be buried with it, I have to assume he really liked the stuff. My favorite part of that article wasn't that some scientists found old marijuana. It wasn't that this find is physical evidence that people have been using marijuana for thousands of years. Instead, my favorite part of the article was that the stash these scientists found was "nearly two pounds." And those scientists initially thought that it was coriander, who gets buried with two pounds of coriander? Seriously, scientists. According to that first article, those scientists found more marijuana in a 2,700 year old grave in the Gobi Desert than the entire New Hampshire Police Department did last year. In case you were interested, the old marijuana had decomposed so much that no one could get high off it anymore, except maybe this guy.Now, if people were smoking weed when dragons ruled the seas, and people are still smoking weed, I'd venture to say the market for weed is going to stick around for a while longer. The weed market, or rather the Global Weed Market (GWM) would have it's HQ in Amsterdam. More specifically, those coffeehouses in the Red Light District, where marijuana use is supervised in a kind of pot-pub atmosphere. Or maybe on the streets of Canada where there is a "de facto tolerance" of personal marijuana use. Perhaps the headquarters of the GWM would be somewhere in Mexico where they have "the most liberal laws" in the world. I can't be sure, but I think the tides are turning towards a world where marijuana will be legal everywhere, and subsequently reduced to a standardized commodity that can be taxed and traded on the stock market. The marijuana capitalist machinery is being turned on, but is that a good thing?
Pictured to the right is a strand of marijuana known as "Big Bud." It has been "bred purely for yield volume" which means that for anyone growing with a limited amount of space, this is the most economic choice. To give you an idea of the size, the
coin in the picture isn't a dime as you may think, it's a quarter. At least, that's what the article said. What I'd really like to point out is that the marijuana being grown purely for yield is kind of sad. It's sad in the way that the world's biggest tomato is sad. I just know that tomato will taste terrible, I think it's wasteful and it seems like that energy could have been used to make a better tomato rather than a bigger one. The "Big Bud" strain of marijuana is a blend of the two most popular genetic groups of cannabis, the indica and sativa varieties. It boasts an only slightly above average THC content of 8-15% and is reported to be the cost-conscious marijuana smoker's strain of choice. The reason is because it's a good value ... for now. If marijuana becomes legal all around the world and is traded and sold and grown like a commodity, then young, sweet Mary Jane will turn into old and ugly Alice B. Toklas faster than you can spark a bowl. When I say this, I of course mean that marijuana, as a global commodity, will run the course that it has in Mexico. Namely, that Mexican marijuana is kind of beat up.The problem is the border patrol. In order to make any profit off of the illegal smuggling of drugs across the border from Mexico, something I like to call the "lemmings approach" is often employed. The lemmings approach revolves around the idea that if you throw enough drugs at the fence, at least some will get through. If you want to throw massive quantities of drugs at the fence, you need to grow massive quantities of drugs. And when you grow massive quantities, you don't always pay as much attention to detail as you should. It has been reported that the marijuana from Mexico is sub-par in all but one respect: price. It still costs the same today for an ounce of Mexican weed in Texas as it did in the 1970s. Almost makes me want to grow a mustache and move to Austin.
None of this means that marijuana has to do anything though. It might stay the same as it is and has been forever, stuck in this weird limbo of legality where some places look the other way when it happens and other places just allow it outright. On the other hand, marijuana could get bigger or smaller or better or worse, it's too soon to tell. My hope is that someday marijuana will be legalized and perfected. I imagine that the world would be a much better place if marijuana were legal, it's called a 'peace-pipe' for a reason. Maybe the new Secretary of State Hill-Dog can incorporate the peace-pipe into US foreign policy over the next couple of years, we can only hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment