These are the facts of life, and stripped of all the quasi-religious and "moralistic" horseshit that fuels the zeal of the anti-pot crusaders, the marijuana industry is just that: an industry. It's a business, and it provides a living for countless numbers of growers and dealers, and it serves the needs of eager consumers who are willing to risk arrest, loss of job, imprisonment, seizure of personal property and all the other heinous measures devised by the alcohol-and-pill zealots to punish us.

And that's another chapter in the book of life, because any citizens of a certain age may acquire just as much alcohol, beer and wine as they may desire. In a social system where marijuana smokers are ruthlessly demonized and relentlessly persecuted under the phony banner of the War on Drugs, you can get your drinks damn near anywhere ... and damn the consequences. Just plop your money down and take away as much booze as you wanna.

This was a ridiculous picture when the drug authorities had the wool fully over people's eyes and sold them the vile notion that marijuana was a narcotic, and it's even more nonsensical now that nearly two out of every three Michigan voters have recognized the efficacy of marijuana as a medicine and nearly half of citizens nationwide favor the full leglization of weed.

At least people in Michigan aren't taking the latest anti-marijuana atrocities sitting down, as last week's protest on the lawn of the state Capitol demonstrated. The "largest pro-medical marijuana rally in Michigan" was credited with an attendance of 1,500 "young, old and sick in wheelchairs," as the News put it. 

One protest is not going to do the trick, and as Curt Guyette pointed out in last week's Metro Times, "there are some activists who are already looking ahead to the possibility that another ballot measure will be necessary to set things right here in Michigan. ...

"[But] no change ... is going to be achieved without an outpouring of public support. That means patients, their families and caregivers. It also means the accountants and lawyers and plumbers and electricians and grow shop owners and all the others who have seen the economic benefits that the law has already brought."

Amen, brother, amen. Let it grow!

—London Sept. 9, 2011

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