Might as well talk about it, now that it’s legal<\/b><\/p>\n
Last night I did something unusual. <\/p>\n
I’ve been very busy the last couple of weeks, but yesterday I managed to wind up all the big deadline-y things. I enjoyed the work, but finishing felt great. The sun was shining, too, after torrential rains earlier in the week and more wetness in the forecast as far as the weatherperson’s eye can see. <\/p>\n
Following an afternoon dog walk, I mixed myself a big Bloody Mary, vaped a bowl of Strawberry Cough, and took a long soak in my happily renewed clawfoot tub. Glorious.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Strawberry Cough, for we who are unused to the branded and labeled product, is a strain of marijuana. One of my recent interview subjects turned me on to it. It’s a sativa<\/i> so mild you scarcely feel it; you merely feel good<\/i>.<\/p>\n
It’s named for its supposed fruity taste and its immediate effect. Truth: the taste is putrid; if strawberries actually tasted like that I wouldn’t eat them. But the “cough” part of the name is accurate. The smoke (or vapor) is sharp and harsh and produces its namesake reaction even in experienced users. Ugh. But it’s so pleasant afterward<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I’ve never been a big pot smoker. I didn’t like the stuff at all when I was a kid (or the empty-headed party people I perceived favored it). But even before legalization, Northwest indoor-grown was a whole different order of experience. Now, being able to buy it by brand and strain, with labels spelling out THC and CBD content is (as they used to say) a head trip.<\/p>\n
Before legalization, certainly growers, true aficionados, and medical users were well up on the various strains, their genetics, and their effects. But to everybody else the type of pot was “whatever my friend has.” Or maybe “ditchweed” vs. “kickass.” Now it’s rather like buying wine. “Strawberry overtones,” indeed. Hmph.<\/p>\n
Government; The Mother of All Mafias<\/b><\/p>\n
The last time this subject came up here, several commentators objected — and a part of me understands — that being able to buy a state-licensed and state-taxed product isn’t freedom.<\/p>\n
No, it isn’t. What it is is a relief. And for some who’ve lived through the drug war, a miracle.<\/p>\n
What we have to understand is that government is nothing more, and nothing less, than a protection racket. As long as government is around, it will either be taxing, licensing, and regulating the things we use (in other words, collecting money). Or it will HURT US for using them. It knows no other method of relating to the world.<\/p>\n
Sure, taxes, licenses, and regulations hurt. But not as much as being dragged out of your vehicle or house and being locked up for some arbitrary term.<\/p>\n
Better the mob should take its cut and “protect” against its own enforcers.<\/p>\n
As long as we’re stuck with the mob, anyway. Getting rid of the mob is another issue.<\/p>\n
Liberty or license?<\/b><\/p>\n
That said, a part of me is very suspicious about the sudden turnabout, not only in government attitudes toward pot, but in the equally quick turnabout in “gender” issues. <\/p>\n
I’m glad for both (though I do wish, when it came to gender and sexuality, people would just shut up about it, enjoy their new status, and get on with life). Yet a part of me sees these particular turnarounds as suspiciously decadent.<\/p>\n
It’s as if the government knows we’re getting restless and seeks both to hand out favors (beyond the traditional ones of welfare for the masses and graft for the well-connected) and provide us with sensuous diversions to keep our minds off bigger issues.<\/p>\n
It’s as if we’re supposed to forget what freedom really<\/i> means because we’re so absorbed in these particular pleasant personal liberties. <\/p>\n
I suspect Rome.<\/p>\n
Still, I’ll take it.<\/p>\n
Mindset uber alles<\/b><\/p>\n
No, being able to walk into a state-licensed store and get a recommendation from the enthusiastic young lady who used to be run the Economic Development Commission isn’t freedom. But it’s a big improvement.<\/p>\n
Once again I think of those adamant anarchist souls who declare, “I won’t be free until —–” (usually “I won’t be free until no one can tell me what I can do with my own property”).<\/p>\n
If that’s your thinking, then I agree. You won’t be free.<\/p>\n
And that’s a pity for you.<\/p>\n
I know most people here don’t feel that way. The real, personal nature of freedom — freedom as mindset — is an old familiar theme hereabouts. We aren’t raising our fists, shouting demands, and refusing to be free unless we can have 100% unadulterated freedom. Given to us. Or surrendered to us. By somebody else.<\/p>\n
But how many of our anarcho-whatever brethren totally miss that freedom begins with mindset and all else follows from there? How many still view freedom as some external condition — which must be all or nothing, undimmed by even a shadow of statism? Or they won’t. Be. Free. Damnit. So. There.<\/p>\n
Oh, don’t get me wrong; if I could step through a portal and go live in L. Neil Smith’s North American Confederacy, I would in a heartbeat. I very much think such a thing is worth working and dreaming toward (with or without the dolphins and intelligent ape-citizens). <\/p>\n
I’d even fight for such a world, if I knew of any sort of fight that would likely lead there<\/i> instead of merely ending up with somebody else in charge of a slightly different protection racket.<\/p>\n
“I won’t be free until …”<\/b><\/p>\n
“I won’t be free until …” usually involves being free to do something on our own property that our current neighbors and governments object to. Set up a feed lot. Build a nuke in our garage. Run around naked in the front yard. Grow pot. Burn trash. Whatever. How dare those anti-freedom neighbors stop us!<\/p>\n
The reality is that even if someday we each get our own personal asteroid, there are going to be other people in the vicinity who feel (sometimes legitimately) that they need to put limits on our behavior. (“That damned Old Bob. Blew up his own asteroid with that nuke he insisted on tinkering with. Fine for him, but now the trade routes are full of dangerous debris. We need to prevent some future Bob from messing things up for the rest of us.”) Sometimes they’re absolutely right; people have to observe certain courtesies to live in anything resembling society. Other times, they’re complete busybody a**holes.<\/p>\n
Either way, people end up forming governments and “protecting” everybody into tyranny — unless we make ourselves and our (physical or intellectual) progeny government-resistant enough to find other ways of interacting with our less-convenient neighbors.<\/p>\n
That<\/i> is a much bigger, harder, though less dramatic fight than any brave April morning fantasies.<\/p>\n