Letter to the Editor – POT
By Roger Kostmayer
Exhibit 1 is the arrest of 64 year old Michael Davis for growing marijuana on Big Coppitt Key. Exhibit 2 is “Morning Joe” Scarborough, the conservative TV sage from Alabama who proclaimed “Pot makes you stupid” – but failed to mention booze, beer, tobacco, assault rifles, iphones, dessert and other things that should be used in moderation if intelligent behavior is the goal. Exhibit 3 is a NY Times opinion piece (“Weed”) by a sanctimonious David Brooks. Brooks is a conservative, anti-government columnist and commentator who, in my opinion, is bright, well informed and occasionally reasonable. The “Weed” column was not one of those occasions.
After reciting his youthful indiscretions (“Been there. Done that.”), Brooks condemns the States of Washington and Colorado for legalizing pot and asks “What sort of individuals and behaviors do our governments want …?” And then answers his own question with “… temperate, prudent, self-governing” (which phrase I think Wikipedia should define as “terminally boring.”) My question is, did we learn nothing from Prohibition and other failed attempts by government to legislate morality?
The victimless act of consuming cannibis is way down my list of terrible things a police state must stamp out. The war on drugs was lost many decades ago and our society is still paying a terrible price in lives and communities destroyed and the creation of a prison industry driven by special interests. Legalizing pot, if that’s what the voters decide, can: insure product safety and quality, create price controls, eliminate criminal involvement, restrict use by minors, help the sick, generate jobs and produce substantial tax revenue to help pay for education, health care and the essential safety net.
It might also keep folks like entrepreneur Mike Davis out of the trade and out of jail. If Florida (or the Conch Republic) legalized pot, it could provide Key West with a local Conch industry to replace the poisoned revenue from cruise ships.
Roger C. Kostmayer
KW
Jan. 4, 2014
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Well said with logic and humor. Made me smile on this Sunday morning. Legal Conch Republic Herb would most assuredly off set any cruise ship revenue loss, real or imagined. Free Mary Jane 🙂
I can see both sides of this issue. On one side I am allergic to Marijuana smoke as I am to tobacco smoke. Use of both by others does inflect harm on me when they smoke in public places. I think the thing can help smokers of all types be less vilified is if there was better discretion in sharing your right to smoke blowing it in my face. Don’t smoke where there are families with children. It’s just being a twit. I was actually repulsed and shocked during the Holiday Light Train rides when some dimwit lit up on the High school campus with little kids running around. That level of “only person in the world” syndrome is what will continue to keep legalization of an additional air born pollutant from being approved. So regulate your selves smokers and start idiot shaming inconsiderate smokers.
On the other side one of my fellow Ft. McClellan, Alabama Basic and AIT buddies has MS thanks to our chemical and radiation exposure at Ft McClellan. (Our health registry is STILL sitting in committee since spans from 1935 to 1990.) She lives in Colorado, is 100% Service connected disabled but has to pay to see a non VA doctor to be prescribed and purchase the medical marijuana that helps her cope with this debilitation disease. Added for emphasis a diseases she has BECAUSE we were poisoned while trying to serve our country. If medical use (THC is removed so there is not a psychotropic effect or not as much I should say) marijuana was nationally allowed then the VA could provide her and the thousands of other Veterans that this natural medicinal plant has been proven to aid. Of course those that are wanting to use this product for medical needs are not likely going to be, like all too many tobacco smokers, firing one up while surrounded by kids playing.
Other reasons to legalize Hemp as a whole is the decreased costs in using this product to make paper, clothing, even building bricks being made with Hemp are being shown to be safer and stronger than concrete. How amazing it would be for the Conch Republic to be able to be on the forefront of producing hemp products which would create not just jobs, but S.T.E.M. JOBS.
This area is one that it seems that families stay here and the youth of this area need jobs here to come home from college to fill. Or even better what if the science and engineering programs needed to allow these HEMP production jobs were able to be added at BA/BS and MA/MS level here at FKCC? What if the use of this HEMP / Legal Medicinal grade Marijuana was able to provide funding for clearing of dead corals and reforestation of the reef?
As many say also the NEED for the cruise industry would be laughable. With funding in STEM programs at the high school and the college Key West could direct more towards eco-tourism options which increase beds filled and moneys brought in. With cruise tourism you are getting maybe 1/4 of the passengers budgeted spending as they have other ports to visit. So we have a wealth of $5 tacky tourist shops lining Duval. Now with a venture into Eco-tourism where visitors are here to tour the HEMP factories and growing operations, Doing reforestation dives and the other tours that are available now of mangrove and ocean ecology. Humm those $5 tacky tourist shoppes become Higher value and higher profit intensive Hemp item shops. Artist in Key West doing paintings on Hemp canvases can increase sale value of their works.
Production cost of HEMP-crete is less than that of concrete and uses a fast to grow natural resource . Not to mention a HEMP-crete factory I think could add to the scenery a bit more than the current concrete factory does.
So even though there will very likely be jerks that infringe on my right to breath if Marijuana is legalized here in the Keys, the rewards and benefits are in my mind very much worth it. I’ll just kick the dolts in the crotch.