“That whom he could not by the sword destroy, he might supplant by the law.”
-Sir Henry Robart, 1st Baronet, 1614
supersede them by using force or treachery to manipulate the policy environment. Worked 406+ years ago. Works today.
That’s because there has always been a ‘1%’. Thinking of clever ways to steal what is not theirs and deny it from others, be it property or rights. Constantly changing, relative to the total, as percentages tend to do.
For example ~210,000 Covid deaths is ~0.063636363636364% of a population of ~330 million.
Another fun percentage is ~203 business owners and lobbyists being ~0.076851147277842% of ~264,147 Michigan medical marijuana patients.
At this point I am certain the ‘woke’ and ‘science minded’ will wish to consult someone on TV or in politics, perhaps even a government agency run by an official appointed to their large salaried position by a politician, or a paid lobbyist group. For those of you who are ignorant of ‘facts’ and ‘science’, such as myself, let’s examine this information with our own intellect.
Tinfoil Hat Time! I was going to supplant the title with a different one, but I just can not bring myself to let a fraction of a percent of my mind trick the rest of it into controlling it.
Call it heartless, call it evil, call it unscientific if you must, but a fraction of the total should not control the total, tricks or otherwise. That notion just makes sense. That idea is the entire spirit of the ‘99%’ movement. A tiny little bit of us should not be making all the rules, because when that happens all the rules are made to the advantage of the tiny little bit. Supplanting ‘that whom he could not destroy by the sword’ with law becomes rather easy, and money and power flow like a sieve directly to the tiny little bit.
The marijuana industry is no different. A micro to a macro. The tiny little bit claiming to seek an environment where cannabis thrives, claiming to represent medical patients, claiming to represent the desires of a species of plant, all the while only truly representing themselves and their private interests. Manipulating perception with the help of the propagandists, and manipulating law with the help of money. That should not be.
This weed 1% (well, to be accurate ~0.076851147277842%, but for ease of reading we’ll stick with 1%) sent a love letter to Whitmer on March 18. The letter begins by telling the Queen how “proud of and grateful to” her majesty this 1% is for her bold and swift decision to shut down the state and decimate its’ economy, and for manipulating law to their advantage by opening up delivery and curbside. “In anticipation of more restrictions as you work to flatten the curve...” the letter goes on to ask for retail adult-use recreational marijuana to be marked essential, and therefore exempt from her business shattering unconstitutional orders, in the name of, get this, patient access.
Six days later those further restrictions came, and the taxed and regulated marijuana market was deemed essential right alongside medical marijuana. Actual medical procedures were cancelled and shut down. Families lost long standing livelihoods. Funerals were banned. Places of worship were shuttered and ordered closed. Schools were emptied. Going to other peoples’ houses, regardless of whether or not you were buying drugs, or whether or not they were your caregiver, was criminalized.
But you could pay double plus tax for a bag of retail pot? And a random person could come to your house to sell you the pot? No medical condition? Recreational weed as essential to human life? Government orders?
The propagandists told us to celebrate the victory, as if it were a win for the marijuana movement. Meanwhile big pharma and tobacco CEO’s, investors, and analysts cited essential status in a vast minority of (8/50) states, beaming with pride and calling for their ‘new’ and ‘essential’ product to be federally legalized while re-adjusting their quarterly profit predictions. Or in many cases, quarterly loss predictions. Hint. Hint.
You see, the weed 1% has a problem: their new product is not new, and it’s not theirs. The pre-existing now deemed ‘black’ market has been selling this product for decades. Rather successfully and safely, it should be noted. So safe was the marijuana grown by the pre-existing market that not only are there zero recorded deaths due to cannabis throughout prohibition, but a government, and a populace, that once thought the plant a poison sent by Satan itself, saw the error in their ways and deemed it a medicine for the sick and elderly, even children. This line they have been feeding us about black market weed being unsafe just does not add up. It can not be. Kills no one the whole time it’s ‘bad for you’? Safe enough to be medicine? Then suddenly too unsafe for consumption at a party?
It does not take an economist to see that the competition offering 50% cost to the consumer is an insurmountable roadblock on the path to gratuitous market share. It does not take a business professional to realize that you can not sell a thing at 200% the price of the same thing, and expect to make millions while gobbling up loyal customers. It does not take a sociologist to note that poor people have less money to spend and want to get more for their dollar. Nor does it take a mathematician to figure out that $20-$30 with no tax, is less than $40-$60 plus 6% plus 10%, for the same 3.5 grams of marijuana. That’s excluding the volume price breaks every street dealer has offered as an industry standard for years.
The pre-existing market is not voluntarily going anywhere, what existed in illegal is not going to be intimidated by illicit. It will also not lose in an open and free market where consumers’ wallets dictate winners and losers. That is why we do not have an open and free market. That is why safe weed is now unsafe. That is why the pre-existing market is the ‘black market’ for a product we thought we were making legal. What can not be destroyed can be supplanted by law.
Case in point the October 6 MRA advisory bulletin titled ‘MRTMA Eligibility’, that opens with “To minimize the illegal market for marijuana in this state…” and later reads “As the commercial marijuana market in the state grows, the impact of the illicit market remains a primary concern. Products from the illicit market are not grown or processed under the strict conditions required in the regulated market or tested by state licensed safety compliance facilities for harmful contaminants.” Yes, the weed that has been grown for generations, the same weed so uber safe it flipped illegal to legal and invoked dollar signs in neck-tie wearing eyes all across the globe, is not subject to any of your strict rules and inflated costs. 100% accurate. From the horse’s mouth. Thanks MRA, for finally telling the truth. The question then becomes, did the MRA think of this on their own? Or did someone send them a letter?
The problem the weed 99% have is that the weed 1% will never be satisfied. In the coming months and years they will demonize home growing, and quietly pass legislation on whatever level gets them what they want. People like Robin Schneider and MiCIA, who boast of being involved with the tax and regulate law, while also bragging as a selling point about their influence over publicly funded government agencies and offices, along with the weed 1%, will destroy the very thing they worked so hard and so lovingly to create. A fraction of a percent will once again dictate direct individual access to a naturally occurring living being, and any relationship with it. They will target any and all competition be it pre-existing, caregiving, mom and pop, home growing, non vertically integrated, not one of their ‘club’, until only that fraction of a percent controls all. All others will be removed.
All without ever picking up a sword.
