Stash for Tue, Feb 24, 2009

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Today’s Stash: Dan Linn from Illinois NORML joins us for Government at Work to discuss Illinois HB 2514 and SB 1381, the twin measures to make Illinois the 14th medical marijuana state (call the Illinois reps at 217-782-2000).  It’s like New Jersey, Illinois, and Minnesota are in a race or something.

Jet Baker joins us as a regional Cannabis Correspondent with his report on the Texas NORML reformer’s bootcamp in Austin, or “the ATX, y’all”.

Taku from THC Japan calls in from Tokyo to discuss sumo testing positive for weed, emerging Japanese cannabis culture, and the similarity of Reefer Madness in all languages.  I take it back – I called Taku… what’s the per-minute charge to Japan?

And Rich Hardesty not only provides today’s Daily Toker Tune, he talks to us about his music and getting his song on the Totally Baked DVD.

But what about me?  Glad you asked…

Today I began the day at 6am, following four hours of sleep, following five hours of video editing, following producing yesterday’s Stash.  This was so I could return to the dreaded 7am commute to go all the way across town and through the Tunnel of Prosecutorial Despair* to get to the TV studio for Portland’s CW affiliate.  I was on a point-counterpoint show on marijuana law reform and the episode will air Sunday at 6:30am.  Great time slot, I know.

But that’s not the best part.  The host (good guy) tells me of how he had a local columnist on defending the right of gay people to equal marriage and they could not get a single opponent of marriage rights for gays to come on the show.  So he had collected the talking points of all the local opponents (this was following the marriage rights measure passed by Oregon in 2006) and delivered them against the columnist using Socko, the Family Values Sock Puppet.

You see where I’m going with this?

The funniest part for me was that this studio was not two exits away from where I had my last corporate job as an IT trainer.  When I worked there I had a co-worker named Bill who used to bring, swear to Mary Jane, a sock puppet to work that was called Mr. Socko.  He would use this sock puppet as a threat to students who weren’t paying attention in a software class, as in, “Don’t make me get Mr. Socko.  I’ll have him teach this whole class.”  Occasionally someone would call his bluff and he’d whip out the briefcase, pull out Mr. Socko, use a high-pitched voice, and the fun was on.  Bill was a great trainer, because let me tell you, when you’ve tried to explain the SUM() function in Excel for the thirteenth time in a month to job retraining candidates who, bless their hearts, have as much chance of grasping spreadsheet formulas as I have grasping the repair and maintenance of a combine.

So the host informs me there would be no opponent, as no one from law enforcement, the business community, nor anyone who represents the consistent opponents of medical marijuana in Oregon would dare to appear on camera against a well-informed articulate opponent.  Would I agree to appear with a sock puppet?

I thought about the trouble we have getting our issue taken seriously, but I also thought that, handled correctly, it would be a great opportunity to inform a large audience.  Besides, I’m a big Mr. Socko fan and I had to do it, if only to make a fun story to tell Bill.

The first two segments were me and the host alone.  Good stuff, talking about NORML’s mission, why call it “reform marijuana laws” and not just “legalize”?  (Because “reform” runs the spectrum from lopri intitiatives to decrim to medical to legalize and lots of things in between.)  Yada yada yada.

Then in the second two segments Socko, the Prohibitionist Puppet is introduced.  The host seriously intones that they reached out to numerous opponents and could not get one to come on camera, but that he wished to make sure both sides of the debate were represented.  Then with his hand in a white sock with a gold toe and two buggy red eyes drawn on hastily twenty minutes before, the host asked in a falsetto voice:

SOCKO: “If we legalize marijuana, a so-called ‘soft drug’, that’s going to lead to more abuse of the hard drugs like meth and heroin!”

To which I replied (paraphrasing, I was strangely nervous):

ME: First of all, I want to thank Socko for agreeing to be on this show today.  It is getting difficult to find human beings who will even try to make these anti-marijuana arguments anymore.  Like this ‘gateway theory’ you’re mentioning.  In 1999, the United States government’s own Institute of Medicine reviewed the studies and found that there is no ‘gateway effect’ from marijuana to hard drugs, and that’s been backed up by numerous studies since.  There is nothing about smoking marijuana that either physiologically or psychologically leads one to try other drugs.  

The ‘gateway theory’ is a myth that holds on because people look at meth, cocaine, and heroin addicts and say, “Aha!  They all used marijuana!”  But they never look the other direction, at the millions – one hundred million Americans have tried marijuana in their lives, and so very very few of them ever use, much less become addicted to, any other drugs.  For most, cannabis is a ‘terminus drug’ rather than a ‘gateway drug’.

SOCKO:  I don’t know what that means.

ME:  A ‘terminus drug’, meaning that for most of the people who use marijuana, that’s where their use of drugs stops.  Most don’t go on to other drugs.

This will be on YouTube so when it is available, I will post it here.  I’d much rather debate a human, but so far no human will debate me on camera.  (Yes, because they’re quaking in their boots at the thought of matching wits with a college dropout stoner blogging in his basement wearing sweats and eating Cheetos between bong hits.  You know, like Bill Hicks mentioned, what does it say when they declare a war on drugs and they are losing to the people on drugs?)