Tossed SALAD: J. Craig Canada doesn’t understand “assault” and “I Gots Mine”

"I know 'assault' has to be in the dictionary here somewhere..."

More from the the Stoners Against Legalization Article of the Day – Tossed SALAD, as I call it:

(Palm Springs Bum) A discussion of California’s marijuana initiative took an all too familiar turn when Marc and Jodie Emery assaulted Dragonfly De La Luz on Facebook this past Saturday.

You cannot “assault” someone on Facebook. You can “libel” them, you can “defame” them, you can eviscerate their untenable arguments, but you cannot “assault” them.

The Pot Calls The Kettle Black

The following month, Russ Belville published his “I gots mine” article in the Huffington Post where he states:

Craig and the other dispensary owners who oppose Prop 19 are the ‘I Gots Mine’ element of the anti-legalization campaign. They’ve got the corner on a retail market worth billions, one that is only worth billions if you arrest 850,000 mostly-black-and-brown adults a year for participating in it.

What Belville seems to have overlooked is that the “I gots mine” crowd are the proponents of Prop. 19.

There’s Marc Emery, who made a good living for many years selling marijuana seeds over the internet at astronomically inflated prices “for the good of the movement”.

There’s Steve DeAngelo, who owns Harborside, the largest dispensary in the state which grossed $26 million last year and is located in Oakland, which is the home of Prop. 19.

There’s Richard Lee, who had $1.4 million cash to give to the signature campaign to get Prop. 19 on the ballot, and who owns Oaksterdam U as well as one of the 4 permitted dispensaries in that city.

There’s Jeff Wilcox, on Prop. 19?s steering committee and owner of warehouses in Oakland with $20 million to spend to turn them into industrial marijuana cultivation operations.

This takes the pot calling the kettle black to a whole new level.

Despite writing it very clearly, you completely miss the point of the “I gots mine” characterization. It’s not “I gots my money”, it’s “I gots my (medical) marijuana” that I am criticizing.

For not once, ever, have you, Dragonfly, Peron, or any other aptly named “Stoner Against Legalization” explained why the 2,700,000 Californians who are healthy enough to get a misdemeanor or felony should vote against no longer being subject to criminal penalty. (Well, to be fair, Dragonfly implies they should just lie to a doctor and get a 215 rec.)

Every argument you people make has to do with Prop 19 taking away your precious rights under Prop 215. As in “I gots my (medical) marijuana and you don’t gets none!” 61,000 Californians faced misdemeanors and 17,000 faced felonies last year alone – Prop 215 didn’t do shit for them.

You’re asking people to vote to continue their own criminalization because you wrong-headedly believe it will somehow criminalize you. Forgive us if we get a little bit angry at fellow pot smokers who vote alongside Steve Cooley, Carmen Trutanich, and Bonnie Dumanis (gosh, if 19 devastates 215 like you claim, wouldn’t these three be FOR it?)

As for the “money men”, sure, Emery has lots of dough from selling seeds at prohibition pricing. How is he any morally different than Lanette Davies selling marijuana and clones at prohibition pricing, and then using that money to campaign to keep me a criminal?

Sure, Richard Lee put $1.4 million into a ballot initiative. You do know it takes money to get initiatives on the ballot, right? (Oh, maybe not, since you keep running back to the Jack Herer Initiative for 1990, 92, 94, 96, 98, 00, 02, 04, 06, 08, 10, and 2012 that has/had NO significant funding and is as dead in the water for 2012 as it is today.) For Lee, this is a complete gamble; it could lose and he’s out $1.4 mil. How much of your business and wealth did you risk on getting a marijuana initiative on the ballot, Craig? How much of the money Peron put into founding the Normandie (a Prop 215 hotel that loses it’s cache if 19 passes) could’ve funded a legalization initiative?

By the way, while Lee may have money in his businesses, he lives a very spartan lifestyle (as did Emery, for that matter), not like some of the “compassionate medical providers” like, say, Luke Scarmazzo.

Sure, DeAngelo and Wilcox stand to make money from legalization of marijuana… that’s the frickin’ point, is that legalization will create new jobs, redirect police resources, and boost the economy. Y’all seem to love dispensaries and growers making money on pot, judging by the “wither the poor trimmers” and “woe to the small growers” ballads I read from Anti-19?ers… you just don’t like it when someone does it better than you.

Well, welcome to Capitalism 101… this is how things work in a legal market. People get up early, commute to a place of business, work hard, price a product/service based on real market demands, pay taxes, follow regulations, make political and business connections, save capital, grow and expand. The days of sleeping til noon, tending a few houseplants, paying no taxes, following no regs, prohibition pricing, and making more from a harvest than a schoolteacher or fireman makes all year are over.

See, I like Lee, DeAngelo, & Wilcox specifically because they proved me wrong. If you care to delve into my writing since 2008 for NORML you’ll find I actually predicted the “I Gots Mine” scenario before it bloomed:

(Oct 2008) The dispensary owner, however, gets those same black market prices and profit margins, with the sheen of medical legitimacy painted over it. Prohibition keeps the farming clandestine and the transportation difficult. Prohibition keeps the price high and prevents one dispensary owner from competing by lowering prices – that whole “invisible hand Adam Smith free market” thing that capitalism is based on. Prohibition means that while you’re buying that $45 eighth in a dispensary, some college kid is losing his financial aid and spending a weekend in jail for his $45 eighth.

At first I didn’t anticipate that the people involved with dispensaries (and I may be wrong and I should have asked) would be too keen on a model of full legalization of marijuana. Why would they want a model where the prohibition price floor is removed and full competition is realized? Anyone could open a shop, anyone could grow weed, a lot of the risk/profit is removed from the equation. How many marijuana growers and sellers would stay in the business if their profits were more like farming? And why would doctors making an easy buck on marijuana recommendations want to get out of that business, either?

And in other writings, I predicted that medical marijuana would begin to push away legalization as the forces that benefit from the status quo (dispensaries, home growers) would fight to maintain their $300/ounce cash cow. Then these dispensary owners (Lee, DeAngelo) proved me wrong, that there are some who make money off 215 who really do want to fight for legalization for me.

So you go ahead, Craig, Dragonfly, Letitia, Dennis, and the other Stoners Against Legalization. Vote with Cooley, Trutanich, and Dumanis. Fight to keep healthy pot smokers living in fear and facing incarceration. If the vote on Prop 19 is whisker-close and ends up losing thanks to your efforts, I will be emailing you each week the list of Californians in jail who wouldn’t have been if 19 had passed. I’m sure you’ll be eager to send them letters explaining why putting them behind bars was the right thing to do.