Super (Bong) Bowl | Life on the Left Coast

Sunday was a big football day and even I checked in to the last minutes of the final game that decided which teams are going to the Super Bowl. This last game, with Seattle and San Francisco, was a cliffhanger, as right up to the final minutes it could have gone either way. But in the end, the Seattle Seahawks won.

Earlier in the day, the Denver Broncos had won over New England, which makes the upcoming Super Bowl particularly interesting. Washington State and Colorado are the first two states that, as of January 1st, have completely legalized the use of pot. The Battle of the PotHeads.

I’ve been following the news from Colorado (of course) as they opened the first open-to-the-public marijuana dispensaries. Colorado has totally legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. In those first days, the shops were inundated with customers – long lines of people waited their turn in an atmosphere of pure joy and celebration. At long last! The rules are that citizens of Colorado can purchase up to an ounce of weed at a time, while out-of-state visitors can buy a quarter ounce. Early demand was so (ahem) high, that they had to restrict sales to a quarter ounce per. Cash was rolling in. In the first week over $5 million worth of pot was sold and it would have been higher if the stores had had enough product. With a 25% pot tax the state stands to gain, well, a lot.

In a very amusing twist, it turned out that the pot dispensaries couldn’t deposit the cash in local banks for awhile, as the banks were not legally able to accept this drug money, an indication of the tangled mess of federal and state laws that currently exist. Not to worry. Money will always find its way.

As well as Colorado and Washington which have totally legalized marijuana use, 22 other states plus D.C. allow its use for medicinal purposes. No doubt once other states see the huge amount of tax revenue the two legalized states are raking in, others will follow. Let’s face it, people are smoking dope, legal or not, and that will NEVER change, it goes against 2000 years of human history. Plus let’s not forget the more than 40,000 people sitting in U.S. jails on pot offences, most for possession, family lives damaged, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $1 billion annually.

Back here in Canada, the current government’s attitude is a complete embarrassment. At present, 30,000 people are “authorized” to use marijuana for medical reasons and some of them have licenses to grow their own plants for personal use. As of April 1st all the rules are changing and it will then be a criminal offense for these same people to grow. All medical marijuana users will have to obtain their pot from licensed producers through Canada Post. Those users have until March 31 to dispose of any pot they still have from their own grow, otherwise they will be violating the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, “which becomes a law enforcement issue.”

And how to dispose of any leftovers on April 1st? Well, the government has some helpful tips.

Health Canada recommends blending marijuana with water and mixing it with cat litter before tossing it into regular household trash. “The primary option is to break down the materials, mask the odour and dispose of it in the garbage,” said a [no doubt embarrassed] department spokesman.