Letter: Marijuana – this ‘bud’s’ for you

Will a mountain of money to be made from marijuana – the bottom line – be our municipality’s top priority?

The City of Lakewood, Washington has on their New Year’s calendar – some might fear ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ – a schedule by which to make – possibly – marijuana (MJ) available locally.

The council’s draft of items to discuss include a “review of marijuana land use regulations” at its February 26 Study Session; a public hearing on those MJ regulations March 5; and the adoption of what the city intends to do with regards MJ on March 19.

Will cannabists cannibalize citizens’ ability to get off the couch? Will budtenders join bartenders in ‘happy hour’? When a municipality turns to marijuana so as to ‘amass silver like dust, and gold like the muddy mire of the streets’ is financial dependence on ‘the rock’ a sure defense against economic disaster any more than the 150-foot walls of the ancient – and wealthy – City of Tyre were against the pilfering hordes of Alexander the Great?

A “major category of marijuana” is indica, “known for its ‘couch-lock’ effect (meaning it will keep you on the couch),” says Danny Kress, “dispensary manager and staff educator at A Therapeutic Alternative,” whose dispensary plans to dispense recreational marijuana in Sacramento come January 2018.

If New York is the City That Never Sleeps, will Lakewood become the City That is Always Passed Out on the Couch?

Interviewed by Brad Brannon in the December 26 issue of “The Sacramento Bee” for a “Beginner’s guide to buying recreational marijuana,” Kress said sativas – a second major category of MJ – stimulates happiness, while hybrids – the third major category – “are a cross of indica and sativa and try to produce a combination of their dominant effects.”

Hybrid marijuana products then are like hybrid vehicles in that the latter “uses two or more distinct types of power” like “submarines that use diesels when surfaced and batteries when submerged.”

An MJ user of hybrid indica and sativa can then expect to be both couch-surfing while submerged in happiness. If you can imagine that knocking at your door.

Not really the welcome mat weed (purposeful) want on our front porch any more than we’d expect weed-sales to be in the New Year billboard-promoted to those passing by the city or, for that matter, to those passed out within.