Swaziland's Cannabis Gold

[Jhhnn]

I have to wonder if a few key words in this thread have triggered automatic DEA tracking.

Jhnnn, can you get high without fear of federal prosecution? I know the state isn't going after pot in Colorado but are the feds?



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/05/dea-marijuana_n_2810347.html

I get high only rarely. Years ago I got high all the time. It's an interesting topic, one that I've studied for a very long while, particularly in the wake of the passage of A64. I see it as a possible business opportunity, maybe a bit of a moral crusade, too.

The comments by the former DEA head are pure FUD & misdirection, as have been anti-cannabis statutes since their inception.

The Colorado legislature & state govt are stuck with A64, and there's not a damned thing that the DEA can do about it. They may be able to stop retail cannabis, but the personal growing provisions of A64 render local law enforcement powerless in that regard. They are not empowered to enforce federal law, just as it is in immigration matters. There must be corresponding state statutes, and A64 forbids their existence, demands that the state create retail MJ licensing, as well.

The Feds have always depended heavily on the locals for MJ enforcement, and Colorado authorities are now denied that by the will of the people as expressed in a referendum that altered the state constitution, A64. The legislature can't even introduce a counter referendum for the people to vote on w/o a 2/3 majority in both houses of the legislature, and that just won't happen. They can't legislate it away, It must be put to a vote of the people.

The mistake in Washington is that they didn't allow growing for personal consumption, so local law enforcement still has options to enforce, should they choose to do so. They also created a chokepoint for the Feds to attack, medical & retail outlets.

In Colorado, the whole thing is rapidly become so diffuse & so widespread that the DEA would have to drain the rest of the country of agents to make a dent in it, much to the detriment of other enforcement efforts wrt much more dangerous & damaging drugs & the cartels who profit from them.

Indoor Hydro shops are springing up like weeds, along with how-to seminars & classes on how to do it all, from the level of your Colorado allowable plant numbers to industrial production & the investment around it all.

I don't see any going back, and I don't see many Colorado legal home growers getting busted, at all. That's the message- stay Colorado legal, follow some simple rules just in case, and just grow. Only the DEA can bust you. The Fed govt needs to figure out whether they can let states make money from it on taxes or if they want to engage in a losing cause that's become increasingly unpopular in an era of limited resources.

They apparently haven't figured it out.

 

[shira]

What I don't get is why the federal government doesn't do what is so obviously the right thing and just completely ignore marijuana at every level. State as a matter of federal priorities that "There are insufficient federal funds to continue to police the marijuana trade in the U.S., so we're going to focus our manpower on issues that are of much more importance." Wouldn't even take an act of Congress. Even the right-wing, anti-drug nut-jobs couldn't complain if it were explained to them that abandoning the war on marijuana is a consequence of down-sizing government.

No one with half a brain can seriously believe that marijuana is even remotely the threat to health that alcohol and tobacco are, or can seriously doubt that the cost of prohibition cannot remotely be justified on the merits. Why, then, is it so damn difficult for America to kick the criminalization-of-weed habit? Why are these incredibly destructive, incredibly expensive marijuana policies perpetuated generation after generation?

 

[woolfe9998]

Some of it has to do with law enforcement lobbying to keep it illegal because it means losing jobs in their sector of it's decriminalized. Some of it is out-dated attitudes among the electorate. In my view, DC hasn't caught up. At a minimum, legal medical marijuana is approved by well over half the populace. Full decriminalization is hovering around 50% approval nationally. They could at least pass a law that says the federal government won't interfere with state laws legalizing it for medicinal purposes, meaning they would leave the dispensaries and licensed growers alone.

It's going to happen eventually. It's just a question of when.

 

[Jhhnn]

What I don't get is why the federal government doesn't do what is so obviously the right thing and just completely ignore marijuana at every level.

Because the Govt isn't a monolithic entity, certainly not now. It's made up of a lot of competing interests and different priorities by the players. Obama has other priorities & demands, with a tendency to prevaricate when he can, so, well, here we are. I think he mostly lets the regional DEA & US Attorneys have a lot of latitude, as if the whole thing is pretty low on the Radar.

Dunno what will happen, but it's already a watershed event, extremely popular in Metro Denver and the authorities can't really just wish it away, nor do I think they can really stop it.

I want to talk about the Swazi grandmother some more, and about a lot of other very poor people in the world who need & depend on high value cash crops. That's generally drugs, whether it's coca, opium poppies or cannabis. And that's because it's in demand & illegal someplace else, and the entrepreneurial human spirit sees to the rest. They need a weak govt who'll look the other way where they live & hostile ones elsewhere for smugglers & middlemen to be interested much in their production, at all.

It's a weird double edged deal for them and us. If pot were totally legal, I'm not sure they could make up for immensely lower prices with volume, or that they wouldn't switch crops if they could.

For Granny, Swazi Gold is the answer, the only way she really has to support her grandchildren. I'm sure she's not alone in that stricken land. They need it to not starve. If she gets busted & goes to prison, they starve afterwards, but not while she was taking care of them.

 

[bshole]

Jhnnn,

Gotta say it man.... excellent excellent posts. Thanks, I really enjoyed reading them.

 

[kage69]

My stoner source confirms what Jhhnn posted earlier, and apparently the weed from Malawi will really kick your ass. Has THCV in it, and comes in a form that looks like dried turds called cobs. They actually bury the weed underground wrapped in banana leaves to cure it. Kinda fascinating.

Proof again you can't judge a book by it's cover!


Anyway, I'd rather see granny growing this than resorting to other unsavory methods to support her family. She's not stealing, or selling kids in prostitution, or producing something like heroin that results in death and long term misery for users.

 

[Circlenaut]

Landrace African sativas have an entirely different look to them than modern European & American indoor cultivars. How it looks doesn't matter nearly as much as how it smokes. In that regard, smoke from Southern Africa is regarded as some of the best and is often used as a building block for hybridization. Swazi is closely related to Transkei, Durban, Malawi & other cultivars of the region.

The specimens in the vid are somewhat immature, with selected buds being harvested early to maintain family income. Early harvest of sativa varieties provides a cerebral, even electrifying high quite different from the stupefying shit most American tokers seem to like.

Granny's customers will be glad to get it.

Ha, this is the main reason why I've quit smoking here. I got tired of all these strains that just makes you dull and sleepy. Once I had a sativa. Oh man that I was the best high I've ever had, minus my first time. I could toke and actually get shit done. Too bad those are so hard to come by unless you grow your own...