While in Denver last summer, my grandson and I stepped into an elevator with Snoop Dogg’s uncle, an older gent sporting a very large gold medallion — a “band thing.” Snoop Dogg (Lion) was performing in a nearby venue that weekend, and the group was staying at our hotel. My grandson was suitably impressed, though he later remarked that the man “smelled funny.” I inwardly chuckled; Patrick, 12, apparently had never before smelled marijuana.
Since then, Colorado has issued 348 retail licenses for stores that can now legally sell up to 28 grams of pot to people aged 21 or older. You won’t have to go very far to smell pot in Denver this coming summer. While it’s the first state to legalize the sale of marijuana for recreational purposes, Washington state will follow in June, when it, too, will allow cannabis shops to open for business, and more than 300 entrepreneurs are queued up, ready to go there. Both states have allowed legal recreational use since 2012, but not marijuana commerce — which made little sense and actually seemed like a green light for the black market drug trade.
Certainly the taxable market potential is huge, with $2.34 billion in revenue anticipated in 2014 following the legislative changes in Colorado and Washington, according to ArcView Market Research, which publishes data on the cannabis industry.
We have a free-market economy, and we’re constantly evolving as a society. I mean “evolving” as a neutral comment. Here’s an example of how we are changing in both expectation and response to public marijuana use: In December, while staying at a Chicago hotel, I requested a room change. The hallway reeked of pot, thanks to our floor neighbors smoking it with abandon, and Alex, my precocious 5-year-old grandson, was standing by the room door sniffing hard “to get more of that strange, wonderful smell.” I wasn’t surprised that people might sneak in a joint to smoke, but here is the societal change I’m referencing: The hotel staff’s entire response was to hand me keycards to a different room and then spray air freshener in the hallway, period.
Even a couple of years ago, the guests would have nudged a towel under the door and, if smoke was still detected, a hotel security officer would have visited the smoker’s room. Ten years ago, the police would have been called — and would have actually responded. Today, pot use is met with a quick air freshening and likely doesn’t even merit a mention at the next hotel staff meeting. No big deal.
Privately, I realize that a neutral evolution isn’t possible if you have a pot-addicted teenager or if you are raising your pothead adult child’s kids. However, millions of people can drink alcohol or use pot without becoming addicted, and if it weren’t pot, it would be ____ (gambling? sex? booze?) that your loved one would substitute. Addiction is a mental illness and has to be treated as such; it isn’t a “pot problem” or “alcohol problem” that government could or should protect you from under the guise of public safety. It’s a personal choice with personal consequences for abuse.
To date, 19 other states (not counting Colorado and Washington) have regulated and allowed the legal use of marijuana for medical reasons. The majority of Wisconsin voters are in favor of legalization, yet state government seems lukewarm to the idea of decriminalizing pot smoking. Why? If Gov. Walker wants to create jobs, it’s a clear line from A to B, and his tourism efforts (not to mention popularity) would get a huge booster shot.
In early October, Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison), and local patients held a press conference to announce the reintroduction of the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act. Acting in the interests of “patients’ rights” versus “marijuana legalization” (the former being a more politically palatable cause), Sen. Erpenbach continues to raise the issue, while Rep. Taylor picks up where Mark Pocan, the former state representative, left off before being elected to Congress. In December, the initiative stalled despite the most backing it has ever enjoyed from legislators. Again, WHY? Opponent Sen. Leah Vukmir, in her role as chair of the Senate Health Committee, surely can’t squash it alone.
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Meanwhile, an individual in Wisconsin convicted of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana faces a sentence of up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. That’s not a very progressive stance for a state that prides itself on being “forward” or progressive. (I don’t mean “progressive” like the “Progressive Party” — the self-styled, anti-business public watchdog of politically correct [as it defines it] morality — but “progressive” in the time-honored sense of rational people aggressively championing individual and human rights.)
I don’t use marijuana, nor do I condone illegal drug use, but I feel about marijuana the same way I feel about Jack Daniels: It just isn’t my personal relaxation drug of choice. Likewise, it might not be your cup of herbal tea. However, if I ever were to have a cancer relapse, a significant back injury, or a terminal illness, I could easily be induced to try medical marijuana. I’d spend my tourism dollars in Colorado, or move full time to Illinois (medical marijuana was approved there effective January 2014, though implementation may take a year). If people asked why I moved, I’d explain that the majority of legislators in Wisconsin are, in my opinion, far behind the times.
I am a moderate liberal, and most of my friends and neighbors are also pragmatic about business and state entrepreneurial opportunity as well as vocal champions of civil rights. You don’t have to be a corporate CEO to understand that business opportunities create jobs. You don’t have to be gay to support equal rights for everyone, including marriage. You don’t have to be a woman to understand that women should make an equal wage for equal work. You don’t have to be a Kevorkian fan to favor death with dignity. And you don’t have to be a pothead to be in favor of legalizing marijuana for medical (or — gasp! — recreational) use. But you do have to climb down off your throne and work to make this the equitable, economically competitive state its citizenry deserves in 2014.
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