Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Most mornings, three to five times a week, I get up, pour a cup of black coffee, shove a Clif Bar into my face and attempt to alert my fellow Americans to the fact that government is their biggest problem; it’s inherently violent, oppressive, intrusive, inefficient and worst of all, completely unnecessary. This is naturally a minority opinion and so it is helpful when someone comes along and proves me to be correct. Today, that help comes from Paul LePage, the Republican Governor of the state of Maine.
On Nov. 8, Maineiacs (I’m a Michigander, I don’t know what folks from Maine call themselves, but if it’s not “Maineiacs” then they’re doing it wrong), went to the polls and voted to legalize recreational marijuana use in the state. The law went into effect on Dec. 15 of 2016. Guess what you still can’t legally buy in Maine?
“Governor Paul LePage, who opposed legalization, said he would order the state’s Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations to hold off on formulating rules to govern the sale of the drug until the state’s legislature approved new funding. A measure approved by state lawmakers last week delayed the retail sales of the drug until February 2018.
“’The executive branch must be provided with the resources necessary to implement this new law,'” LePage said in a statement.” reads a portion of Scott Malone’s piece for Reuters.
Just reading that quote has my left arm tingling and the smell of burnt toast hanging thick in the air. In other words, the people who voted to legalize cannabis in the state will have to wait to be able to buy it until the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations comes up with rules governing its sale, but they won’t do that until the legislature approves a bill funding the formulation of said rules. I’m sure this is exactly what Maineiacs meant when they voted to “legalize” recreational marijuana.
Mercifully, police in Maine can no longer arrest a person for possessing or using marijuana, but it’s still illegal to sell it. While this absurd situation looks just like more “business as usual” for America’s comically idiotic system of laws, it actually is quite revealing – particularly when taken along with LePage’s comments.
Not being able to lock someone in a cage for possessing a few grams of dried plant material while stealing all of their valuables until the person in the cage can prove they weren’t paid for with the proceeds of a drug enterprise has already caused great pain and grief for Maine’s law enforcement community as well as the government that benefits from the fencing of the goods stolen from those arrested. To try to protect what of their “business interests” are left in the marijuana prohibition racket, the legislature needed time to come up with some new predatory licensing enterprises, apparently about seventeen months should suffice. Well, seventeen months and bunch of money stolen from residents to implement those laws that they don’t need in the first place.
I’m sure the legislation that results from this will all have the effect of levying crippling taxes on marijuana, establishing a limiting licensure system for those who will be allowed to sell it “legally,” establishing penalties and prison terms for those caught selling it without a license and other similar controls that limit access to the plant, steal money from the citizens and give power back to the government that the voters opted to take it away from in the first place.
For many decades now, Maineiacs have been buying selling and smoking marijuana. And, for many decades, Maine’s law-enforcement members have been locking those Maineiacs they can catch with the plant into cages for possessing it. The voters finally realized what a cancerous and imbecilic situation this was and voted to change it – they voted to have the state’s surrogates of violence stop kidnapping people and holding them for ransom because they possessed a plant humans have a millennia-old symbiotic relationship with.
The state, being the state, just can’t do that. To government, for an enterprise to be “legal” doesn’t just mean you don’t automatically go to jail for doing it. Oh no, a “legal” enterprise has a state business license and tax identification number. In fact, engaging in the commerce of a “legal” product without these sorts of permission slips from the government makes said engagement suddenly illegal. That’s how government works; it’s all about power and control because power and control are the necessary prerequisites for operating a system of institutionalized theft and violence.
The good news is that Maineiacs will carry on buying, selling and smoking marijuana just as they have been for many decades. When the state finally gets around to allowing the opening of licensed and taxed retail pot shops, I’d encourage Maineiacs to ignore them completely and carry on buying their cannabis from whomever they’ve been buying it from all along; don’t give your money to the rat bastards who’ve been locking you up for decades, cut them out of the loop.
Leave a Reply