The Virtues of Mary J

[UPDATE Below] [UPDATE II]

These are the "virtues" of Mary Jane and her rag-tag band of ...  Future Farmer's of America?

Here's Mary's definition for “virtue” – something seriously lacking today:

1. an immoral or evil habit or practice.

2. immoral conduct; depraved or degrading behavior: a life of vice.

3. sexual immorality, esp. prostitution.

4. a particular form of depravity.

5. a fault, defect, or shortcoming: a minor vice in his literary style.

6. a physical defect, flaw, or infirmity: a constitutional vice.

7. a bad habit, as in a horse.

What's wrong with growing, buying, doing business with growers, and selling marijuana? To hear it said today, there's nothing wrong with marijuana – except for one minor problem, it's illegal. So, everyone's that has profited from marijuana in one way or another has a “virtue” problem. Virtue goes right to the heart of “character.” This is the definition of “character”:

1. the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.

2. one such feature or trait; characteristic.

3. moral or ethical quality: a man of fine, honorable character.

4. qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity: It takes character to face up to a bully.

5. reputation: a stain on one's character.

6. good repute.

7. an account of the qualities or peculiarities of a person or thing.

8. a person, esp. with reference to behavior or personality: a suspicious character.

Good character doesn't sound much like lawless, criminal behavior, does it? All these pot-growers and their support team-enablers would like everyone today to think of them as simple, respectable, family people doing what was necessary in an unjust and an unfair world to feed, cloth, roof and protect their families. Well, for those few, those of us that did see ourselves as actually “simple, respectable, family people that actually DID feed, cloth, roof and protect our families totally within the confines of the law look upon this scourge as a direct assault on all our families future survival. These people think they are better than we are because they got the money, the property and the businesses to prove it. More than that, they are quite quick to point that out how G** D***** self-righteous they are NOW that Californian's might just prove them right all along. That makes those of us “law-abiding” citizens, those of us that paid the price, made the sacrifices, lived within the law: WRONG as HELL.

The big focus over the years was on the growers and sellers, but for some reason everyone overlooked how these growers and sellers laundered all that cash; tax-free money. The “boom and bust” reality of all that cash greasing the wheels was the real corrupting force behind the facade of respectability. Here's what Kym Kemp at the Redheaded Blackbelt blog recently said to me regarding this issue:

I think both types (growers and non) contributed to make Humboldt a wonderful place to live. It is just that most people who are not growers don’t value their contributions and what they have provided. SoHum for instance would not have a vibrant arts and non-profit community if it weren’t for the growers. Also our volunteer fire depts are often staffed and supported by many growers. Our rural roads are maintained by growers.

The costs of growing illegally are often ugly–increased violence and lack of accountability. But those are because of the laws against marijuana not because of marijuana.

You might note, the "non" growers she's referring to are the money launderers, all the respectable, upstanding people and their businesses that made all these so-called "mom and pop" growers or more respectably, pot farming possible. The corruption runs deep in Humboldt County.

Here relevant post: Humboldt Grower’s Association On Al Jazeera and my comment she answered.

That is an absolutely amazing statement, even if I says so myself.

To reaffirm that reality is the Times-Standard newspaper article, "My Word: Going legit, if Proposition 19 passes" published Friday, October 8, 2010, written by Jordan Anderson, owner of NCCFA (Northern California Cannabis Farmers Alliance).

“If you are like me, you are one of thousands of commercial medical marijuana growers in Northern California, and you, like me, are concerned about what Prop. 19, the “tax and control” initiative will do to our economy. You have thrived in a community that supports and even depends on the (variably legal) medical marijuana commerce. If you are like me, when you first heard about the initiative, your first desire was to vote against it. You have exhausted hours discoursing with friends, acquaintances, and probably even strangers about how this will hinder our community and its economy. You, like me, are scared of change and the end of our day in the sun.”

And so does Kym:

Hopefully, the local supervisors are working already to provide a framework that will allow our local growers to create a niche market that allows them financial success when competing against the mega factory grows in Oakland.

Because what it may take to eradicate most marijuana from Humboldt is not an act of God but a failure of our local government to create a friendly place for mom and pop growers to farm.

He and Kym would like everyone to believe that he and his kind are some kind of pioneers that made growing, selling and smoking marijuana legal in California. Yeah! But he has worries:

“The threat of legal loopholes and corporate commercialization will swallow up our small private farms (now considered full-scale, commercial grow-ops), and our way of life will come to an end.”

From where I stand that sounds like Divine Justice to me.
[Source]

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[UPDATE :: Wednesday, October 13, 2010]

An interesting virtue discussed at Greenchange: Legal marijuana may improve public safety
Prop. 19's legal marijuana could improve safety
Chip Johnson | San Francisco Chronicle |

[UPDATE :: Thursday, October 14, 2010]

A really sobering perspective that I've tried to enunciate. Some people think that I'm against legalizing the growth, sales and consumption of marijuana. That's not true. It should have been legal for the past 50 years. My problem is, people should be clear about the consequences of their actions and the irreversible and intrenched damage done to society for whatever their reasons. There's blood on cannabis and people should step up to that reality. Coming along well after-the-fact and saying that what everyone did was for altruistic reasons is pure BULL SHIT.

That said, Glenn Greenwald, says in his indomitable way, why marijuana needs to become legal. More than that, why everyone has a vested interest in see that it does. Here's why:

The Wars on Drugs and Terror: mirror images. Here's a portion of what he said:

The most important commonality between these two wars is that they continue -- and will continue -- for reasons having nothing to do with their stated justifications.  Both wars ensure an unlimited stream of massive amounts of money into the private war-making industries which fuel them.  By itself, the increasingly privatized American prison industry -- fed a constant stream of human beings put in cages as a result of drug prohibition laws -- is obscenely profitable.  Add to these powerful profit centers the political fear that officials have of being perceived as abandoning any war before it is "won," and these two intrinsically unwinnable wars -- unwinnable by design -- seem destined to endure forever, or at least until some sort of major financial collapse simply permits them no longer.

It's the perfect deceit.  These wars, in an endless loop, sustain and strengthen the very menaces which, in turn, justify their continuous escalation.  These wars manufacture the very dangers they are ostensibly designed to combat.  Meanwhile, the industries which fight them become richer and richer.  The political officials those industries own become more and more powerful.  Brutal drug cartels monopolize an unimaginably profitable, no-competition industry, while Terrorists are continuously supplied the perfect rationale for persauding huge numbers of otherwise unsympathetic people to join them or support them.  Everyone wins -- except for ordinary citizens, who become poorer and poorer, more and more imprisoned, meeker and meeker, and less and less free.

--Joe