The very first thing I notice is that it really stinks -- like being in a pile of freshly cut grass. Everything around me is a blend of green, silver and searing white light. The walls around me shine like aluminum foil. Green foliage is everywhere, rooted in long, plastic, dirt-filled containers. A weave of extension cords and power strips line the floor. Rows of marijuana plants slump under the weight of crystallized fruit, that looks like a knit of off-green, yellow and orange fibers sprinkled with spun sugar. My first thought: Holy shit. My second: There must be thousands of dollars worth of pot up here.
This is ground zero for the New Marijuana Economy - an economy run by productive, taxpaying citizens involved in a high-stakes game of economics, genetics and deceit. Marijuana buyers are at an all-time high; meanwhile, growers continue to improve their product, creating superior pot in a time of heightened demand. So while most of the recent discussion surrounding marijuana has been over legal reform for "casual users" or the hotly debated issue of medicinal use, somehow we've overlooked the simple fact that marijuana is now the most prized cash crop in the world. Some strains sell upwards of $500 per ounce. Many wonder if the war on drugs has made any dent in marijuana availability. Even the far right questions the logic of marijuana laws.
"An effective law diminishes, rather than increases, the number of violators who have to be arrested," writes The National Review editor and conservative icon, William F. Buckley. He cites marijuana as the best evidence of the drug war's ineptness. "There are 70 million Americans who have smoked marijuana, and about 10 million who still do so," he says. "Why aren't they in jail? Do [drug war proponents] really wish that they were in jail?"
Accounting for those who grow their own and other extremes, let's say those 10 million users spend an average of $40 per month for one-eighth of an ounce. Even by that conservative estimate, we're looking at some $4.8 billion injected into our economy. Yet, those underground sales supply no tax base to support our strained penal system.
In the United States, one criminal is jailed for every 100 violent crimes committed. Over one-half of America's convicted felons are not sentenced to prison, at least in part due to overcrowding. Most violent criminals serve less than one-half of their sentences, and as recently as 1992, the average murderer released from state prison had served only 5.9 years. In the meantime, since 1998, the U.S. has averaged 700,000 marijuana arrests per year, 80% of which are for possession. All things considered, the war on drugs is becoming increasingly hard for anyone to maintain.
That's why the issue of "casual use" has come to the forefront of the pro-marijuana campaign. Here in Washington state, the Sensible Seattle Coalition recently introduced Initiative 73, which seeks to make the city's enforcement of laws pertaining to the possession of small amounts of marijuana the lowest public safety priority. "[I-73] would direct the city police to make it their lowest priority for law enforcement," explains Doug Honig of the ACLU of Washington. "Police make decisions about where to put their limited resources all the time. They're not arresting or stopping everyone who is breaking a law that is somewhere on the books. Classic example: an officer may see someone jaywalking and decide to not to cite him or her. They make decisions like that at a departmental level all the time. This is based on the fact that there are people getting arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana who are doing no harm to anyone in society, and the government shouldn't be arresting them."
"I pretty much use it everyday," says Natasha, a 24-year-old interior designer from Spokane who uses marijuana to give her a "creative burst" during work and to relax her afterward. She started smoking pot at age 13 - that's when her dad decided that she was old enough to handle a joint. By the time that she was a freshman in high school, smoking at home around her parents was "no big deal." "I smoked pot everyday at lunch break," she says. I ask if she regrets any aspects of her longtime marijuana use. She looks at me and furrows her brow. "I got great grades in high school, stoned the whole way through it. After graduation, I worked to put myself through college. I have a great job and make a good living. What do I have to regret?"
Carol, 35, is a wife, mother of three and a manager of several employees at a mid-sized Spokane business. She tells me that she smokes pot because it lifts her periodic bouts with depression. For her, marijuana has done what numerous antidepressants never did: it makes her feel less depressed. For days after smoking pot, Carol says the effects still improve her feelings. At other times, she does it for fun, nothing else. "Last weekend," she says, "I had a couple friends over, who are just like me (demographically speaking), and we all got stoned. Then we went shopping and cooked this huge meal at my house, and just sat around all night talking and laughing."
Even the Spokane Police Department (SPD) hints at the futility of the war on marijuana. "I know that our numbers in 2001 are down in terms of marijuana enforcement, primarily because we've had to focus our priorities on the methamphetamine epidemic," says Spokane Police Deputy Chief Al Odenthal. "The lab process and the toxicity elements that are associated with meth represent a much higher hazard to public health; therefore, we've had to put our resources there."
Most felony marijuana arrests in Spokane result from police informants. And while the police haven't had the resources to seek out marijuana growers, they still respond to grower tips. Once a grower is busted, the police often deal with the individual on a situational basis. "If we go into a house where a guy's got 10 marijuana plants, and has terminal [illness], we've never felt real strongly about prosecuting those cases, even before they passed the medicinal initiative," says Jim Faddis of the Spokane Police Department's Special Investigative Unit. "Would we take his marijuana? Yes, because it's still illegal [to grow]. But one thing that I get tired of is that we lack compassion, and we're out here busting the guy who's got terminal cancer, who's growing marijuana to keep his appetite or keep his white blood cell [count] up. ...We'd much rather be out here getting the guys who are growing 100 to 200 to 300 plants for pure profit. The pro-marijuana movement's viewpoint is, `we're attacking this on all fronts.' Their game is to get marijuana legalized. So if they can paint us as going out here and popping the terminal cancer patient for growing 10 marijuana plants, then they are going to use that as ammunition." The numbers in Spokane County seem to back Faddis's statements. So far this year, the SPD has arrested 30 people for felony possession of marijuana (40 or more grams, or roughly an ounce-and-a-half) and 10 for growing. In that same time period, the SPD has arrested 92 people for felony crack possession and 304 for meth. Consider the widely accepted estimate that 3.7 percent of the U.S. population consider themselves marijuana regular users. This would mean that roughly 18,000 folks in the Spokane-Coeur d' Alene metro area smoke pot regularly. Only 40 of those people have faced felony marijuana charges in the last eight months.
"As if coveting our water and envying our dot-com fortunes weren't enough, those Eastern Washington wheat farmers also don't want us smoking pot," says James Bush of the Seattle Weekly, regarding the "overriding power of state law that will continue to keep pot illegal in Seattle despite the appearance of a city initiative aimed at chilling enforcement against casual tokers." But while James and the rest of Seattle's self-righteous pro-marijuana heads look eastward for fault, the Spokane Police Department already does what I-73 proposes by allocating its resources to battle meth - without all the hype and cheerleading.
However, the legal realities mean little to Karl. "I've been growing [pot] since I was 13," he says. "My first experience? Me and some buddies just found some pot plants that some [people] planted in the woods. We each took a tiny plant and kept it as our own. Growing didn't really work the first few years, but it sure has the last 10. For me, it's more for fun than anything else. I do it for myself - personal enjoyment, if you will. Taking care of my plants gives me something to look forward to the next day. It's the same with any living thing that you can care for. Everything that comes along [with] growing marijuana is just bonus. I like to hook my friends up. Really, you just have to be smart. I'm fairly low-key about it, so I stay under 1,200 watts of lighting, always in a 10-by-10 space, or smaller, usually around 30 plants. Keeping it down that low is a necessity," he says.
As we climb out of The Hole again, it takes some time for my eyes to adjust to the change in light. "I burn pretty religiously myself, and take care of a lot more [marijuana] than you'd think," he says while stuffing his glass pipe with a few pinches of bud. "But between friends, and friends of friends, and their friends, I take in anywhere between six to nine grand every three months."
As for his status as a potential felon, Karl doesn't seem too concerned. "I could give a shit," he says. "In some states, it's illegal to have oral sex. I live by my own moral framework, not someone else's."
Article copyright The Local Planet.
Photograph (Marijuana plants)
Author(s): Hadley, Jeremy
"The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining to an understanding of compassion" SOCRATES, 470-399 BC
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