Originally posted April 8th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned stubbornness are robbed of their pretensions. We see what we have wrought – and then pretend we didn’t, because, despite our professed wish for “change you can believe in,” change is the process we’re most unwilling to endure.
Last week provided several of those The Way It Is moments, with several illuminating events happening almost simultaneously, twinned like opposite sides of a coin, as though the worm-hole theories of modern physicists were getting an earthbound demonstration. Our chief prophet of change you can believe in, President Obama, who seems intent on being as big of a disappointment to as many . . . → Read More: Perverse Priorities
Originally posted October 2nd, 2011
By Michael Konik
We’ve been told to “just say no” to drugs. We’ve been warned. We’ve been prosecuted and imprisoned and rehabilitated. We’ve been cajoled and counseled and criticized. Yet we haven’t been convinced. At least not enough to change our deadly ways.
We’re a nation of drug addicts. And our addictions are killing us.
In the first decade of the millennium, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, for the first time in recorded history more Americans died from drug-related complications than automobiles. Drugs have overtaken everything else as the leading cause of accidental death.
This is a stunning development in light of the tens of billions of dollars we’ve devoted to our failed “War on Drugs.” From a return-on-investment standpoint one would expect at least a nominal lessening of the drug scourge, a dip in the line graph. Instead, the more . . . → Read More: Our Drug Problem
Originally posted June 18th, 2011
By Michael Konik
On June 17, 1971, President Nixon told Congress that “if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely destroy us.” And thus was the war on drugs commenced.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of another failed American war effort. The numbers, courtesy of the folks behind the next California “legalize it” Proposition, are staggering.
“We’ve spent more than $1 trillion on this war. And what do we have to show for it? Right now, 2.3 million Americans are sitting in prison, while over 7.2 million people are currently part of the criminal justice system as a result of being on probation or parole — a full 1 in every 32 adults. Because of the failed drug war, America now imprisons more people than any other nation on earth.”
Trying to arrest ourselves into submission hasn’t cut drug use. We’ve only created a . . . → Read More: A Lost War
Originally posted June 12th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Our failed War on Drugs has cost us vast treasure, ruined the lives of harmless citizens, and fueled a growing empire of violent crime. To continue with this national folly would be stupid at best and catastophic at worst. It’s time to legalize marijuana, treating it as we do tobacco, alcohol, caffiene, and other widely desired drugs. Doing so will also be good for our environment.
Because of prohibition — throughout a 5,000 year legacy of cannabis use among civilizations around the globe, the first century weed was made illegal was the 20th — what was once natural and open is now furtive and shrouded. Plants that belong outdoors, soaking up the sun and growing like, well, weeds, are now consigned to indoor “grow rooms,” where 1,000-watt lamps irradiate genetically stabilized clones rooted in nitrogen-rich fertilizer. The enromous quantity of energy consumed and waste prodcuts produced makes . . . → Read More: Our Environment: Another Drug War Casualty
Originally posted April 10th, 2011
By Michael Konik
If we can put aside millennial-old inquiries into the nature of Truth, assuming such a thing exists, we can agree that propaganda, which is less concerned with veracity than with delivering a particular message, is a kind of prevarication. A lie. A tendentious assertion that’s antithetical to our notion of Truth.
I was reminded of this uncomfortable tension when my family informed me that my nephew and nieces, ages 8-10, were being inculcated at school with a “zero tolerance” policy toward drugs. The children, I was told, were alarmed to learn that their Uncle Mike, who has written an honest book about marijuana, was, according to what they were being taught in public school, breaking the law and ruining his brain.
Their parents warned that when I next saw the kids they would have many questions and would want explanations.
Originally posted November 7th, 2010
By Michael Konik
In the aftermath of last week’s voting, in which Californians roundly rejected Prop 19, the initiative to decriminalize marijuana, the Los Angeles Times hinted that maybe possibly it was time to have a frank discussion about our nation’s failed drug policy. The paper, which ran editorials denouncing Prop 19, endorsed a “no” vote, and ignored eloquent voices arguing for its passage, wondered in print if perhaps there was a better way to deal with millions of Americans who, for inscrutable reasons, enjoyed marijuana for uses other than medicinal purposes.
For the record, the paper refused to print a single word about my book Reefer Gladness, preferring the strategy of pretending it does not exist, even though it’s penned by a local writer with eight volumes in print. Had they bothered to engage “Reefer” the Times would have discovered that the one premise upon which their prohibition argument rests is fundamentally flawed. . . . → Read More: Drugs Are Bad
Originally posted October 23rd, 2010
By Michael Konik
An enticing banner ad has been plastered recently all over the highly trafficked sites. It’s got a pulchritudinous brunette beaming a contented smile. She’s pretty but not too sexy, a natural gal, unthreatening and pure. The text asks viewers how they would feel if they learned that there was a newly developed chemical compound that made folks feel more joyous, increased their energy, and chased away the blues. Ask your doctor!
What if those same viewers were told that such a substance has been around for as long weeds have sprouted in soil?
Isn’t is strange, passing strange, that a century of powerful propaganda has made American society more trustworthy of substances invented in laboratories than those that can be picked off a bush? Isn’t it weird that we’re willing to endure the toxic side-effects of legal drugs and not the pleasant side-effects of illegal ones? Isn’t . . . → Read More: Manufactured Versus Natural: Big Pharma Wins Again!
Originally posted October 10th, 2010
By Michael Konik
Marijuana’s earnest legislative warriors don’t want to come right out and admit it: pot makes people feel good. It’s main “side-effect” is that it makes everything feel better. It’s pleasurable. It’s fun.
Medicine is not supposed to be any of these things. To placate the angry prudes who don’t want anyone enjoying themselves too much — unless it’s during church-sponsored worship services — marijuana advocates take care to soft-pedal, if not elide entirely, from their arguments the tendency for cannabis to be wildly enjoyable. Even if you’re not taking it to treat a serious disease.
In this way, marijuana is like sex. It can be useful. It can serve a utilitarian purpose. But some of the time — most of the time? — it doesn’t, other than the purpose of giving pleasure to participants. In the eyes of moralists and orthodox religious fundamentalists, sex isn’t to be . . . → Read More: Marijuana’s Dirty Little Sceret
Originally posted October 2nd, 2010
By Michael Konik
No one is surprised that among the groups opposing California’s Porposition 19, the Control, Regulate, and Tax Marijuana initiative on the November 2 ballot, are financially entrenched business organizations. The prison and law enforcement industry, which profits every time a marijuana user is branded a criminal; the beer industry, which worries that Californians will collectively discover that marijuana is far less harmful than alcoholic products; and, of course, major party politicians, who serve at the behest of their corporate benefactors — all of these factions are predictably allied against pot legalization.
How shocking — and how utterly demoralizing — to learn that some well-known (in the pot community, anyway) activists, people who helped bring medical marijuana to the state and seem to have dedicated their lives to educating the citizenry on the the benefits of kind green bud, are actively opposing Prop 19.
Originally posted August 28th, 2010
By Michael Konik
Like many of my friends, my pal Mommy S likes to visit a place in Hollywood we call The Farm. It’s a small garden, actually, where our dear buddy M plants his organic fruit, vegetables, and weed. She enjoys hanging with her gorgeous toddler son in the garden, absorbing the gentle vibrations of life. Mommy S also likes the organic cannabis that our friend M grows — she’s on the record as declaring it her “favorite ganja in America” — and M always sends her on her way with a care package, just as I do for all my friends in search of a lovingly tended tomato or a carefully cultivated cucumber. It’s our pleasure to give from our gardens!
This past weekend, Mommy S turned up at my home with her whole family. She was bearing a freshly baked vegetarian rice casserole and what I soon would discover . . . → Read More: Michael’s Sharing Manifesto
We're really sorry about our most recent trading loss. People will say we require more oversight, and, in this case, maybe they're right. It shouldn't have happened, and we'll take steps to make sure it doesn't happen for a third time.
The $4,000 or so ($4,882) of your money that we failed to bring back from our annual company trip to Hollywood Park Racetrack and Casino will in... Read More-->
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Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned...
Poet Robert Pinsky. Pianist Laurence Hobgood. Text, music, and the moment -- what we hear on the new POEMJAZZ recording is two giant artists making something greater than the sum of its parts. While Pinsky recites his lovely words with his unlovely (but weirdly attractive) voice, Hobgood, the longtime arranger and accompanist [...]
