{"id":23178,"date":"2019-03-07T00:31:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23178"},"modified":"2019-03-07T00:31:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:31:46","slug":"essays-from-the-eastside-moneyjuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/essays-from-the-eastside-moneyjuana\/","title":{"rendered":"ESSAYS FROM THE EASTSIDE: Moneyjuana"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

A whole culture just died with the legalization of Cannabis.
\nThe rebels and the slackers, the Cheech and Chongs, and all the country music songs about \u201cWacky Tobacky\u201d will slowly become folklore.
\nIt was the same with alcohol.
\nProhibition brought protests and arguments in publications and politics, but once legal those same articles brought changes to thoughts on alcoholism\u2026and created those sad country music songs about bad nights and lost dogs.
\nThe world got into the alcohol business after prohibition like the world is getting into cannabis.
\nCannabis is a drug. By now if you have read anything at all you know it is addictive. The statistics are that 9% of users will become addicted. It\u2019s a higher statistic for the very young, at 24%. One of the main reasons always used for accepting legalization is that legalizing cannabis will control the illegal drug trade and keep the product \u201cclean\u201d.
\nThat\u2019s relieving news to our brave new world that is seeing unprecedented deaths due to lethal mixing of other substances such as fentanyl.
\nLegalizing cannabis will keep the gangs at bay and help destroy the \u201csinister underworld\u201d of illegal trade.
\nBut let\u2019s be honest. The local Town Council really had no choice but to opt into our government\u2019s legalization of cannabis, because the money is already coming in and the industry is already out of the government\u2019s control.
\nLet\u2019s think back to alcohol\u2026. we are lying to ourselves if we say we haven\u2019t known an alcoholic in our lives, but there are many billion-dollar liquor and beer companies.
\nThe Government of Canada is not going to control the cannabis industry any more than it controls the spirit, beer and wine industry. They will regulate and make money, but it won\u2019t be the government that changes the illegal drug industry. It will be the corporations.
\nBig Tobacco has already bought in.
\nAltria, the company that makes Marlboro invested 2.4 billion in Toronto Cannabis producer Cronos Group Ltd. Neal Brothers Inc., known for their chips and salsa and other specialty foods, made a deal with Newstrike Brands, to produce co-branded edible cannabis products when those become legal in October of this year.
\nAurora Cannabis announced it would start making medical marijuana for Mexico. Mexico\u2026 let that sink in\u2026what we perceive as the North American drug cartel fantasyland. The drugs are going back, but they are going back legal.
\n\u201cHigh Times\u201d, a 43-year-old publication that has always bragged about being the world\u2019s number-one resource for cannabis culture and a source for \u201cthe war on drugs\u201d is actively seeking stock investors as they enter the production trade.
\nWe will be convinced to forget the cost on human lives, addiction treatment, policing and health care\u2026 because those things have just become the price of doing business\u2026 like tobacco, gambling, and alcohol.
\nUntil addiction doesn\u2019t make money and products that provide artificial pleasure are not part of the human experience, we will once again trade our conscious for consumerism. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark A whole culture just died with the legalization of Cannabis. The rebels and the slackers, the Cheech and Chongs, and all the country music songs about \u201cWacky Tobacky\u201d will slowly become folklore. It was the same with alcohol. Prohibition brought protests and arguments in publications and politics, but once legal those same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-61Q","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 14:16:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}