A few weeks ago, hippies mustered enough organization to flock to the Internet to demand of their new hopeful president satisfaction.  A notoriously single-issue constiuency, they had their own idea on stimulating the economy which conveniently correlated with their favorite pastime.  The hippies got their answer from Barack Obama, though I suspect its consideration fell a little short of the seriousness with which the question was posed.

We took votes about which questions were going to be asked, I think … 3.5 million people voted.  I have to say there was one question that ranked very high.  And that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation… I don’t know what this says about the online audience.

This was a fairly popular question, we want to make sure it was answered.  The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.

I’m always surprised by the number of weed smokers that want it legalized.  The music, the culture, the commerce, the relationships – the whole stoner world hinges on its illegality.  It would be like a guy with a mohawk getting elected president: why would we listen to punk rock if The Man were one of our own?

Photo: Clint L.

In towns like San Francisco, it is a question asked of every publicly elected official, no matter how little influence the head of the City Water Department can wield on the issue.  The din has picked up particularly since last October, with the latest argument being the creation of a new, high volume taxable industry that would carry with it a ton of jobs for an economy at 10% unemployment.

I’m not sure what quantity constitutes “a ton of jobs,” but I suspect even if the legal status of the commodity to change, the product source would not. Irrespective of whether or not it can be sold at the corner store, the large and sophisticated infrastructure for marijuana’s growth, harvest, commodification, logistics and wholesale that already exists isn’t going to suddenly go away. Marijuana operations in Venezuela are not like the dank Hollywood tyrannical sweatfarms manned by hordes of dudes with automatic weapons. They are businesses whose products happen to be illegal in a lot of places, but they are businesses that are mature and strong nevertheless. The lionshare of the jobs behind marijuana are in South America, where they (like tobacco) will stay.

Further, regulation should be the last thing any hippie would want. Look what Coca-Cola did to soda, what McDonald’s did to food, what Budweiser did to beer, what Brown-Forman did to whiskey, what Philip Morris did to tobacco, what Sony did to music, what Universal did to film, what Barnes and Noble did to literature, what Wal-mart did to fashion, what Ikea did to my living room, what ExxonMobil did to the air we breathe, what Vivendi did to the water we drink, and what Lehman Brothers did to our livelihoods. Every one of them legal. Every one of them regulated. Every one of them destroying our lives a little more each day.

So do they want their Quarter Stoners with Cheese? Crispy McReefer Value Meals with supersized Happy Fries? The kind of ganja that a 21st century global economy would produce fettered only by the impotence of government regulators?

No fucking thanks.

If you like getting high, you should pray prohibition lasts the rest of your hippie days. Because the moment Mary Jane gets McDonaldized, that schwag ditchweed you pick up at a quarter for a dime is going to taste like the Good Ol’ Days.

This two-part piece will continue Wednesday with the basic arithmetic behind the hippies’ economic forecast.

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