Glamorizing Wineries vs. Villainizing Marijuana Growers

This evening while eating my dinner, I flicked through the news channels, hoping to find that rare little bit of actual fresh, "new" information for which the news media are presumably named. CNN didn't supply it, nor did CNN Headline, Fox News, or MSNBC. These were spewing the usual rubbish of statist blather. Anderson Cooper, at least, was earnest in his attempt to get to the bottom of the British Petroleum fiasco on "AC 360."

Meanwhile, CNBC caught my eye with a special on the rapidly growing marijuana trade in California - the exact title escapes me, but something like "Marijuana, Inc." The decriminalization - or, as we libertarians like to say, the "relegalization" - of growing, possessing, and using small quantities of this herb has led to quite an economic boom in certain California towns. There is a small war going on in middle and northern California, between entrepreneurs, who see this opportunity as a simple supply and demand function (with supply being massively outstripped by demand), and a conservative contingent (law enforcement and family values crowd). Already, the financial allure, with actual profit-making by both individuals and family organizations, has already produced small fortunes for quite a few in more than one small town economy.

Of course, some don't like it. They see this as the Devil's playground - moral decay ... with organized crime not far behind. I was frankly surprised though at the appearance of most, if not all the interviewees. They were just regular folks, people with pets, mortgages, carpools of kids going to soccer games and gym tournaments.

QUESTION: What if America still viewed the wine industry in the same way as the general media and government would have us view the marijuana growers? As a sub-class of losers and decadent, drug-running thugs and washed up Hells Angels. It would be ludicrous, wouldn't it?

Between the previous paragraph and this one, I clicked over to the Wikipedia entry for "Vineyards." It was a very extensive entry. Holy Cow! Wine is BIG! It is chic. It is classy. It is an art. It involves science, culture, and it has spawned books, poems, movies, legends.

POOR Marijuana. Cannabis sativa ... cannabis indica. Wow - the Wikipedia entry for this is quite extensive as well! Hmm ... I guess there is interest in this resource.

So, why the bizarre double standard? We all know that wine sometimes causes ... well, winos. These are also referred to as drunks, or just bums. We know that drunk drivers kill hundreds, if not thousands, annually in the USA. Abuse of alcohol, of course, includes beer, wine, wine coolers, champagne, liquor, whiskey, etc. And, when people mix lots of different types of alcohol with mind-altering drugs of various flavors, trouble is sure to follow.

What is it, do you suppose, that gives reefer such a bad reputation?! Is it the criminal mystique - the lure of the unknown, the forbidden? Is it the fact that it represents rebellion? Does it really drive the youth (and the aged, the infirm, the visually-impaired, the medically terminal) of America to be "bad" people?!

To see what the future of full-scale legalization of this horrid drug would look like, we only need to look at the dreadful effects of a society that has already been compromised and savaged by the wine industry. You can see that ... wait a minute! All I see are lovely estates that attract lots of attractive, adventurous, wealthy folks. These are people who like to slow down, to enjoy life, and to experience the synergy of good food, good wine, and good company.

Hmmm.

A fly of a memory is buzzing around ... I'm pretty positive that there was some big issue back in the 1920s and early 1930s, when Uncle Sam outlawed (i.e. criminalized) alcohol. The results were - - - [The Administration is looking for a flyswatter! Aah, ... here come the historical revisionists.]

Hold on! It's coming back to me. Can you say "Prohibition"?! This misguided legislation - by way of Amendment XVIII to the U. S. Constitution (ratified in January 1919) - is what originally attracted the Mafia to the United States. This giant crime syndicate wanted to take up the slack for the unmet demand of a resource that had been a fundamental diversion and essential cultural ingredient of the Human Race for 10,000 years. And, this bizarre lapse in logic and statecraft was remedied only after gang wars (via machine guns) had bloodied the urban centers of our nation. Eventually, somebody flipped the "Stupid" switch OFF, and the law was repealed via Amendment XXI (ratified in December 1933)!

So, we Americans learned from this lesson - right?

RIGHT?!! I mean, we learned ... we do learn from our - - - We can learn, sometimes, can't we?