Let’s celebrate Washington State’s inept but sincere legalization of recreational marijuana this week, with ‘Family Guy’ characters performing Seth MacFarlane’s song and dance extravaganza “Bag of Weed!” If you know it, you probably love it, and can sing along. In the time since MacFarlane first created the musical number, there have been significant changes in the U.S. concerning marijuana policy. At this time, 23 states, including WA and CO allow marijuana for medical use, and only those two states allow it to be sold for recreational use.
Of course, Colorado lead the way with legalization on Jan 1, 2012, much to the state’s financial benefit. Washington doesn’t have all of the bugs worked out, but some stores opened on Tuesday July 8th. They will soon realize the tax advantages to be had…But sadly they weren’t ready for the launch. A customer who was interviewed for USNews, spent $80 for 4 grams, of which $20.57 went to taxes! Much of the marijuana being sold Tuesday cost at least twice the $10 to $12 per gram offered by the state’s unregulated medical dispensaries.
Seven thousand eager applicants have applied to grow the newly legal crop, but state red tape has slowed the process, and at the launch date, only 100 had been approved, assuring high prices ad low quantities for some time to come.
Of course there are always some who are unhappy about progress.
Derek Franklin, head of the Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention, said it can “normalize” marijuana use for children. He lamented that the state only recently scraped together some money for a digital and radio advertising campaign to urge parents to talk to their children about marijuana.
Would marijuana be ‘normalized’ in the same way that Dos Equis is normalized in TV ads, or Black Velvet in gigantic billboards? Talking to your kids is never a bad idea, but “Think of The Children!” is an old, tired tactic. Them’s that are going to think of the children will talk with them, and them’s that won’t talk with them, probably won’t become good parents due to a radio advertising program…But there’s always gold in those hills, if you’re an anti-drug activist.