Pot: Grow-your-own, as advertised on TV!
Yes, that's right folks, you too can grow your own cannabis products with the help of your local hydroponic nursery supply store. At least, you can in Chico, because they now advertise on television. And if you see it on the television, it MUST be TRUE!
I see this commercial literally as I'm turning off the TV for the night, aired locally during the late show. The commercial announcer does their announcer thing, happy, smiling voice being helpful and encouraging as they tell you they sell all the best product to help grow "your garden" and of course, their knowledgeable staff will be right there to assist you, every step of the way! The friendly announcer person never mentions marijuana, but the plants they show growing in their happy little light box, and the picture on the labels of the bottled plant food (which they show stacked on shelves twenty-five feet long and six feet high) are all our favorite little five-pointed, skunk-scented THC laden greenery: Marijuana. (Or alternately, a link to cannabis.)
First off, like it or hate it, marijuana is STILL an illegal substance, in the eyes of both state law and federal law. It can only be grown with the proper credentials. However easy said credentials are to obtain, and however vague they are as to quantity, the plants can not be grown, sold, or their product processed and sold by or to individuals who do not possess and display the mentioned paperwork in the correct fashion. This commercial had no disclaimer to that effect because they did not mention aloud the actual product which they are promoting. How convenient for them that the legality of their product becomes irrelevant information, because they sell plants and plant food instead of smokable substances.
Secondly, their knowledgeable staff that will be there every step of the way to help you grow your wonderful life-restoring garden? Laughed at me when I asked what could be done to mask or contain the smell of the skunky plants. Their response was that they'd never noticed the smell to begin with. When users and non-users alike can identify my neighbor's house as 'a party house' from A BLOCK AWAY because of the VERY DISTINCT ODOR OF THE PLANT ITSELF, how is it that the knowledgeable staff of a "hydroponics nursery specializing in Canna" is not aware of the smell of the plant? It's called their employees/owners are high on the substance they're happily not reporting to the IRS that they sell*. (*libel alert... have a pinch of salt.)
Which leads me to my third point... THEY'RE ADVERTISING ON TELEVISION NOW.
This is on the eve of yet another city council meeting regarding the issue of whether or not to require zoning regulations on marijuana 'co-ops' which I've talked about before. (Recap: a co-op by legal definition is a shared garden, maintained and tended and used by users who have the legal credentials. As long as they help tend to the garden, they can share the crop, which means that there is no limit to the number of plants that can be crammed into a single place, so long as the letters of recommendation and all other assorted rules are met by all interested parties. Kinda like the yard-full that nearly killed me last fall.) See, here's the proof that the meeting Tuesday will be addressing it - it's waaaaaay down there on the list, but it's there: item #4.3 on page 3.
Before I saw this commercial, I was dead-dog-tired and had literally put my finger on the button to turn off the TV to go to bed. Now? I'm so angry, frustrated, and honestly scared that I can't sleep. So instead, I research things I've researched a hundred times and naively hope to find new information remotely helpful to my situation. It's a theory that has helped me out so many times before... after all, I'm not dead Yet.
And it's on TV... with knowledgeable staff supporting the poor pot-users in this college-town full of bars, frat parties, and proudly riotous drunk/high students.
Wonderful. If it's so common-place that the television stations are perfectly okay with airing commercials that advocate the practice, the meeting tomorrow night will be short and terribly pointless. If I go, it will be to ask the room of gathered potheads and growers to kindly grow their plants in-doors, or in a green house. If they can afford to buy the plants at street value, they can afford a proper greenhouse to protect their neighbors. But that will go over as well as a rock through a greenhouse wall, I'm sure.
So in case it isn't painfully obvious already, I have lost all respect for pot users. I tried. For a year, I have tried to respect their right to get high and live life buzzed enough that they can deal with whatever it is in their life that sucks. We all have our crutches, I'm not one to happily deny someone theirs.
However.
When that crutch literally chokes the life out of your neighbor, making it so that someone like me can not breathe while standing in my own backyard, if it causes me to pass out in the middle of the day while in-doors, if it causes me migraines that last for days, or sometimes to literally wake myself up choking because the air quality coming through my walls and floors and closed windows is so thick with toxins and smells that I CAN NOT BREATHE while I SLEEP... I wish them all a very speedy and non-painful death of whatever it is that got them the legal registrations to begin with. I say this because the feeling is apparently mutual and there's no point in me pretending otherwise any further.
I see this commercial literally as I'm turning off the TV for the night, aired locally during the late show. The commercial announcer does their announcer thing, happy, smiling voice being helpful and encouraging as they tell you they sell all the best product to help grow "your garden" and of course, their knowledgeable staff will be right there to assist you, every step of the way! The friendly announcer person never mentions marijuana, but the plants they show growing in their happy little light box, and the picture on the labels of the bottled plant food (which they show stacked on shelves twenty-five feet long and six feet high) are all our favorite little five-pointed, skunk-scented THC laden greenery: Marijuana. (Or alternately, a link to cannabis.)
First off, like it or hate it, marijuana is STILL an illegal substance, in the eyes of both state law and federal law. It can only be grown with the proper credentials. However easy said credentials are to obtain, and however vague they are as to quantity, the plants can not be grown, sold, or their product processed and sold by or to individuals who do not possess and display the mentioned paperwork in the correct fashion. This commercial had no disclaimer to that effect because they did not mention aloud the actual product which they are promoting. How convenient for them that the legality of their product becomes irrelevant information, because they sell plants and plant food instead of smokable substances.
Secondly, their knowledgeable staff that will be there every step of the way to help you grow your wonderful life-restoring garden? Laughed at me when I asked what could be done to mask or contain the smell of the skunky plants. Their response was that they'd never noticed the smell to begin with. When users and non-users alike can identify my neighbor's house as 'a party house' from A BLOCK AWAY because of the VERY DISTINCT ODOR OF THE PLANT ITSELF, how is it that the knowledgeable staff of a "hydroponics nursery specializing in Canna" is not aware of the smell of the plant? It's called their employees/owners are high on the substance they're happily not reporting to the IRS that they sell*. (*libel alert... have a pinch of salt.)
Which leads me to my third point... THEY'RE ADVERTISING ON TELEVISION NOW.
This is on the eve of yet another city council meeting regarding the issue of whether or not to require zoning regulations on marijuana 'co-ops' which I've talked about before. (Recap: a co-op by legal definition is a shared garden, maintained and tended and used by users who have the legal credentials. As long as they help tend to the garden, they can share the crop, which means that there is no limit to the number of plants that can be crammed into a single place, so long as the letters of recommendation and all other assorted rules are met by all interested parties. Kinda like the yard-full that nearly killed me last fall.) See, here's the proof that the meeting Tuesday will be addressing it - it's waaaaaay down there on the list, but it's there: item #4.3 on page 3.
Before I saw this commercial, I was dead-dog-tired and had literally put my finger on the button to turn off the TV to go to bed. Now? I'm so angry, frustrated, and honestly scared that I can't sleep. So instead, I research things I've researched a hundred times and naively hope to find new information remotely helpful to my situation. It's a theory that has helped me out so many times before... after all, I'm not dead Yet.
And it's on TV... with knowledgeable staff supporting the poor pot-users in this college-town full of bars, frat parties, and proudly riotous drunk/high students.
Wonderful. If it's so common-place that the television stations are perfectly okay with airing commercials that advocate the practice, the meeting tomorrow night will be short and terribly pointless. If I go, it will be to ask the room of gathered potheads and growers to kindly grow their plants in-doors, or in a green house. If they can afford to buy the plants at street value, they can afford a proper greenhouse to protect their neighbors. But that will go over as well as a rock through a greenhouse wall, I'm sure.
So in case it isn't painfully obvious already, I have lost all respect for pot users. I tried. For a year, I have tried to respect their right to get high and live life buzzed enough that they can deal with whatever it is in their life that sucks. We all have our crutches, I'm not one to happily deny someone theirs.
However.
When that crutch literally chokes the life out of your neighbor, making it so that someone like me can not breathe while standing in my own backyard, if it causes me to pass out in the middle of the day while in-doors, if it causes me migraines that last for days, or sometimes to literally wake myself up choking because the air quality coming through my walls and floors and closed windows is so thick with toxins and smells that I CAN NOT BREATHE while I SLEEP... I wish them all a very speedy and non-painful death of whatever it is that got them the legal registrations to begin with. I say this because the feeling is apparently mutual and there's no point in me pretending otherwise any further.