Still from a video uploaded on YouTube by user@Chuck Varabioff, via rt.com
Regular readers of The Bovine will know that we have periodically featured stories about raw milk automats that seem to be pretty much the standard form of off-farm raw milk distribution throughout Europe. Any thinking person would wonder why we don’t have them in North America. We could talk about how it’s illegal here and how some jurisdictions (BC) even try to label raw milk an inherently hazardous substance, but more likely the deep reason is that the dairy oligarchs have a low tolerance for competition.
Like raw milk, marijuana has, in recent decades, been a controlled substance with a strong underground market. And so raw milk fans have been watching with interest the progress of what’s looking like gradual legalization of pot, driven, we’d like to think, by public pressure and dawning sanity among the governing classes. We’ve heard about pot being legalized in Colorado and Washington state last year.
But then we’ve also heard how banks won’t take the money and how folks who make a business of growing pot there have to drive around with wads of cash in the trunks of their cars just to pay their tax bills. There seems to a tug of war for control going on between the States and the Feds, and pot is just one place where that is playing out.
But back to Canada, it seems this machine is installed in a medical marijuana dispensary, but doesn’t require ID to purchase. That would seem to indicate that any Tom, Dick or Harriet could walk in off the street and make a purchase, except that most likely access to a pot dispensary is limited to those who have clearance from a doctor to obtain medical marijuana. However, they’d better not take their purchase across the border into Washington state (where pot is also legal) because the border is controlled by the Feds, and they might end up losing their car just for transporting pot between two jurisdictions where pot is legal.
“The first cannabis-dispensing machine in Canada has begun operating in Vancouver, following on from the first machine installed recently in the US state of Colorado. The difference? The Canadian machine doesn’t ID you.
Despite the controversy surrounding the plant and the endless bickering that has marked the discourse around it, the machine looks strangely ordinary and even less threatening than a cigarette pack, with big green leaves and certainly no indication that it contains something that is so hotly debated.
“We put it in the vending machine to cut down on theft and handling,” says Chuck Varabioff, of the BC Pain Society, the dispensary where the machine was installed. “It’s packaged up and sealed professionally. So you come in, you buy your product, it’s fresh, it’s quick and easy, and you’re out of here in minutes.”
The box contains a whole host of strains and flavors that are sure to trigger people’s memories of films containing the plant: “Purple Kush, Bubba Kush,” and a range of sativa and indica strains.
The product is sold in quantities slightly bigger than an eighth of an ounce (3.7 grams) and the machine only accepts cash.
But one key difference really sets the machine apart from the Colorado one: it doesn’t take your ID, purchasing is anonymous. This is evident from the video [LINK] posted by the dispensary on YouTube. You just pay the money and your choice of candy just falls down into the slot.
One other difference between the American and Canadian realities is statistical: the US has over 2.5 million authorized users, while Canada has only 37,000 – although the health ministry believes the figure will go up tenfold within the next 10 years….”
Related:
“George Soros and the GMO Cannabis Revolution
George Soros and his Open Society Institute has pushed hard, dumping substantial sums of money into a public campaign to legalise marijuana in Uruguay. Why? TheWashington Times confirmed the extent of their public relations investment into this issue:
“Through a network of nonprofit groups, Mr. Soros has spent at least $80 million on the legalization effort since 1994, when he diverted a portion of his foundation’s funds to organizations exploring alternative drug policies, according to tax filings”.
In 2013, the Marijuana Policy Project listed its “Top 50 Most Influential Marijuana Users”, which they claim is “meant to identify people who have used marijuana and achieved high levels of success or influence”. George Soros is ranked 9th, alongside Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher (one can only guess which other ‘users’ lists this crowd also falls under). Not to mention, it’s always comforting to know that your President might be stoned at the wheel of the nation (by contrast, the golf doesn’t seem so bad).
In the US, the much-celebrated Colorado story has dominated pot news, and there are a number of other states set to follow.
“It’s only a matter of time before marijuana is legalized under federal law,” Tom Angell, founder and chairman of the Marijuana Majority advocacy group, told the Times. “We now have 20 states plus the District of Columbia considering legalization efforts, two states have already legalized it for all adults over the age of 21 — politicians will have to follow the will of the people on this.”
Aside from the Soros agenda for a One World Government, financing the Occupy Movement and of overthrowing governments, destablising nations and fomenting civil wars around the globe through carefully planned ‘color revolutions’, how does the Open Society Institute’s push for legalisation of drugs fit into all of this?
Critics are wondering if it could have something to do with influencing the governments in those countries where the legalisation efforts are most intense. Is this connected to the UN’s Agenda 21? Or is this paving the way for gene giants in big pharma to replace natural strands of cannabis with their own patented GMO variety? …”
Also, in Mother Jones, “Will American Farmers Put the [Mexican Marijuana] Cartels Out of Business?“
“For the first time ever, many of the farmers who supply Mexican drug cartels have stopped planting marijuana, reports the Washington Post. “It’s not worth it anymore,” said Rodrigo Silla, a lifelong cannabis farmer from central Mexico. “I wish the Americans would stop with this legalization.”
Facing stiff competition from pot grown legally and illegally north of the border, the price for a kilogram of Mexican schwag has plummeted by 75 percent, from $100 to $25, the Postreports:
Farmers in the storied “Golden Triangle” region of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, which has produced the country’s most notorious gangsters and biggest marijuana harvests, say they are no longer planting the crop…increasingly, they’re unable to compete with US marijuana growers. With cannabis legalized or allowed for medical use in 20 US states and the District of Columbia, more and more of the American market is supplied with highly potent marijuana grown in American garages and converted warehouses—some licensed, others not.
As notes David Downs of the East Bay Express, this is a really big deal. In the past decade, Mexican drug cartels have murdered an estimated 60,000 people. The DEA annually spendsmore than $2 billion to deter the transport of illicit drugs across the border. “So now we have both the DEA and cartel farmers screaming bloody murder about legalization,” Downs points out. “Sounds like we’re on the right track.”…”
The Bovine 
If obozo gets “stoned at the wheel of the nation” it won’t be from pot, it will be from real stones! He’s losing support so fast he might not make it through the next 2 years. And wouldn’t that be grand?
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/i-spent-an-afternoon-at-canadas-first-weed-vending-machine