1. …ugh

2. …

3. I umm…

4. :::YAWWWWN:::

5. Hmmm…I was just about to do something.

6. Where the hell are my keys?

7. Man, Jessica Alba is so hot.

8. Perhaps there are no good or evil men in this world. Instead, all men are the same in that they all act in both good and evil at some time in their lives. The only thing that really separates us is the degree to which we are willing to act in either direction of good or evil in order to attain what we want.

9. Man, Jessica Alba is so hot.

10. I swear I was supposed to do something.

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It’s a good post, go read it.

But, at the end of the Boston Herald article there was something that struck me in a way that I feel deserved a whole new post.

Meanwhile, in Braintree on Monday night, police spotted a suspected perv smoking pot in a car filled with coils of rope, a pair of handcuffs and bottles of NyQuil. But they had to let the man go, even though he was awaiting trial on child sexual assault charges.

Said Deputy Chief Russell Jenkins, “Had the law not been changed, he absolutely would have been placed under arrest.”

Wait. What?! What the hell does this have to do with marijuana?

Nothing. But man, what a horrible story.

A suspected child molester runs free with rope, handcuffs and NyQuil because of the decriminalization of marijuana.

Maybe we should make hair illegal. This way the cops could have taken him in. Or perhaps we should make it an arrestable offense to drive right-handed. Surely we could have taken him in at this point.

Dammit. Seems that being right-handed and sporting a full head of hair is okay in the U.S. and now a child molester will have to go free.

I wish I could say I was super pissed about such a statement, but I don’t expect much more from media outlets like these. It’s a juicy story. Extremely irresponsible, but expected.

It feels as though Edward Mason and/or Jessica Van Sack (the authors at Boston Herald) are the reincarnation of Harry Anslinger. Very reminiscent of his statements.

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Let me explain

Through this article the Boston Herald bullet-pointed several cases in which their decriminalization of marijuana has actually made a negative impact.

In Arlington, a public works employee was cited by the local police chief for smoking a pot pipe as he stood next to his town-issued tractor.

At bustling Park Street Station, a pair of nonchalant lovers out on the town openly lit up a joint and continued toking even after confronted by off-duty Milton Chief Richard Wells.

In East Boston, four teens spotted in a “smoke-filled vehicle” unabashedly told a cop they were “just smoking marijuana.”

A man caught near a Dorchester playground laughed when police said he faced a $100 fine – and then taunted the cops with an expletive-laced tirade.

Pro-legalization folk will read these and realize that these are few cases out of many, and we all know how the media like to grab onto juicy stories. The anti-legalization crowd will certainly use this as a base to fight for criminalization (or re-criminalization where applicable). This is to be expected. But there is another crowd that we don’t think of, that has far more power than either of the other 2. The people that haven’t decided.

Let me share this with you.

Indifference Is A Killer

As the owner of a business that offers services of a recurring type, you rely heavily on your current customer base. These are the people paying the bills, which in turn allows you to pay your employees, who will in turn accommodate those customers and gain new ones.

Most of your customer care employees will often share their joy when a happy client calls, and their disgust at the idea they may have to deal with an unhappy customer. But this thinking isn’t proper. Pissed or otherwise, those customers are communicating with you. These people are calling in to tell you what they think about your services, good or bad.

The people that don’t call, those are the ones I worry about. You see, it’s not so difficult to please an unhappy client. Sure, you may lose a few, but generally you don’t. But the people who don’t care either way; those people could leave at the drop of a hat giving you no understanding as to why. So, you do your best to communicate with as many of your current, past and potential clients as you can.

Remember, friends. Indifference has, on more than one occasion been the killer of companies. My point?

We Need To Speak To The Indifferent

Again, we know that the 2 major sides of the legalization argument will read such an article and contrive what they already have. But that third group; the group that hasn’t made up their mind. They may read this article and see it as a basis for their future reasoning.

This is why we need to be careful. The little decriminalization battle fought and won in small areas are great, but the real ‘war on drugs’ isn’t over. Actions like the ones stated in the article could set us back quite a bit.

The Battles of a War

There is a military strategy that doesn’t make sense when you first hear it, but becomes obvious once explained.

Let’s say you have forces on 2 fronts, and a reserve waiting for your orders. One front is being taken by your army with impecable ease, while the other is waining. Without consideration to what each front actually means; in this hypothetical situation, where do you send your reserves?

Most people say “obviously, to the front that we stand to lose.” This is incorrect. Sending forces to a losing battle may very well end in a complete loss of 2 of your groups, and the other battle hasn’t been secured just yet. Such thinking could equal a complete loss. Instead, you send your forces to the winning battle to ensure victory. This will leave your men alive to fight another day. Now you have 2, maybe three groups you may send to another battle.

I know, it took me a while to grasp it when my father explained it to me as well.

But that’s where we are. We are at a point where small battles are causing complacency, leading to losing battles in other areas. As a country, we need to stand together.

Just Play Along, Dammit

This has gotten a little off point, but I hope it helps to explain the reasoning I have when I say; we need to not let stories like this take root. Most people spend more than $100 on lunch per week. Yeah, you can smoke with a small fine now, but that doesn’t mean you get to shuck the law all together. Don’t give people a reason to re-think decriminalization.

The people in this story could have paid their fine and been on their way. This would show that there is still money coming into the local government (their main concern anyway) and that we as pro-legalization peoples are all too happy to oblige the laws as they come.

This Wouldn’t Even Be a Problem If…

I know what a lot of your are thinking (if you’ve actually made it this far into my often incoherent writing). You’re thinking “you know, if we just made it legal we wouldn’t have these problems.” And you’re correct. Sure, if it were legal we wouldn’t have to deal with this stuff all the time. But it’s not legal yet, and there’s only one thing we can do about that. Play the game. We have to accommodate the ignorant until we can bring the majority to the same page as we.

It sucks, but you have to get passed the “I was gonna clean my room until my mommy told me to” mentality. Just clean your damn room, pacify the people that need it, and fight the battles where we are winning. I say this because I am in Florida, and I will need all the forces I can get once you guys get your wins under your belt.

Oh, and just to show you that you aren’t alone in this thought, it seems that a poll by the Boston Herald conducted of 3,758 people shows that 71% feel that we should “just legalize pot and save us all the trouble.”

We will win, it’s just a matter of keeping our wits about us, and time.

And Now For Further B.S.

To round this article off with further propaganda bullshit, take a look at how this article ends. It seems that a child molester runs free because of marijuana decriminalization.

See, we already have plenty of crap to deal with. Don’t add to it with disrespectful behavior towards the authorities. Pay your damn fine, or smoke where you won’t be caught.

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Actually, a ton of things were blocked. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. The funny thing is, I provide services to clients that use these services as a means to promote themselves.

There were also a ton of industry related sites that we refer to and use all the time that we can no longer access. What does this have to do with marijuana? Let me continue and you’ll see.

I called the department responsible for this as well as spoke to several other employees in the company. The general consensus is that this was a blanket-style blockage of many sites in an attempt to prevent any loss in productivity. I pressed further asking if there had been any problems with productivity (I can tell you that my team and another team are certainly on point with productivity). The answer was no. Were there any other problems with people accessing these sites? Maybe personal issues overflowing into work time? Nope.

These sites were all blocked simply because they “may cause an issue.” The software we use for security has these sites in a category that was determined to negatively impact work completion in a corporate environment.

The problem with that logic is 2-fold:

1. Because these sites allow for another channel we use to promote our clients, the blocking of them will in fact reduce productivity. Now, I and my team members can not do their job in its entirity. I’m sure this will be fixed, but we will have to go through several meetings about the need for these sites, and I’m sure it won’t be “fixed” for some time.
2. These sites have been around for a long time already. Facebook and Twitter alone have been around for years. We can track the usage of any given site by any given employee. We know without any doubt that there are no problems with productivity or professionalism so far.

So here we are, blocked from using these sites that have been proven to have a specific need with real benefits, and have had no negative impacts in their recreational use. This is so because of the advice given to us by a third-party that doesn’t have a knowledge of our company and processes specifically. And that, my friends, is how this relates to marijuana.

Marijuana has been used for thousands of years with proven positive effects. From medicinal to recreational, there have been tests after tests to show a real benefit.

As for recreational use, we know that those who use responsibly don’t cause any problems, and usually abide by the laws of the government, including paying taxes. These are people who have full time jobs, go to school and take care of their families.

Those points aside, marijuana is illegal due to a perceived, baseless threat to society. Usually, the studies and reasons for marijuana prohibition are attributed to people who haven’t actually done any research themselves, but have the ability to make blanket decisions.

In the last few hours I’ve spent at my desk observing the impact of the recent blockage of access to these sites, I’ve seen morality hit a dangerous low. I’m watching, right this moment, an employee blatently shuck some of his responsibilities in a misguided attempt to “stick it to the man.” I don’t beleive this is the proper way in which to handle the situation, but it is still a direct result of the action taken by the company. This too reminds me of the state of marijuana in our country.

When marijuana was finally prohibited, we see an increase in crime and violence surrounding marijuana. And, like the response to the employee trying to fight the system; regardless of the obvious cause of violence by the prohibition and not the drug itself, his productivity will be blamed in a round-a-bout way on social sites like Facebook.

It seems that Facebook is the marijuana of the Internet. At least in my company. And though the owner of the company will go home tonight to update his status or put another video on YouTube, the blockage remains.

Interesting indeed.

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I want to make this a place for smokers, non-smokers, activist groups, businesses, well…everyone. Actually, I have a lot of selfish reasons for creating the site. I really like this community/culture. Sure, I’m not an active smoker, but I’ve met a lot of really cool people, and I really dig the vibe everyone gives off. Plus, I love the pics people come up with, I want more!

In The Beginning
Right now, you can become a member and take part in a few of these actions:

• Start a group
• Upload images
• Upload Videos
• Make friends with other marijuana enthusiasts
• Fill out your “idea for legalization:” Your ideas on how to legalize marijuana, etc.

The Future
I’m still playing with the idea of opening the forum. There are already a ton of great forums out there, and I’m not a fan of littering, even on the interwebs.

However, the classifieds function of the software I used is pretty cool, so in the very near future there will be a section of the site dedicated to buying and selling products (without a fee. I hate fees for stuff like that).

Also, I’ll be using the social network as a means to share news 2 times on a weekly basis.

What I Need
Members and feedback. Simple as that. I would really like to start seeing people join and connect. I’ll be working on the profiles more to include a space for Twitter profile links and website links (this should be available in the next few days).

If you have an idea you would like to see on the site, please fill out the feedback form and I’ll be happy to accommodate where I can.

Smarter Peeps Than I
I would also really like to get articles on the site. I’m looking for How-To’s, editorials, etc. Anything at all you would like to share. It comes with a bio and a free link to your website (I’m a giver, you see). If you would like to contribute, please feel free to email your article and information to Josh@AboveTheFlaT.com

Please Note
As is stated in the ToS, marijuana is illegal in the US, for the most part anyway. As such, please be mindful of the information you post, including images, etc. I’m real big on privacy, and it would take a lot for an authority to get info from the site (as in a warrant, I know my rights), but there’s only so much I can do. Please don’t incriminate yourself without understanding that risk. Unless you live in a country that doesn’t have its own head up its own ass. Then, please share what you got.

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