Is Bill Maher a True OG?

The stakes for the US cannabis industry are sky high, but Bill Maher seems clueless. He chooses guests with outdated resumes on the subject, promotes ancient storylines, and seems unaware of the conversations that are currently happening in the chambers of the US Congress and the halls of the Biden Administration.?

Whether you like him or not, Bill Maher deserves respect and has earned a journalist’s credibility for speaking the truth to power and trafficking in fact-based arguments. His longevity as a pundit and newsmaker makes him a rare gem in the American media cosmos, as does his uncommonly open embrace of marijuana.

In a primetime interview that aired in February on CNN, Jake Tapper asks Maher about his favorite cannabis strain. Maher describes an out-of-body experience with a shiny brick of Acapulco Gold and follows sheepishly with a familiar tale about surviving Cornell financially in the 1970’s by becoming a pot dealer. He concludes, “Let’s just say I was ahead of my time because it’s legal now.”

Unfortunately, cannabis legality isn’t simple, and that shouldn’t be news to Maher, who is part-owner of Woody Harrelson’s The Woods dispensary in West Hollywood. Every licensed operator knows that if the current legalization experiment fails, we will quickly revert to the days of neighborhood pot dealers, usually a front for local organized crime, Mexican drug cartels, or the Chinese mafia.

Cannabis legalization has been a fundamental content pillar throughout the history of Real Time with Bill Maher - Live Taping , since it began in 2003, making Maher a marijuana hero. His longtime membership in NORML , as well his global popularity from HBO rank him highly as a source of cannabis news in most American households. For many, he carries the cannabis conversation.

Recently, Maher seems to have lost faith. In August 2022, he discusses cannabis legalization with former Attorney General Eric Holder on his show and begins with an audience-submitted question: “Why isn't Biden pushing for federal legalization of marijuana?”

And then, out of nowhere, the impossible happened. President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. changed the fate of legalized cannabis with one stroke of his pen. On October 3, 2022, the White House published its earthshattering “Statement on Marijuana Reform”, and Maher was caught flatfooted, seemingly unaware of the seismic consequences that naturally would flow from this type of Presidential action.

Instead of a full-throated embrace of Biden, Maher falls for the President’s clever camouflage. He offers a high-five – with emphasis on “high” – to Biden for granting thousands of marijuana pardons, but he completely misses the entrée portion of the President’s statement, when Biden asks his cabinet to review the section of the Controlled Substances Act that currently classifies cannabis in Schedule 1, “meant for the most dangerous substances.”

The President implores that Schedule 1 is reserved for drugs like heroin and LSD, and the lesser Schedule 2 is the home of the “drugs that are driving our overdose epidemic”, fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Yes, our octogenarian, teetotaling President has virtually guaranteed that cannabis will cease to be a Schedule 1 drug during his administration, and Bill Maher missed the signal.

Later in the same show, instead of applauding Uncle Joe, Maher muses, “Yes. The old president. Credit to him because Joe really doesn’t know anything about pot. He thinks THC is that channel that chose the old movies.”

Maher again needlessly chides Biden about marijuana in early March. During a rant about ever-adjusting societal norms he blurts, “Biden is currently, as we speak, late on pot. And, it’s going to look bad in the future. The difference is, the next Democrat will legalize pot.”

The President’s statement just before the mid-terms has paid off already by driving young Democratic voters to the polls, and his change of heart reflects growing public consensus that cannabis is safer than tobacco.

Perhaps Mr. Maher never read the President’s statement all the way through. It ends with a manifesto “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana.?It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

It turns out the old guy is the fox playing a longer game, and the hipster’s still in la-la land.

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Some call it tamjee. Some call it the weed. Some call it marijuana. Some call it ganja.

Never mind, got to legalize it.

Singers smoke it. And players of instrument too. Doctors smoke it. Nurses smoke it. Judges smoke it. Even lawyer too.

It's good for the flu. Good for asthma. Good for tuberculosis. Even umara composis.

Birds eat it. Ants love it. Fowls eat it. Goats love to play with it.

Peter Tosh, 1978 - Bush Doctor?

So there'll be no more police brutality. No more disrespect for humanity.

It can build up your failing economy, yeah. Eliminate the slavish mentality.

So there'll be no more illegal humiliation. And no more police interrogation.

And there be no more need to smoke and hide. When you know you're takin' a legal ride.

Peter Tosh, 1978 - Legalize It

How About Trouble, We've Got Some

Most California cannabis companies have been systematically destroyed by four years of over-regulation, over-taxation, and capital starvation. If you want to buy one share of all of these publicly traded companies – MedMen, The Parent Company , Harborside Inc. / Urbn Leaf / Loudpack, Inc. /Sublime, and Lowell Herb Company /Indus you would need less than one dollar.

Since medical legalization in 1996, California has been the fault line between the unlicensed/illicit/black-market/traditional segment of cannabis and the legal market. After nearly three decades, an estimate 75% of cannabis sales are untaxed, unregulated, and untested.?

This past year, California saw its first legal cannabis revenue drop since adult-use sales began five years ago. In 2022, legal sales in California reached $5.3 billion, down 8.2% from $5.77 billion in 2021. Despite the decrease, California still accounts for roughly 20% of the $26 billion American cannabis industry.

Many view the legal market as broken and dysfunctional. One of the main limiting factors is the drop in the price per pound of weed. The wholesale price of cannabis in California is currently around $665 a pound, down 26% year over year, and that price has decreased by over 50% since 2017.

Illegal retail is ascendant. To stay afloat, legal companies in California are sending product to other states, particularly New York, which is a federal crime. Often disguised as vape shops, Southern California cities like Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Los Angeles, allow illicit dispensaries to operate with impunity.

Reports from New York City claimed 1,300 unlicensed cannabis bodegas earlier this year, when they opened their first legal dispensary to much hoopla. In the rest of the country, many traditional vape/tobacco shops have a secret code, if you ask for the really strong stuff, they will bring you cannabis from the back room. Cannabis swap meets take place in parking lots on weekends in your area.

The illegal flow of cannabis will expand unless it is controlled like we control every other important industry in our society.