Artists

Posted on March 25, 2008

It began as a seed. Just an idea. Medical marijuana businesses are required under California law to operate as non-profits. So why not launch a service that lives up to the law’s true spirit? I could provide safe access to truly sick people, and instead of their money going to profiteers I could take those funds and create art grants for writers, painters, musicians, performers and others whose work shows bonafide merit.

Hell, somebody has to do something. If not, our culture is destined to devolve into endless American Idol reruns. And what a perfect storyline for the marijuana movement. Pot dealers making it possible for Republicans to bury the NEA. Not that the National Endowment for the Arts can do much as things stand anyway. This year’s budget is $144 million. Comparable sums are spent every twelve hours in Iraq. Nor is corporate America helping. Suits don’t give a fig about young artists. But in apathy, they’re not alone. As a people, we’ve grown appallingly comfortable with the idea of the starving artist. That creative folk should struggle to do their best work is one thing, but that artists should physically and emotionally suffer, in some cases resort to crime, or have their lives eviscerated in some other sad, heartbreaking way—just because god granted them the grace to play the piano rather than launch an IPO, is a callousness which calls into question the very civility of our society.

A people lacking artistry is a people deserving to be forgotten. But isn’t that where we stand? We’ve become a society where the rich, famous and well-connected are given carte-blanche, while everyone else must drag  through the muck in the face of hardship and looming calamity.

And if the prevailing winds continue, with government half-assing it, businesses lacking heart, and the rich and famous grown so fat they only sit and read their press clippings, then who? I say, if that’s how they’re gonna play the game, why not fund the arts by selling marijuana?

Shocking or not, we’ve come to a crossroads, a moment when conventional plans are no longer working. So why not try something revolutionary? Why not harness the financial power of marijuana to privately bankroll social good? Who says drug money must go to criminals? Who says it must go to pharmaceutical corporations? In marijuana, we have a product with the billion dollar potential of cigarettes and alcohol, and as of now, no corporate allegiances. We’re sitting on a vast fortune, and together we have the power to steer much of that money in highly beneficial charitable directions.

It only requires we be pragmatic.

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A story for you: In a Los Angeles courtroom earlier this year, Larry Roger Kristich pled guilty to laundering more than $50 million. Kristich owned and operated seven medical marijuana clubs throughout northern and southern California. Between 2002 and 2005, his businesses generated $95 million in sales while dispensing more than 15,000 pounds of medical pot. That Kristich should go to prison for being a savvy businessman is laughable, especially when viewed through the prism of today’s corporate mendacity. But that he admitted to laundering $50 million of those profits, buying lavish cars and property in Costa Rica, knowing this money was meant for the needy, if nothing else makes Kristich guilty of sociopathic greed.

But how has the medical marijuana movement responded to Kristich’s cautionary tale? Their response has been largely mute. Advocacy groups languidly filed press releases recounting the facts of his plea. I went to a discussion board which ruminates on such heady topics, and the embezzlement question scarcely came up. In one, tagged “Fuck Feds,” posters often railed against the severity of Kristich’s sentence; he might go to jail for 40 years. There was one “good riddance” from a writer claiming Kristich strangled him a few years ago. Another rose to Kristich’s defense, calling this unfounded. There were two notes from Americans for Safe Access, a marijuana advocacy group, but only to clarify an arcane point regarding patient service. Nobody touched money laundering. In almost eighty posts, no one took Kristich to task for stealing millions from sick people. Instead, many wrote, “It’s not like he killed anyone.”

Well not literally, at least.

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Many have asked since I launched this project, “Why marijuana?” Others have expressed their disappointment, assuming any endeavor involving reefer is one that’s certainly up to no good. What they don’t know is the bigger picture—the towering tug-o-war between the federal government and the marijuana legalization movement, Feds vs. Heads, a story with a shimmer irresistable to storytellers. It’s a war that has labored on for years, one where both sides appear wholly convinced their positions are infallible. With blustering braggadocio, one side raids while the other side pickets. In Dr. Seuss terms, they’re like star-bellied Sneetches, those fantastical golden-furred creations who lacked the basic perspicacity to acknowledge the other side’s humanity.

Ultimately, everyone loses. The DEA stage symbolic raids while marijuana advocates hold sidewalk protests. And while they fiddle, innocent people die. A marijuana farmer dies in prison, deserted by his flock, even the truly sick he cared for. A priest is killed by a Peruvian cartel because the DEA lacked the resources to save him. It happens everyday, and both sides must know their actions are merely window-dressing which could never be confused with substantive action. But around-and-around-they go. Around-and-around, endlessly.

How do we find a solution? The details are always daunting, but what’s needed is compromise rather than brass-knuckled confrontation. Whether or not we agree when it comes to legalized pot, we must affirm that the status quo ain’t working. Interestingly, the people who crafted California’s medical marijuana laws provided us with an intriguing roadmap. The key, they proposed and voters affirmed, was not to allow marijuana to fall under the auspices of the for-profit marketplace. Under state law, marijuana clubs may not operate for profit. Originally, lawmakers intended to create a public system, but this really isn’t necessary. Private non-profits have the ability to address the medical needs of the sick, while doing true good with the money raised.

Of course, it still requires some self-policing by marijuana advocates, and this is where they’ve dropped the ball. In many ways, they were handed a golden ticket by California’s voters twelve years ago. They were given a chance to be trailblazers, to create a model that could be emulated around the world.

They’ve failed. Many of California’s cannabis clubs are defacto “for-profit-non-profits” a truth that many proponents are slow to acknowledge. The general view, more or less is, “We’re winning,” the inference being that any actions that deliver victory are socially justified.

They’re not.

Setting morality aside, there’s plain short-sightedness to this way of thinking. What isn’t being discussed—at least broadly—is what will happen if marijuana becomes legal. The greater pro-marijuana community is so fixated upon the political endgame, they don’t appear to have considered the long-term damage these pot-trepeneurs are reaping.

Not only are men like Kristich taking money from the needy, they’re laying the groundwork for a full corporate takeover of marijuana eventually. No sooner has the legislative ink dried will major corporations swoop in, claim for-profit precedent, and angle to rule the roost. Flush with capital resources and with political power on speed dial, they’ll open vast commercial farms, chop quality and squeeze the little guy. They’ll hire lobbyists to curtail the public’s freedom to grow or sell their own, until eventually, inevitably, old-timers will hearken back to days before legalization, wistfully recalling the family farms and summertime festivals before “Big Marijuana” sold its soul to Washington and Wall Street.

Why will this happen? Because it’s the nature of every product in the history of commerce. Marijuana, a multi-billion dollar crop, with the potential to change the way that non-profits do business, will instead have its riches divvied by fat cats in corporate boardrooms. Next verse same as the first.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Pandora hasn’t yet opened the box.

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Walkabout Jones will soon go on summer hiatus, but we won’t be going on vacation. Instead, we’ll be preparing to launch Artists Collective, a medical marijuana non-profit that will dedicate its proceeds toward creating merit grants for deserving artists.

To those marijuana advocates questioning whether marijuana money should go toward the arts, I say only that freedom is earned. One way to convince the general public of the moral rectitude of legalization is to take financial gain out of the discussion. Is the marijuana movement ready to say, “We don’t care if we get rich.” Are they willing to trade wealth to gain legitimacy for their cause?

Only time will tell.

Call to Action:  We need your help, your knowledge, your contacts, and yes, funding too. To help us launch Artists Collective, a creative non-profit with proceeds going to support artists, write walkaboutjones@gmail.com 

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