Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution Book

Author's Note xiii

The Players xix

Introductory Position Paper: If You Were Inclined to Stereotype, Incline, the Other Way xxv

Preface: Yes, But Does the Topic Pass the Rwanda Test? xxxvii

1 The Day a Cannabis Farmer Cried Out, "Thank God, the Police!" 1

2 Adventures with Vioxx 10

3 If Your Cancer Treatment Options Can Cost You Your Job, You Might Be Living Under a Policy in Need of Change 21

4 Reporting to you from Inside the Bubble within the Bubble within the Bubble 30

5 The End of "Green, Leafy" as Cultural Profanity and the Birth of the Redneck Hippie 40

6 Setting Industry Standards for a Post-Drug War Craft Cannabis Market 50

7 Redneck Hippie Capitalism 58

8 A Valuable Truck Burying 65

9 Intergenerational Neighborhood Relations in Cannabis Culture 73

10 Replication of the Clones 81

11 Birth of the Lucille Triplets and Tomas's Crop Comes Home 87

12 Lucille's Gregor Mendel 93

13 The Zip-Tie Program Comes of Age, Musically, Before My Eyes 103

14 The Mostly Volunteer Kama Karma Work Crew Arrives 115

15 A Farmer is a Farmer Is a Farmer 122

16 Emergence of a Sustainable Outdoor Cannabis Cultivator 131

17 Collective Farming in the Time of Helicopters 135

18 Punks in Paradise: Seeing the Behavior from Which the Human Lucille's Concerns Derive 142

19 A Modern Agricultural Businessman Prepares for a Fourth of July Regulatory Inspection 151

20 The Zip-Tie Program Survives the Federal Eye 158

21 How a Plastic Zip Tie Undergoes a 50,000 Percent Markup and Becomes an Insurance Policy 166

22 In Which I Discover That I Had Already Run the Gauntlet-and Learn of the Northstone Two 175

23 Panzer's Paradox 186

24 Redirecting Prison, Inc. 195

25 Lucille Harvest Emergency 202

26 Trimming with Buds 215

27 The Stigma Front: Should Storefront Cannabis Dispensaries Be Relegated to Red Light Districts? 224

28 Bubble Breach 230

29 The Thirteen-Billion-Dollar Economic Hit 250

30 Meet the Patients 266

31 Pharmakon and the Complex Molecule 276

32 Visions of the Coming Drug Peace: The Tipping Point for Cannabis Reclassification and Regulation 288

Postscript 301

Acknowledgments 305

Index 307