Of course, weed and anything grown locally wins. Perhaps with shrooms there’s some runoff from the hydrogen peroxide in the growth medium, but I think that actually occurs naturally — and might be consumed during production?

Anyway. Legality is a terrible barometer of ethicality. There’s no mention of the environmental devastation of, eg, coffee. Talking about illegal highs gets more pageviews I guess.

Props to the author for briefly taking the “War on Drugs” itself to task for environmental damage — carpet-bombing Columbian cocaine fields with RoundUp has:

a) Made coke less available.
b) Caused Monsanto to lobby for rational drug policies.
c) Helped poor farmers feed their families.
d) Reduced drug gang violence and wealth.
e) None of the above.

The author ends with a cheap-shot though: “most of today’s drug culture is simply another wasteful frontier of American consumerism”. The reason most drugs have to be imported is because of prohibition — they are simply impractical to produce locally because of the land-use metrics the article mentions.

For example, people grow in national forests because they can’t grow on farms.

In California’s Central Valley, law enforcement estimates between 4 million and 7 million pounds of [meth] lab waste were poured into canals and on properties between 2000 and 2004. The people who have to clean it up wear Haz-Mat suits.

Irresponsible production is the result of poor government regulation. Like BP.

Beside it in the first pic is my crap Bavarian tourist lighter, which gave out after just three days. The plastic joint capsule is well-sealed and barely smells at all (it is sealed for freshness though, not concealment).

The joint itself is on the left in the last picture, and is king-sized — between double and triple the size that people “normally” smoke in Canada. It cost €7.

… I just got in from smoking some heavy duty weed — “Jackrabbit”, and then some White Widow. Thanks to Helko (“because my mother is Helen and my father is Koln”) at The Jolly Joker for his advice.

[Update: We had to convince the girl behind the counter to sell us Dutch grass -- she was worried it was too strong for foreigners. Saying we came from Vancouver, Canada was enough of a "smoking credential", but it didn't actually prepare us. Dutch weed is both stronger and more fresh. We ended up getting a spliff each and then just sharing one. Photos of our leftover high-tech Dutch grass capsule, cone-rolled joint, and my crap Bavarian lighter to follow.]

Click for big. I was shooting motor-drive bursts in rhythm with the bands while adjusting zoom, exposure, and focus manually. Cannabis was also peripherally involved.

Here is one possible crop (also click for big):

Good times. Thanks for your help, Z. It’s very much appreciated. I’ll get you that manifest soon.

People that are supporting the status quo are on the wrong side of history.

More: prohibition makes criminals rich. More: enforcing a stupid, criminal-enriching law fills our jails with nonviolent offenders and wastes justice system resources while cannabis is easier to obtain and more potent and cheaper than ever. More: the unregulated cannabis market puts children at risk because dealers don’t check ID. More: cannabis prohibition forces the government to forgo a huge tax-and-tourism windfall.

Via WhyProhibition.ca: vote in the recent Conservative online “which issues are important?” poll to move anti-prohibition measures to the top of the list (when they asked it was “only” second or third).

Vote here, here, and here.

Obviously online polls are easily manipulated and ignored, but voting won’t hurt the cause Here are the standings.

Okay, now I’m going to switch it up and not talk about Bloom itself, favoring a wait-and-see approach. I’m not even going to talk about Google Energy (which makes perfect sense in the context of their networking strategy — “own the grids”).

I’m more interested in the implications of distributed power generation. The way I see it there are three very interesting things poised to happen:

1. Canada’s green energy advantage is slipping away. Lack of investment by several past governments who adopted a “hydro is the future, and we’re already there” strategy have possibly crippled our theorized future as a clean energy provider. How will we get hydro when all those ugly-as-sin transmission lines come down?

   Still, fuel cells are powered primarily by fossil fuels. This means unhealthy projects like the tar sands and Mideast interventionism will remain the order-of-the-day, but at a lower level of emissions.

2. Despite Doerr’s polite, political assertion that the electric utilities have nothing to fear this might be the beginning of the end for them. Home fuel cells would make their business model (generate dirty power far away, transmit it into cities and distribute) totally, instantly obsolete.

   And a sky without so many G-D poles and lines would make photography a heckuvalot easier.

3. “Bloom box” is a hilarious name because that’s a cannabis grow-op term — the high-energy box you put your plants in to flower. Since one major way the police bust grows is by tracking all of our energy consumption, moving the power plant in beside the cannabis plant will protect growers even more from the forces of prohibition and help shield all British Columbians from continuing violations of our privacy.

   IIRC, cannabis breathes CO₂ just like any other plant, so a fuel cell power plant in your grow might actually make your product better — carbon-sink the emissions right into the bud. Delicious!

   The police may respond by using FLIR devices, as they already do illegally in the ‘States. FLIR is a technology that, essentially, lets the cops watch you inside your house from outside. It should be super-illegal for police to use.

These are just some of the multiple simultaneous revolutions that distributed energy generation will allow. I can see why they say its market is measured in “trillions” — just about the only companies unaffected by it will be Big Oil.

Canada’s $20 billion-dollar marijuana industry is now at a violent crossroads between crime and commerce. Impossible to police, yet steadily gaining public acceptance, the cannabis industry is now so vast and vital to Canada’s national economy that it can no longer be ignored.

This microeconomy will eventually be totally destroyed by legalization. By Murphy’s Law that’ll happen right after you buy your own aeroponic mister.

Of course, that’ll be a small price to pay to get rid of all the violence prohibition creates.