the only way it really makes sense to have a "pot store" is if you merge it with existing head shops. i'm sure they can make some space, right? i wouldn't expect the government to go for this, though - especially not considering the way they've been raided.

the reality here in ontario is not likely to change any time soon.

they have to get the federal bill passed, first. the liberals have converted the senate from a rubber stamp into a question mark, so it's not even clear if it will make it through the new guardian council. then, the province needs to write and pass legislation. lastly, somebody will have to decide that it's even worth opening a store over, and it might not be - at least not here.

we haven't had any illegal dispensaries appear, but we do have a pot lounge that lets people smoke inside. it's illustrative of the reality of the situation on the ground: these stores aren't really necessary for distribution.

in fact, here in windsor, i wouldn't expect to see dedicated storefronts at all. nobody would ever bother - they'd just have to start paying taxes. the only way the government supply chain is going to appear is if it goes through the lcbo or the beer store. and, if the price isn't set properly, it will just sit on the shelves.

i know that this isn't what most people want, or what most people want to hear, but it's the truth of it - this idea of dedicated pot stores doesn't make any economic sense. it's just going to over price it to a point that it can't compete with established dealers. if you want it on the shelves, it has to come with almost no overhead.

frankly, i'd like to see it sold at the corner store. but, we can't buy beer at the corner stores here, either.

obviously, i'm very distracted by geo-politics and having difficulty focusing. i feel like i'm procrastinating, but i'm not sure what i'm procrastinating.

i've decided that the vlogs will come back up on may 15th. that way, i can stagger by solstice. also, my court date is the 11th, so it lets me pull things back past it.

that said, i'm going to do a little editing overnight. maybe it'll settle my head and let me focus.

ugh.

i'm going to tell you a story. this is even better than the one about the great oxygenation catastrophe, i promise.

thousands of years ago, humans decided (an abuse of notation, surely) to slowly transition away from hunting (as well as gathering, let us not forget) and into living on farms. in the process, they did things like chop down trees to create grazing lands, and then increase the number of livestock living in those grazing lands. the number of humans also increased dramatically. the process, altogether, released a lot of trapped carbon into the atmosphere...

....which led to climate change. specifically, the rate of melting at the poles increased, and this created a rise in sea levels. cities were inundated and lost. it led to serious disruptions in the ways that people lived. the flooding was particularly bad around the persian gulf area, which for a time was swallowed by the sea.

we will probably never know what life was like in these earliest centers of human civilization. but, the earliest records that we have, the world over, identify these floods as a year zero. they may have been a event that brought people together in the face of crisis. the culture around the persian gulf created the stories around gilgamesh to mark this memory, which would eventually merge with a zoroastrian philosophy into the jewish scriptures and disseminate further from there. but, other cultures have similar stories that mark our ancient experiences with anthropogenic climate change.

this is not why we have rainbows. but, the next time a right-wing christian tells you that we can't change the weather, you might want to point out that their own religion is a consequence of exactly that.