Reefer Roundup 1/26/11

This roundup features news on soda pot, cross-border shootings, new bills at the Legislature, snortable bath salts, and a return of the underground pot tunnels – Texas style!

SODA POT:

Getting right down to business, TV news this week has been all abuzz about the California company that's made its own line of soda pot, Canna Cola – which is exactly what it sounds like: Soda plus tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

The makers say the flavor is mild, like a "light beer," and that they've launched the product in Colorado dispensaries, where pot-laced munchies are big business with the adult medi-pot crowd and are sold alongside traditional buds. When the company will launch in the Golden State is unclear, but the makers hope that'll happen in the spring.

This isn't the first pot drink to hit the market, but for sure is the best branded of these products. The drink's creators agree: This is no hippie-dippy operation.

Still, the products are not without controversy: A bill sitting in Congress would enhance criminal penalties for anyone who markets a controlled substance to children – meaning, makes something illegal look super neat-o for the kids. Remember the old cannabis candy controversy of 2005? The one where lawmakers around the country, including here in Texas, sought to ban lollipops that taste like cannabis, but actually contained no cannabis? Well, this time around federal lawmakers are aiming at real pot candies, and whether the sodas would be included here is unclear; indeed, the products in question are sold through medi-pot dispensaries and thus not to children. In short, as with the lollipots, this seems like a bill in search of a controversy.

Stay tuned.

TUNNELING POT TO TEXAS:

Mexican soldiers have found a drug-smuggling tunnel near Reynosa, from which they seized more than a ton of pot last week, reports the McAllen Monitor. This is the first time authorities have found one of the smuggling tunnels heading into Texas – well, at least the first public mention of such a tunnel that I've been able to find.

Cross-border tunnels made headlines last year when police found a series of them leading from Mexico into San Diego. These tunnels were elaborate, wide and long, with ventilation and rail systems; during November alone, authorities in California seized some 45 tons of pot from the underground routes.

The tunnel found near Reynosa was decidedly less elaborate: Found on communal village land, the tunnel's entrance was covered only by a "table, trash and dirt," reports the daily. Hmmm…

SPEAKING OF CROSS-BORDER ACTION:

Apparently another incident of cross-border gunfire was reported in Hudspeth County, reports the El Paso Times.

According to the daily, at least one gunman fired a high-powered rifle, which officials there have assumed came from the South side of the border, at county workers filling in a hole in the ground (left by rain, not a tunnel) in an "isolated ghost town" near Fort Hancock. Thankfully, the gunfire did not injure any of the four men working out there earlier this month.

Law enforcement officials say this area is a popular smuggling route for Mexican drug cartels, but whether the shooting was cartel related is unclear.

That didn't stop Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott from firing off a letter to Texas GOP U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith and New York GOP Rep. Peter King, complaining that the feds have done nothing to stop cross-border gunfire and violence. "The Obama Administration's continued failure to secure our borders appears to have emboldened the drug cartels to the point that they are willing to intentionally fire across the border at innocent Americans who unwittingly interfere with their smuggling operations," he wrote.

It is true that there have been several cross-border gunfire incidents over the last year – including two in El Paso where bullets first hit City Hall, and a couple months later hit a window of a University of Texas at El Paso building. Again, fortunately, no one was hurt in either incident. But the notion that securing the border, presumably by putting more armed officers there, would somehow end the violence is just strange. As Reefer Madness has pointed out before, it doesn't make any sense that adding more guns to the border will actually stop bullets from crossing it. And, clearly, the whole border wall thing hasn't worked either – the section of Hudspeth Co. where this month's shooting occurred is "protected" by the wall.

So, what's left? Perhaps a rethinking of U.S. drug policy? That's certainly something that some in El Paso have suggested. Could that be part of what Abbott's talking about when he writes to federal lawmakers that we "must work together to pursue all available means to protect Americans from the violence plaguing our border with Mexico"? Somehow we doubt it.

DOWNGRADING DOPE:

Houston Dem Rep. Harold Dutton has filed his perennial bid to downgrade penalties for possession of small amounts of pot.

House Bill 548 would make possession of up to an ounce of pot a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine, and would similarly downgrade possession of larger amounts.

This is at least the fifth time that Dutton has filed such a bill and, if I were totally cynical I'd say this will be the fifth time it fails. But I'm more an optimist and so I'll say this: Given the state's crappy budget situation, this would be a perfect year to pass this smart-on-drugs reform – not to mention a way to generate revenue for local police agencies.

Anyway, the bill has failed in the past because of the hand-wringing what-about-the-kids mantra proffered by the same old lawmakers – think Tomball's Debbie Riddle, who in the past has said it would send a bad message and set kids up for a life of drug abuse. Or at least that's the implication. Since Riddle will most certainly again be seated on the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee (I've never understood the logic of this placement since Riddle seems forever confused by any number of bills that come before the committee), it would probably be a safe bet to assume you'll hear more of the same from her.

But here's hoping the fifth time is the charm.

COCAINE BATH:

Finally, here's a disturbing report that I still don't quite understand (shit, now I sound like Riddle). According to the Palm Beach Sun Sentinel teens in South Florida have been showing up at hospitals after ingesting a stimulant sold legally and marketed as "invigorating" and "energizing" bath salts.

Bath salts?

What?

According to the daily, folks are snorting the salts to get high. I'm sorry, but this sounds horrid – like grinding up Epsom Salts. Or maybe I just need to stop thinking of "bath salts" as actual bath salts. Clearly. Anyway, as with not-pot (which lawmakers far and wide are now seeking to ban), it turns out these bath salts are being sold at head shops and convenience stores in the same way that K2 and Spice are being sold. According to the paper, a half-gram bottle retails for $25-$30.

One of the compounds found in the bath salts is methylenedioxypyrolvalerone, known as MDPV, one of a class of stimulants typically used in appetite suppressants. According to Erowid, however, the compound hasn't been around long or much used, meaning its long-term effects aren't clear. Still, that hasn't stopped the predictable hysteria: "It makes people lose touch with reality," Dr. Cynthia Lewis-Younder, director of the Florida Poison Information Center, told the daily. "They're ending up in psychiatric institutions."

Advice to officials: Tone down the rhetoric. If you want a ban you'll likely get one.