By popular demand, here's the recipe for Marijuana Rice Krispies Treats ... and a fun bonus.

It's been twenty-something years for me, since before some of you were born. Alcoholic beverages are fine for me, thank you, BUT we must keep abreast of culinary trends.

How To Make Marijuana Rice Crispy Treats (Recipe), by Johnny Green (Weed News)

Cannabis rice crispy treats are one of the most popular edibles that cannabis consumers can make at home, largely because it’s such an easy process. The biggest trick to making them is having cannabis butter on hand. The more potent the cannabis butter, the more potent the cannabis rice crispy treats.

Below is a recipe for cannabis rice crispy treats that I have used for years with great success ...

But who even knew about the possibilities for adaptive reuse?

Below is a version of cannabis rice crispy treats that incorporates Fruity Pebbles instead of regular rice crispy cereal for a different taste ...

Unfortunately and contrary to popular belief, I seem to have LOST my appetite.

The Green Mouse and Boomer have the Rice Krispies Treats, honey, if you've got the time.

The Green Mouse stopped into the Tilted Anchor Tavern after work for a pint of Session Barley Wine. His friend Boomer was at the bar, muttering to himself just like always.

"I have a hypothetical for you, Green," said Boomer.

"My favorite kind," replied Mouse.

"Let's say I'm a kid, sophomore or junior in high school. Living in public housing, hard life, money's tight. None of the beautiful people doing me any favors. "

"Okay."

"So I wake up one morning with a wild hair on my butt, go filch some herb from my big sister, make up a batch of Rice Krispies Ganja Treats and take them to school."

The Green Mouse squinted. "Why on earth would you do that?"

Boomer looked hurt.

"Because I'm the kind of guy who shares the love, and the buzz. Besides -- see, this is the good part -- because I'll hand them out to my friends and they'll get stoned without knowing it."

"All right, but whatever happened to knowing full well you're getting stoned yourself and then giggling all the way through geometry?"

"Like I said, it's hypothetical. Stop being such a cynic."

The Green Mouse and Boomer drained their glasses and ordered more.

"Now everyone's good and roasted, but then it turns ugly. My best friend is so baked that he turns me in by accident, and now the Rice Krispies Treats hit the fan."

"That would be messy."

"I think to myself, well, what's a kid from the projects gonna do now? We don't have any money. My dad's not a bigwig, I don't have any connections, and there aren't any corporate attorneys to get me off the hook. The police resource officer is right on top of me. The principal knows who I am and where I live. Hell's going to freeze over before a kid like me gets a break for smoking in the boy's room, much less bringing controlled substances to school."

Off in the distance, Creedence's "Fortunate Son" is heard playing on the player piano.

"This is good," said the Green Mouse. "I'm waiting for the magical plot twist, so how do you escape in the final reel?"

"That's just it," responded Boomer, "because I don't escape. My daddy's a nobody, and they throw the book at me. I get kicked out of school, go back to public housing, and that loony tunes dick-tator starts waving his Taser at me."   

"That's really sad. I'll bet the kids with clout and bucks get away with things like that."

"They probably do. It's awful, but hey -- merely hypothetical."

And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer "More! More! More!"

"By the way, are you buying the next round?"

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: "In short, hemp and hops can only work together if state and federal regulators get out of the way."

This is an excellent essay about innovation, regulation and weirdness. Thanks to E for the link.

As for me, a pint of Fuller's London Pride will do just fine, but by all means, get out there and expand the perimeter.

Hemp Beer Is Dank, Delicious, and Coming Soon to a Bar Near You... by Eric Boehm (Reason)

... if regulators don't get in the way first

In a lot of ways, hemp and hops seem like they're just meant to go together. After all, they share common ancestors, common flavor profiles, and common recreational uses, says Tom Hembree, the co-founder of the Dad and Dudes Breweria in Aurora, Colorado.

At the end of 2012, the state voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Since shortly after, Dad And Dudes has been out front in the effort to develop and market a beer made with cannabis. The next batch of brew infused with cannabidiol (CBD) oil, a non-psychoactive compound extracted from cannabis, is almost ready to be put in cans. For Hembree, hemp and other cannabis byproducts like CBD are "just another hop essence."

If only it were that simple.

Beers made with hemp have been around for decades: In 1999, while returning from Mexico aboard Air Force One, President Bill Clinton reportedly sampled some Hemp Gold, a cream ale produced by the now-defunct Frederick Brewing Company of Maryland. But despite the explosive growth of America's craft beer scene and the growing acceptance of legal weed, the production and popularity of hemp beers has been limited by a litany of federal and state restrictions, while other laws make it difficult to distribute across state lines.

That's true even in places like Colorado, where craft beer is a booming industry and recreational marijuana is legal. Just down the street from the brewery, you can stroll into a dispensary and find cannabis to be smoked, weed-infused bakery items or candies to be munched, and concentrate to be vaped.

But Dad and Dudes had to get permission from three different federal agencies, along with state authorities, before brewing their George Washington's Secret Stash—so named because the president grew hemp on his farm at Mount Vernon in the days before such production was banned by federal fiat. And when federal rules about using hemp changed abruptly in December 2016, production had to be shut down. "It's been a struggle," says Hembree. Only now, a year and a half later, after a lawsuit and with the beer's legality still somewhat unclear, are they ready to try again."

On dopey David Brooks and legal dope.

First came David Brooks in the New York Times.

Weed: Been There. Done That.

For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships.

But then we all sort of moved away from it. I don’t remember any big group decision that we should give up weed. It just sort of petered out, and, before long, we were scarcely using it.

And then followed Michelle Goldberg at The Nation.

This Is David Brooks on Drugs

The fact that David Brooks’s wistful, self-satisfied moralism cloaks a serious moral obtuseness is usually hardly worth noting. It’s simply to be expected, as predictable as Tom Friedman bumping into a taxi driver with pithy insights about globalization or Ross Douthat disapproving of his coevals’ sex lives. Still, Brooks’s lament about marijuana legalization is astonishing in its blindness to ruined lives and the human stakes of a serious policy debate. Somehow, he’s written a whole column about the drug war that doesn’t once contain the words “arrest” or “prison.” It’s evidence not just of his own writerly weakness but of the way double standards in the war on drugs shield elites from reckoning with its consequences.

At the third of three publications I commonly peruse, there was more.

Marijuana legalisation: Sort of in defence of David Brooks, by T.N. (The Economist's "Democracy in America" blog)

I FIND today's collective meltdown over David Brooks's bland column on marijuana slightly baffling. My colleague (along with most of the rest of the internet today) is absolutely right to note that Mr Brooks fails to account for the great harms of prohibition, not least the vast racial disparities in arrest and incarceration rates, and the subsequent difficulties for the victims of that injustice in finding work or public housing. It is shameful that a toot of a pipe can trigger consequences like these, and that is why it is such a relief to see parts of America (and other places) taking steps to wind down the war on drugs.

But let's not pretend that relaxing prohibition is cost-free.

I haven't smoked weed for 17 years. What compelled me to quit was an episode during which I accepted the offer of some really good shit in a one-hitter, and found myself deprived of the power of speech for half an hour. If I ever learn who spiked my bowl with animal tranquilizer, there'll be hell to pay. Legalized marijuana with some indication of potency would not be something I purchase very often. If some found its way to my humidor, I'd probably smoke it alone, at home, and refrain from driving.

And play the White Album, for chrissakes. Some things just fit, and just think of all the music released lately that might.

Marijuana: "The NFL is trying to nip this, please pardon the expression, in the bud."

As noted earlier today in this stirring account of Their Man Mitch tossing red meat to the mouth breathers, none of us could have foreseen the post-election entertainment spectacle of white bread America's hysterical unraveling. Next up, the national icon of Football tries to come to grips with marijuana legalization, and what it all means is that the varied edifices of social repression are springing too many leaks for the tinpot ayatollahs to plug.

The NFL’s Coming Conflict on Cannabis, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans, resembles an outsized caricature of a twenty-first-century pro sports boss. He’s a 75-year-old Republican Party mega-donor, who made his fortune by selling his energy corporation to Enron in 1999 (give him credit for timing.) That’s what’s made Mr. McNair’s comments earlier this week all the more interesting. After saying he would never have a “persistent user of drugs” on his beloved Houston Texans, McNair made a point to add, “I’m not talking about someone who smoked marijuana.”

This might sound about as radical as a Brooklyn Without Limits T-shirt, but for decades the NFL officialdom has discussed marijuana and players who “do pot” like they were bit players from Reefer Madness. In this light, McNair’s statement is more than tacit acceptance of something players have been doing for decades. It’s connected to weed’s recent legal emergence from “the cannabis closet.”

Marijuana, sodomy and the sting of the lash.

At widely scattered intervals, I hear it said that there is a variable concept known as the people's "will" that presumably matters when it comes to public policy. If the state police find it disconcerting that people generally don't regard marijuana as a threat, then, umm, why ...

ISP faces new challenges as it beings marijuana eradication, by Maureen Hayden (News and Tribune)

INDIANAPOLIS — After 20 years in law enforcement, Indiana State Police Sgt. Lou Perras knows this: Marijuana is like the Rodney Dangerfield of illegal drugs — it gets no respect.

Earlier this month, Perras and a team of state troopers launched their annual outdoor campaign to eradicate cultivated cannabis. But as in years past, their war on drugs includes combating the public's cavalier attitude toward pot.

“People have this attitude, ‘it's just marijuana,’” said Perras. “That's a sad misrepresentation of this drug.”

It might be one option, and we'd sell more food, too.

Might this be a good way to address the city's budget?

Legalized cannabis bars in Copenhagen?

Apparently, a majority of the politicians making up Copenhagen's governing council are in favour of legalizing the sale of hashish. A proposal has been made to decriminalize the substance and have is sold only in state-run shops and/or cafés.

Civilization under attack: Dutch coffee shops and the new smoking ban.

Perhaps instead of banning tobacco ... aw, never mind.

Amsterdam coffee shops say tobacco ban is blow to business

As in the rest of Europe the purpose of the ban is to protect the health of staff, who at present are obliged to inhale passively other people's smoke. But Sandy Lambrecht, the manager of the Bulldog coffee shop on the Leidseplein in the heart of Amsterdam, said: "The new rules are absurd. You come to a coffee shop to smoke, after all – it's ridiculous that we have to comply. The new rules are meant to protect employees like me, but the point is that we chose to work here."

It's just that I support niche markets.

Maybe the stash should have been hidden in the sewers.

For a Wednesday morning update, the C-J's on the story: Couple arrested in drug case Ex-candidate's home searched, by Dick Kaukas.

Police said that they found "an indoor marijuana growing operation" in the basement of the couple's home and that officers recovered more than 35 pounds of marijuana.

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From Tuesday:

I take no pleasure in passing along this story from today's Tribune. In my opinion, marijuana should be legal.

But it remains illegal.

And news is news.

New Albany Police make drug arrest at Main Street home

Police searched a home at 616 E. Main St. in New Albany on Monday and arrested two people listed as living at the home for possession of more than 10 pounds of marijuana, among other offenses.

Frank J. Lucchese, 59, and Yvonne R. Kersey, 53, were listed in the Floyd County Jail book-ins for allegedly dealing marijuana, maintaining a common nuisance and possession of paraphernalia, along with the possession charge.

It was not clear at press time what charges would be filed and no other information was available from police.