BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY JAN. 16, 2019) — Yet another company looking to sell dope to dopes has applied to operate in Pittsfield. The growing number of would-bes includes Tenesel Wellness, Pure Botanicals, and Berkshire Roots. There may be others, but forgive THE PLANET for losing track. Sometimes things happen in such quantity as to make counting an Ed Wynn exercise or to invite a gratuitous photo-op for the mayor.

“Don’t bogart that joint, my friend. Pass it over to Pittsfield.”

The operational angst that afflicts the budding marijuana market has played out in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts just as you would guess, tangled in a Medusa-head of legalism, red tape, bureaucracy, and politics. It doesn’t have to be so. What could be simpler than making the growing, possession, and selling of pot outright legal with no governmental involvement? Just free up the whole bong. That would remove too much tax money, you say? The government-run pot industry’s exorbitant taxes keep most of the business underground and illegal where it was, is, and will always be.

“Rooooooooooooooooooooooooll another one. Just like the other one.”

If you want to grow and smoke pot, you should be able to do it 100% freely. Same with companies that want to sell Mother Nature. Let them open stores with free market supply-demand regulating the business. Just don’t expect it to happen around here, not with the Commonwealth’s meddling politicians. And do you wonder if the coveted permits in Benigno Numine will be given out fairly or only to those who have “played (ahem) ball?”

In the immortal words of Henry Patrick, “Give me liberty, or give me meth.”

Speaking of the munchies (WARNING! Cute Segue Alert!), it cost taxpayers $400,000 a month for the Pittsfield Public School Department to provide free meals to students. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a free lunch … and a free breakfast. The 400 Large come from federal coffers (USDA) not from city monies, but it’s still taxpayer dollars.

Actually, $20,000 a day to feed kids might be the necessary evil of two lessers. The alternative would be to let kids pony up lunch money, but Pittsfield is so poor (nearly 3/4 of the school population) that it’s certain some kids would not eat. A hungry kid has no chance at scholarship or achievement.

The free meals made news when the PSD revealed that in light of the government shutdown, it has enough money to keep the program going for another two months. After that, it will either have to ask for payment from families of find the money elsewhere. We agree that the meals program must be kept going. At that same time, we mourn the sad state of public education. As long as schools must provide daycare for families who won’t or can’t, it can’t fulfill its prime directive, which is to educate children.

Maybe it’s time to ask JIV, Kristen Behneke, and the other overpaid apparatchiks in the PSD to kick in a few of their own dollars when the money runs out. Ah, but you know where they’re going to look.

Gotta mirror?

“Everybody, sing along! Don’t bogart that joint, my friend. Pass it over to Pittsfield.”

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“You mustn’t ever put water in a Habitant soup. No no no NEVER put water in a Habitant soup” — TV commercial.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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