32 MARIJUANA STORES IN BERKELEY?

I have long believed that in order to get elected to public office Berkeley, you have to have delusions of grandeur. The Berkeley city council is now considering how many marijuana stores to license. Most council mayors, including the mayor, support capping the number at 32, but that is opposed by the Berkeley Cannabis Commission, which wants a much higher number on the grounds that limiting the number of marijuana stores in Berkeley to 32 would ‘stifle innovation.” To put this into perspective, Berkeley has 1 Trader Joe’s, 2 Target stores, 3 Safeways, 6 Starbucks, 6 Walgreens, and 11 ice cream and frozen yogurt stores. All these stores added together still doesn’t get you up to 32. The idea of 32 marijuana stores in a city the size of Berkeley is insane.

Executing Drug Dealers? On the other side of drug madness, President Trump is proposing executing drug dealers, citing southeast Asian countries, where such executions are common. Trump isn’t the only politician advocating executing drug dealers, but this idea overlooks the fact that most Americans who are addicted to opiates don’t get their drugs on the black market.  In movies and TV shows, addicts usually get their drugs from sleazy criminals working for the Mafia or a Mexican drug cartel, but the reality is that most opioid addicts in the United States get their drugs at Walgreens or CVS with prescriptions. Unfortunately, there are a lot of doctors and dentists in this country who dole out prescriptions for opiates like they were Tic Tacs. I am sure that those doctors and dentists are not the people who President Trump is talking about executing. About 5% of the world’s population live in the United States, but we consume 80% of the world’s opiates. We are not going to get control over our nation’s opioid epidemic until the government makes it much, much harder for doctors to prescribe these drugs.

Free Marijuana For The Homeless.

Last week, the Berkeley city council voted unanimously (9 to 0) to require that all marijuana stores in the city give free marijuana to the poor and homeless. The law requires that the marijuana that they give to homeless people must be of the same quality as the stuff they sell for cash. They can’t give homeless people second-rate marijuana.
A few days after the city council passed this law, I ran into one of the law’s sponsors on Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. I asked him: “Have you considered requiring that supermarkets in Berkeley give free food to homeless people?” He looked at me like I was crazy and said: “No. Of course not. Why would we do that?” He didn’t see my point, and I didn’t try to explain it to him. My point was that homeless people need food a lot more than they need marijuana. What do you think?

Marijuana-filled Chocolate Bars.
Exploding Chocolate Bars.
New in the Chocolate Room.

GOOD CHOCOLATE DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE MARIJUANA IN IT!

I have griped before about the tendency of newspapers and web sites in the San Francisco bay area to think that chocolate has to have marijuana in it in order to be to be considered great chocolate. It seems like every time that some newspaper gives an award for ‘best chocolate in the bay area’, it always goes to a company that makes pot-filled chocolate. In the current issue (July 12, 2012) of East Bay Express, the newspaper’s award for ‘Best Edibles Company’ in the bay area was given to Bhang Chocolate of Oakland. All Bhang chocolate bars contain marijuana. They are available at marijuana ‘dispensaries’ here in Berkeley, where they are ‘given away’, not sold, but ‘given away’ with a catch. In order to get a ‘regular strength’ Bhang chocolate bar, you have to ‘donate’ $15 to the dispensary. For a ‘double strength’ Bhang chocolate bar, you have to ‘donate’ $20. I think that this is a rather obvious hypocrisy, but I may be biased. I think that I make good chocolate, and I refuse to accept the idea that the absence of drugs in my chocolate bars somehow makes them inferior!

HITLER’S EXPLODING CHOCOLATE BARS.

As I said, I don’t make chocolate bars with drugs in them. I also don’t make chocolate bars with explosives in them. Newly discovered documents reveal that Adolf Hitler tried to assassinate Winston Churchill during World War 2 with exploding chocolate bars. The Germans made time bombs disguised as 1 pound Peter’s chocolate bars. The exploding chocolate bars were smuggled into England in 1943 where German spies tried to get them into the war room. It was well-known that Churchill had a sweet tooth, and chocolate was very hard to get in England during the war. Lord Victor Rothschild, the head of MI-5, the British counter-intelligence service, found out about the plot and intercepted the exploding chocolate bars. Ironically, a similar idea occurred to Churchill at about the same time. In July, 1944; Hitler was almost killed when an English-made briefcase bomb went off in his war room. A number of people were killed by the blast, but Hitler was only wounded.

A Business Opportunity?
I know an executive at Hershey. He tells me that Hershey does not make exploding chocolate bars – at least not at this time. Peter’s chocolate is still in business, but they don’t make exploding chocolate bars either. Should I make exploding chocolate bars? I could. I have some very big chocolate bar molds, big enough to conceal a bomb inside, and black powder is easy to get. You can buy it at any gun store. I could have the whole exploding chocolate bar business for myself! But – I have a feeling that my lawyer and my insurance agent would advise me not to do it. I’m not a lawyer, but my instincts tell me that there could be some serious legal liabilities attached to making or selling exploding chocolate bars.

NEW IN THE CHOCOLATE ROOM.

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancake Mix. Some people never make pancakes at home because they feel it is too messy, time-consuming, or complicated; but my pancake mix is complete. All you have to add is water! Everything is in the bag, including miniature chocolate chips, flour, malted barley, canola oil, baking powder, and buttermilk. All you have to do is dump the contents of the bag in a bowl, stir in water, and you’re ready to make pancakes. What could be easier? Try it! You won’t be disappointed. One bag makes 12 – 4″ pancakes, enough for 3 or 4 people.

Why Buttermilk?
Buttermilk adds flavor to pancakes. It also makes them lighter and fluffier. The reason for this is simple chemistry. Buttermilk contains lactic acid, which is why it tastes sour. Lactic acid reacts chemically with baking powder, creating carbon dioxide bubbles in the batter. As the pancakes cook, the bubbles expand, making the pancakes rise.

Russian Cigarettes.  Russian Cigarettes aren’t Russian, and they aren’t cigarettes. A Russian Cigarette is a type of cookie that’s popular in Belgium. It is a thin butter cookie that is rolled up into a tube while it is still warm and soft. Once the cookie cools and becomes hard, I dip it in chocolate.

Remember – you don’t have to wait until the first of the month when the rent is due in order to get chocolate. My free chocolate room is open for business all month long! And also remember – all my chocolate is both drug-and-explosive-free!