Go Lean Commentary
This is a Big Deal …
California, the biggest state in the Union (USA) – #6 GDP if ranked as an independent country – has enacted legislation to legitimize recreational marijuana use. Wow, what a ‘change’ to manage! That’s 37 million people, millions of cars and billions of dollars. The implementation of this New Order will surely be heavy-lifting.
For the Caribbean, let’s pay more than the usual attention for lessons learned for our own Big Deal implementation. See the VIDEO on California’s challenge here:
VIDEO – California residents line up to buy recreational marijuana – https://www.today.com/video/california-residents-line-up-to-buy-recreational-marijuana-1127548995762
Posted January 2, 2018 – Vendors in The Golden State began selling recreational marijuana legally on Monday, a milestone moment in the push to legalize marijuana across the country. NBC’s Jacob Soboroff has the report for TODAY from Los Angeles.
Again, California is managing the ‘change’ of implementing the legalization of recreational marijuana use, while the Caribbean needs to implement a roadmap to forge change in its societal engines (economics, security and governance) for the 30 member-states of our region.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The State of California is taking on the heavy-lifting of this marijuana legalization while the US federal government continues to consider the drug as illegal. But California is NOT the first state; that distinction belongs to Colorado. The movement behind the Go Lean book has explored Colorado and observed-and-reported on the societal developments there. Notice these main points from a previous blog-commentary entitled – Lessons from Colorado: Legalized Marijuana: Heavy-lifting! – from August 17, 2017:
… in 2017, the phrase “Rocky Mountain High” has a total different meaning, because the State of Colorado has since legalized recreational use of marijuana.
This is not an easy topic; this is heavy …
There are so many lessons we can learn from the debate, legalization, implementation and regulation of this product in this State. All in all, it is heavy-lifting. This is the theme of this series of commentaries of lessons that have been learned by Caribbean stakeholders visiting, observing and reporting on the US State of Colorado.
We have so much in common and so much in contrast. One commonality to consider is how Colorado is now associated with marijuana consumption. …
“Welcome to our club”! This has always been the image of Caribbean people and culture – think: Rasta Man smoking Ganja.
California … Colorado … other states to follow, according to another previous blog-commentary after the last American General Election on November 8, 2016. That submission was entitled – Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow and quoted:
Marijuana legalization is now the norm for 40 percent of the American population. …
Voter measures [passed] in Massachusetts and Nevada. Maine’s referendum was still being counted early Wednesday morning, and Arizona’s was poised to lose. Three other states passed medical marijuana reforms, and a fourth appeared likely to do so. This means that in eight states (plus Washington, D.C.) weed will be legal for recreational purposes, and in sum, 28 will have some kind of legalization on the books.
There will be a lot of security and governing dynamics that these states – like California – will now have to manage, since the process will decriminalize marijuana use, after a long history of criminalization. This is a BIG DEAL considering that many people may be in a penal status – active or parole – for marijuana use or trafficking. Wow, indeed; this is a BIG transformation!
This point too, was addressed in a previous blog-commentary entitled – Marijuana in Jamaica – ‘Puff Peace’:
There are moral, religious, legal and psychological (treatment) issues associated with this topic; and there is history – good and bad. Any jurisdiction decriminalizing the use of marijuana has to contend with the previous messaging to the community of: “Just say no to drugs”.
The [Go Lean] book asserts that before the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies of a roadmap to elevate a society can be deployed, the affected society must first embrace a progressive community ethos. The book defines this “community ethos” as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. Think of the derivative term: “work ethic”.
Marijuana is a mood-altering drug; it has negative effects, one being preponderance for apathy, to tune out of any active engagement. In the US, even in the states where marijuana is legal, most firms/governments still screen staffers (new hires and veterans) and ban consumption of the drug. The reason is simple: Apathy does not make for industriousness.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to transform the societal engines of Caribbean society, regarding the whole drug eco-system. The Go Lean book asserts that every community has bad actors, and with a more liberal-progressive attitude towards a once-illegal drug, community attitudes must be paramount. There must be “new guards” to assuage any threats from this practice on society. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) that claims:
x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. The Federation must allow for facilitations of detention for [domestic and foreign] convicted felons of federal crimes, and should over-build prisons to house trustees from other jurisdictions.
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
So legalizing marijuana in the BIG market of California will be about more than just managing change, it will also be about managing risks. The Go Lean book relates that managing risk is more than just “One Act”, there is lengthy, engaged process (Page 76):
- Education
- Mentoring
- Monitoring
- Mitigation
- Licensing
- Coordination
Let’s see how this process goes for California. While this state’s independent streak has made it a “maverick” among the other American states – see Independence Movement detailed in this previous blog – this effort with marijuana may be “biting off more than they can chew”. This is truly a BIG DEAL!
We need to pay attention, as there are parallels for California compared to the full Caribbean:
- Known for leisure
- Pluralistic democracy
- Population – 37 million for California versus the 42 million for Caribbean
This writer, having lived in California for 10 years, can conclude that California wants the same thing that the Caribbean wants (or should want): to be an elevated society; to be a better homeland, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Let’s observe-and-report on these California’s developments and manifestations, their successes and failures.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.