Let’s go ahead and assume California legalizes marijuana and Congress is ok with it.

The point of my ramblings: How long will it take to stand up the supply chain for legal marijuana?

Most people have seen a Hollywood production depicting the underground world of marijuana. Either in movies or TV (like the Showtime series “Weeds”), cannabis is typically shown as being grown in random fields or a grow house, separated and bagged in some back room or warehouse, and then distributed through a few levels of dealers to Joe Drug User.

Pretty easy supply chain right? Assuming you take out the threat of law enforcement and rival crime syndicates, there are only a few nodes to go from raw materials to finished product, “factory to foxhole”, or whatever supply chain analogy you prefer.

When Maui wowie becomes legal, you don’t have to worry about law enforcement or rival crime syndicates (at least trying to kill you). Things get simpler, right?

Probably not.

Take out death and jail, introduce government regulation. Death and jail better than government regulation?

I won’t get too detailed, but rather ask a few supply chain related questions:

• Will there be a registration process to tell the government you grow reefer?
• How would a grower source new raw materials (e.g. seeds, plants)? Buy from other growers? Call Mexico?
• Will the distribution network now require infrastructure (e.g. warehouses) and transportation (e.g. trailers)?
• Who will sell the Panama red? Government shops (like government controlled liquor stores)?
• How much technology will be involved? New point of sale systems? Tagging and tracking within the distribution network? New UPC’s?
• How about product quality standards? Organic (all weed may be organic)? Labeling product by the parts of the plants used?

This won’t be a strictly cash, under the table business anymore.

Although dope delaers may be happy they won’t be killed doing business, this won’t be an overnight success story. There are many factors other than what I mentioned above that the government of California will run into during its efforts to collect tax revenues on their cash crop.

Not to mention whether or not people will pay a premium for Acapulco gold when it isn’t illegal. Is it really the largest agricultural product in California when the prices aren’t inflated by the black market?

What about suppliers who move other illegal products in addition to ganja? Will they outsource their product to continue dealing in illegal substances? I doubt the government will overlook their cocaine trade just because they produce grass.

I don’t know if the legalization will actually happen, but I’d love to be a “Weed Consultant” in California to help hash out (pun intended) the process of taking this industry above board….

This year for lent, my wife and I are limiting our TV intake.

We are giving ourselves 4 hours a week, which includes movies. We specified 1 hour on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and one on Sunday. For simplicity sake, I guess we can just say 4 hours on the weekend. That will probably allow us 1 movie and a couple 40 something minute shows on Hulu.

This may help solve my Life/Life Balance issue. Or it may just drive me more towards the internet (I’m not sure “more” is even possible).

I haven’t figured out my video game usage yet, but since I haven’t been playing all that much, I’m not worried.

For the next 40 days and 40 nights our Netflix cue is going to grind to a halt. I will be auctioning off slots on our cue for $2 a movie. Please contact me for details.

Maybe I will use that NBC.com HD download thing to cue up some episodes of Heroes. Hulu and ABC.com are going to run out of episodes by the time we get back to our online TV watching.

Anyway, the point is, when I was younger I gave up bagels one year for lent and I never really went back. At the time, I was eating at least two bagels a day. I was young, I could afford the calories. Maybe the same thing will happen with TV. Probably not, but here’s to hoping for a more productive lifestyle.

(For those of you who have seen our cats, the picture above does look Kenzie, but its not. I found it on the internets.)

Most people talk about wanting to have a good work/life balance. No one questions its importance.

I’m curious about the life/life balance.

What is the life/life balance? For me, it is the amount of time, money, or health you are willing to sacrifice to accomplish your personal goals.

Let’s look at a few scenarios. For each case, let’s assume people like to do the following with their spare time (keeping it relatively simple):

• Work out
• Eat healthy
• Occasionally watch TV
• Read often

Person A:

Person A goes to the gym after work 4 days a week. Since cooking can be a hassle, he picks up pre-made meals at the grocery store (not TV dinners or some garbage like that). He eats his pre-made meals while watching a few different TV shows and finishes off his night reading a chapter of a book in bed.

Sacrifice: Money (and probably some health)
Typically, you are charged a premium for prepared foods. A regular uncooked piece of salmon might be $7/pound. Throw on a marinade and a few exotic looking veges and you are looking at $12+/pound. Also, the meals may be somewhat healthy, but most pre-made foods bought from a store (even our favorite – Whole Foods) needs to taste extra good for people to buy it again. This means adding in extra calories in the form of sugar or fat or whatever.

Person B:

Person B plans out his meals and does his grocery shopping for the week on Sunday. During the week, it takes him 45 – 60 minutes to prepare, cook and eat his food. Since he is cooking health-conscious foods, he uses more kitchen items which result in a decent clean up effort every night. He catches the latest episode of his favorite TV shows and then settles into bed with a book.

Sacrifice: Health
He doesn’t have time to work out due to the time involved in cooking and cleaning. His eating habits are good, but working out is necessary to live a healthy life.

Person C:

Person C also plans out his meals and shops on the weekends. During the week, he goes to the gym after work and proceeds home to prepare, cook, and eat. By the time he sits down for dinner, it is late and he is tired. He does his clean up and then watches some TV. He takes his book to bed and falls asleep reading.

Sacrifice: Time
Because of his evening activities (working out and cooking) and his needs for a little relaxation (TV and reading), he doesn’t get much sleep at night. In a way, this also counts against his health.

I won’t bore you with more examples, but hopefully you get my point.

It seems that somewhere, people make a sacrifice to accomplish their higher priority activities. But, my scenarios are simple. It seems one should be able to do all of this without much sacrifice.

The equation becomes even more complex as you add in weekly activities like school, sports, happy hours, book clubs, etc. Accomplishing life/life balance as part of a marriage? Even more difficult. Then you are coordinating the schedules, opinions, and differences of two people.

People choose what is most important to them. In my simple examples, I can choose to eat healthy and work out, but give up on lazy activities (reading, TV, computer). You can mix and match the other variables to come up with other possibilities.

I haven’t even touched on addiction with the internet.com.

I’m not sure how people do it all….