FOLIO
In 1789, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote “[in] this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” and variations on that theme have been perdurable ever since. Franklin (1706-’90) was one of the most visionary men in American history, who never held public office but was held up as an elder statesman and civic leader on a par with our nation’s founders. Indeed, it could be argued that no other Founder remains quite as uniquely influential on the America of today, particularly as it relates to the ongoing push-and-pull of civil liberties.
The last couple years’ worth of ballot activity spurs one to add a third certainty to Franklin’s famous axiom: If marijuana decriminalization is up for public vote, it is certain to pass. Citizens in 2018 will have the chance to weigh in on initiatives of various types in Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington state. Most of those are places that have already legalized it for medical or even recreational use, and now seek to clarify existing legislation or extend its impact to broader sections of the respective populations. Pro-pot activists retain the momentum, with mid-terms looming in the distance. Franklin would have certainly approved.
The old man was a pioneering libertarian, and a stone-cold libertine; he spoke freely and behaved in ways that would’ve gotten a lesser man of his time ostracized, if not burned at the stake. The printing press he built in Philadelphia printed his diatribes and almanacks on hemp paper and, like his colleagues George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, he wholly embraced the plant’s salubrious effects. Though it’s never been confirmed that he smoked it, Franklin would have at least had a passing familiarity with many of the products sold in shops today-clothes, oils, maybe even edibles. Based on anecdotal evidence, it’s safe to say that he would’ve probably tried anything offered to him—or anyone, for that matter.
Drugs aside, Franklin was also on the cutting-edge of sexual liberty, widely touted as one of the truly elite lotharios of all time. There’s no way to verify the longstanding rumor (claimed by Sigmund Freud and others) that it was Franklin who first introduced the coca leaf to Europe in his days as hype-man for the Revolution, but it’s clear that a significant portion of the support we received from the French at that time was the result—at least indirectly—of that randy patriot gettin’ busy in Parisian salons, thus pioneering a very specific approach to diplomacy and espionage of which America remains the master. In other words, he’d be right at home in modern Washington, D.C.—perhaps at the White House itself.
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