• FILE - Possible topics on this upcoming ballot could include a push to legalize weed and tax it like alcohol.

  • BAD BUZZ: Like their heroes, ‘Cheech and Chong’, the state’s stoner population and Big Weed entrepreneurs found out that doing business with ‘The Man’ is never as easy as it sounds.

  • "Cheech and Chongs Next Movies" Cheech (Richard "Cheech" Marin) and Chong (Thomas Chong) wait at the welfare office. Boston Herald file photo



The stoners of Massachusetts are shocked and angry and they can’t believe what has happened to them.

They’ve been double-crossed by the Legislature.

Like, we had a referendum last year, dude, and it passed, totally, and it was binding, man, which means it’s, like, law, and now the hacks have not only thrown it out, they’ve raised the weed tax from 12 percent to 28 percent!

The Legislature broke its word to the electorate? Say it ain’t so! We’re so sorry, Cheech and Chong. But you know, maybe if you hadn’t been in a Class D cannabis funk these last 20 or so years, you might have been able to see this one coming.

ALSO READ: Senate pot law rewrite sure to spark challenge

I mean, who haven’t the local Democrats screwed, blued and tattooed over initiative petitions?

It’s unclear how the pot law will finally be rewritten on Beacon Hill. The Senate has its version of legalization, and the House has passed its bill, and a “joint” committee will have to “hash” out the differences. One thing is certain, however: hemp taxes are going “higher.”

Even if you don’t care about marijuana one way or the other, how can you not enjoy the consternation of the freak community? Not all, but many in the Reefer-American community are indolent Bernie Bros. They live in Mom’s basement and they think government is about giving them free stuff. Even if they were following current events, well, that short-term memory loss thing is not a rumor, after all.

So they’re going nuts on social media and newspaper message boards, posting semi-literate screeds about how they hope their “congressman” voted against changing the pot law, and how they will refuse to “by” any of the higher-tax weed, and that the state will therefore “loose” revenue.

Here’s a sample of the outrage: “What happened to representative democracy? … How dare the legislature defy the majority’s will? … They are very greedy pigs.”

Wow. They actually sound like taxpayers.

Grab yourself some munchies, dudes, turn down the Grateful Dead and I will explain how referenda work in Massachusetts. When citizens first try to put a question on the ballot, the hacks challenge it in court. Then they refuse to vote in the Legislature to put it on the ballot.

If you get the 80,000 or so signatures to put it before the voters, their hack unions challenge the signatures. If that doesn’t work, they outspend the citizens 30-1 on the campaign. If they lose at the ballot box, they just throw out the law, or ignore it, or totally rewrite the voters’ mandate, which is what has happened here.

Like, wow, the hippies are saying between hits on their bongs, how often do the hacks thumb their nose at the people like this?

Uh, how much time have you got, Cheech?

The voters approved the death penalty in ’82 — we have no death penalty. The voters threw out the seatbelt law in ’86 — we have a seatbelt law. How’d our landslide victory on legislative term limits work out? Uh, about as well as approving charitable deductions on our income taxes.

The income tax rate was cut back to 5 percent in a landslide back in 2000. It’s still not 5 percent.

But now the hacks have back-stabbed the hippies, and Big Weed has finally come out of its purple haze. Sorry, freaks. You thought you were buying primo, and instead the hacks sold you a bag of oregano. Bummer, man.

Buy Howie’s new book, “Kennedy Babylon: A Century of Scandal and Depravity,” at howiecarrshow.com.

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