Hat tip to marijuana activist Robert Chase for alerting us to the teleconference's official transcript -- which reveals that the chaos and confusion among those who managed to attend the packed meeting at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment office was only the half of it. While the public was invited to call in and listen to the hearing, it turns out no one flicked the right switch or toggled the right doohickey to make sure the listeners were put on mute. Instead, everyone was allowed to comment freely over the phone during the teleconference -- and comment they did.
The resulting transcript reads straight out of Cheech and Chong go to Washington. It's all the more surreal because the recording quality of the teleconference was apparently so poor that much of the conversation was indiscernible to the transcriber.
The transcript begins with conversation snippets about laxatives and barbecues, not to mention listeners who don't have their phones on mute yelling at other listeners to mute their phones. Then, in the midst of a lengthy legal presentation by a health department staffer, some jackass starts playing music over the line. This leads others to accuse said jackass of somehow breaking the law and one bewildered listener to wonder out loud if they can just start the whole hearing over.
By the time the phone lines start beeping and curse words start flying and someone yells out, "Shut up about your fucking mango," all attempts at decorum are out the window. The teleconference's conclusion is therefore appropriately bizarre, with a listener repeating "Legalize it" over and over like a beat poet on conference call.
There you have it: All the news that's fit to print about the auspicious pot hearing. So shut up about your fucking mango.