Bus Fumes

“‘I’ve played ACL more times than anyone, I think,’ Willie Nelson told us on his tour bus, which sure smelled good.”

Rolling Stone : The 10 Best Shows at Austin City Limits 2006

“Willie Nelson and four others were issued misdemeanor citations for possession of narcotic mushrooms and marijuana after a traffic stop Monday morning on a Louisiana highway, state police said. … ‘When the door was opened and the trooper began to speak to the driver, he smelled the strong odor of marijuana,’ the news release said.”

CNN.com.

But maybe they weren’t smoking it. Maybe it’s just part of the Willie Nelson Biodiesel.

Which got NewMexiKen thinking. According to data from the Drug Enforcement Administration, 98% of all the marijuana plants seized by law enforcement in the U.S. are wild hemp, not cultivated cannabis. That’s a lot of bio-mass. Let’s be creative here. Suppose we used the confiscated plants to power mass transit. Then we’d have free fuel, plus ridership would increase dramatically on those “smelly” buses.