MARIJUANA: ADDICT OR ACTIVIST

By now most folks understand the marijuana difference between 1969 and 2019.

Finger counting shows fifty years between the two.

In 1969 people bought a lid, four fingers, maybe three, an ounce, a stick, or a brick for the daring.

In 1969 people knew people who stayed anonymous. Hand over the money and the person who knew the people handed over a baggie. Everyone hoped for the best, but it didn’t matter as much because any weed was better than none.

In 2019?

Pull into the marijana store parking lot. No need to hide, or park in back. It’s all legal and legit.

What happened between 1969 and 2019? How did the notion of dangerous drug addicts, so dangerous to societal norms that a marijuana conviction put them in prison, turn into an activist movement?

Marijuana Grassroots?

From recreational to medical, marijuana covers enough ground to create a cloud of smoke the size of Texas, which would lead to jail time since it’s still an evil weed in the Lone Star state. No one uses cannabis in Texas?

The yellow rose of Texas ought to be the Green Rose of Texas.

What happened between 1969 and 2019 is the realization in some states that weed has more benefits to health management than other options, like the gateway stuff that leads to sticking a dirty needle of black tar in a vein.

If you’ve read this far, and thank you for that, do you remember the strangest time you purchased marijuana?

I’ll start: I walked past a man urinating on the side of a building and thought, ‘not a good look for a new guy in a new city.’

The next block of my recon walk a guy asked if I wanted to buy some weed. Right out of the blue, “Want to buy some weed? Give me $10 and wait here.”

He took my ten and turned a corner. I followed and saw him run down an alley. I didn’t follow that. No ten dollars and no weed, but I chalked it up for a tuition payment when I realized the weed guy was probably the sidewalk whizzer I’d passed.

Ten dollar marijuana class lesson: Be smarter than that.