Reefer Madness?
Where were you when marijuana became legal in this country? Yeah, man, it happened, and you didn’t even notice. But not because you were stoned.
Once the stuff is legal for recreational use—as it is in nine states and the District of Columbia for people over 21 years of age—and okay for medical use in 29 states and D.C., it gets a bit boring. Just like having another Budweiser and expecting a real buzz instead of a snooze. The last time alcohol was exciting was during Prohibition, but since then it’s just been a way for dull people to feel smart and unhappy people to drown their sorrows.
Once legal, using marijuana is like cooking with honey, and some folks will really get off on it. Recently I was in Palm Springs, California, where my son took his mother to buy cannabis balm at a legal dispensary. He said it would help with her chronic neck pain. I questioned whether the balm would work as well as Motrin, but agreed it might be more fun.
I suddenly realized that the pot revolution—which I had been eagerly anticipating ever since the reefer madness, anticannabis hysteria of my halcyon youth—had come and gone, and it had been a nonevent. California, where voters in November 2016 approved Proposition 64, was late in joining the states’-rights movement to legalize recreational marijuana.
