Weed In Its Ascendency

d gonzalez 2021

Somehow, without the internet, my sister and I came of age. As did our friends – it was actually they who pointed out to us in the early 80s that there was a bong in our family’s cedar ski closet. It was nestled among wool hats, gloves, sunscreen, some goggles and the backpack that served lunches on the mountain. A treasure? We didn’t know, but on closer inspection and unable to pin the device to any function other than the illicit, we deemed the glass globe and pipe to be a “water bong.” At the time, we were not aware that water was implicit to the operation of the thing which was actually just a ‘bong.’ We learned it was several decades out of use and that it had been gifted to our parents by friends. Sure, guys. Whatever you say, druggies. 

They must have been, right? Wearing halter tops, bell bottoms and going to Joan Baez concerts. But where did they even get drugs back then? I mean, we “worldly” teens ultimately decided we invented pot, so what on earth did these oldies even do to get high? 

That’s something that probably nobody has ever cared about as long as they were able to score when needed. But the ease of legality today does contrast sharply with the military planning it took us to get weed, and oh so much more for our parental types to land a baggie. 

Ironically, now, as marijuana and its derivative products in the forms of THC, CBD and CBG have become available for their purported myriad health benefits, a huge chunk of the populace from the “stoner” age are adamantly anti-drug. The people who initially turned to weed for “medical” purposes when it was illegal were young stoners inventing backaches and migraines. Our older generation, many with actual health issues and all the time in the world to get baked, are looking for the options that will definitively not produce a high. Go figure. 

If they were to take an interest, however, it would be like Fred Flinston(er) walking into a car dealership today. Procuring weed, bud, reefer, is a process turned on its head and while our youth are still made to obtain it from dealers (“plugs”), the legal adult has only to make one extra stop after the liquor store.

In many American states, you can walk right into a shop, name the high you want to achieve and the budtender will set you up for the exact amount of comfortably numb you’re aiming for. Today, there are “Tea” parties where you are offered marijuana tea brewed to your specific kind of bliss. We have edibles, designed, packaged and displayed under glass like expensive perfume. Because they are also expensive.

Should he choose to embrace the high, my dad, at 81 – who yes, more than likely did use the bong we found in the ski closet and who does have a dragon tattoo on his bicep, and is therefore very cool among the lakeside set –  would step up to the counter of a marijuana parlour and ask for a lid. 

At which point the 22-year-old, ear-begauged employee might think him senile and ask which container he needs a lid for? “Did you drop something, sir?”

The ‘lid’ my dad would be referring to is that of a coffee can circa 1970. You peeled it off like we would today with a can of sardines or almonds, and the curled lid would hold about an ounce of weed.

If the certified budtender born in 2000 was unfamiliar with this, my dad – or other geriatric – might throw out four arthritic fingers, the rough equivalent of an ounce when sold in a fold-over sandwich baggie. Yes, from when dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

The unscrupulous nearly-teen would then begin hip-splaining his wares. “We’ve got wax, blunts, dab rigs, gummies and other edibles.” The elder would hike up his already lofted trousers and scratch his fuzzy chin, thinking if only he could get himself out of this godforsaken Swarovski of pot boutiques, he might catch a guy in the alley and get some goddammed weed!

If you go the legal route and visit a dispensary, you don’t ask for a lid, but instead a very specific amount in grams – or ounces – and it’s sold to you at a non-negotiable price which can be paid for by credit card. Our cash-carrying mules of old could never have predicted this.

Gone are the good ol’ days of joints, doobies and spliffs. Jeff Spicoli is not manning the dispensary counter. Dispensaries are the Starbucks of pot and you gotta know if you want the botanic equivalent of a Venti white chocolate mocha no whip almond milk or a “coffee.” You’ve got to communicate with and, times as they are, tip the budtender. Dude! 

In the old days, if you were lucky enough to score, you’d get to sample wares before walking away with your ounce or gram or bag ‘o shake. Now, because the person is behind an official counter and offers you opinions on what is the best thing for your altered state, there is a tip involved and no sampling. 

The product has changed, man. This ain’t no Folgers in a styrofoam cup. This ain’t no ‘reefer,’ ‘kind bud,’ or ganja. Today’s marijuana has propper brand names and an etiquette to go with it. 

If you smoked in the ‘70s or ‘80s, you remember getting your baggie full of stems, flowers and seeds. You’d spread it all out on a double album cover – not any album cover, mind, but something worthy of the score – and, with a credit or library card, you minced it up and watched the seeds fall into the fold. Maybe allow a bit of the bud to roll down in there to save for desperate times. Painstakingly, you’d lay out your paper and roll something magnificent to share with your fellow connoisseurs. If only. What we got from Mexico and even Columbia back then was literally “shake” – the stuff leftover by the time it got packed, transported, sold and resold and resold again to the rookie masses on college campuses, concert grounds and protest rallies. 

If you smoked in the ‘70s,’ 80s or ‘90s, you made phone calls. From land lines. You waited. You drove around and waited some more. You and your buddies gathered cash and appointed a front man. It would be 10:30 p.m. before you got the call for a pickup and hoped to the party god that the guy would show up as planned. It would be another 30 minutes before you actually had weed in hand – if you didn’t have to drive to somewhere with a phone to call the guy to find out where he was. (Not that I ever masterminded a drop. As a girl, I could mostly just observe and get impatient.) Then, weed in hand, you know, you had to sift through the shit to get to the smokable stuff. The boys did that.

Smoke it you did. Unless you took the time and effort to bake brownies, inhaling was the only way to get from a bag of dried greens to high. In fact, many a deal was brokered for just that – a bag of greens. Some nubes ended up with oregano more times than they’d care to admit.

Now, every buzz-inducing item is also available from an online menu so you can look it all up before you stumble into a modern showroom as intimidating as a jewelry store. The branded marijuana gems are displayed under glass and you have to, oh Lord, make eye contact with a person in the bright light of day and make a proper purchase. Gone are the days of the dark alley “score.”

Today, education is key. There are so many ways to get high – the selection of edibles alone, well, recall your first trip to the adult “book” store. If you walk in “hungry,” you’re going to find it impossible to make sensible choices. Very like a porn shop, there’s no sampling, but very unlike a porn shop, you can discuss your needs openly with the budtender without the soul-scarring exchange you might have with a sex-toy vendor about a blow-up doll. 

It’s no low-light bar scene, either. If you’ve imbibed in Copenhagen or Amsterdam, where most smokeshops have a comfortably underlit and seedy vibe about them, the American dispensary wears its legal status like a new parent with a baby. These places are bright as chemistry labs and as immaculate as a hospital operating stage. If you’ve not done your homework, you will be exposed as a rube, or worse, someone who’s not experienced weed since Woodstock. That, you may well be. No judgment here.

Did we tip our dealers? Not back in the day you didn’t. Like restaurants with the newest payment systems, your dispensary transaction might occur over a device that suggests the amount you may want to tip. And it makes sense, like a waiter, you get personal and no-judgment service/education for the money. These people may as well be wearing lab coats – they know everything about everything  and their approach is 100% clinical. You will find neither a Cheech nor a Chong manning the counters of a weed boutique. 

The lady serving me is about my age with purple hair in braids. This makes me trust her. She guided me to something that would not make me regret my life or ask my neighbor to marry me. It was perfect, mellow, and alleviated some of the back pain I have acquired since menopause. 

Be careful. There are edibles and there are pills. You chew edibles and swallow the pills like you would an Advil – but do not swallow 3 or 4 at a time. You are not trying to cure a headache. Pace yourself and swallow with care. These take a bit longer to hit your system, but you can’t be impatient. They work. Hell ya, but without the coughing or the stench of something smoked. 

Am I one of the oldies? Could be. If I’m going to get high, I guess I want it in a hygienic and legal format, well, because I’m responsible now. I don’t plan to get wasted and I’m definitely not going to be seen at a Taco Bell drive-thru at 2:30 in the morning. Oh, I’ll be in bed hours before that. Thank goodness for Netflix. In fact, it’s hard to imagine stoner life without the internet but somehow they…we managed to entertain ourselves. 

The other nice thing about legal weed is there is no trace of the purchase. Chase bank will not see that you bought a bouquet at “Weeds R Us.” If only our parents could see us now. They’d be so proud. And maybe, they’d want to know how it’s done.