We in LOVE with MARY JANE, She's Our Main THANG

So if you're 420 friendly, this piece shouldn't mess with your understanding too much. However, I feel like I'll owe my parents, adult family and professional colleagues some sort of disclaimer on this one. So I'll tread carefully.

Weed has some sort of power in our communities. Hispanic, white, black, Evanston, Bridgeport, Detroit, Atlanta, Jamaica, Amsterdam...yeah, the nickel bag of fun has traveled quite a distance. And it wears no age, teens, old schoolers, elders even getting all the way turned up (perhaps for medical purposes, but still).

But it's something about weed that catches my attention: It is the only drug that most of its users claim  not to be a drug. And so the addiction to weed is often times denied. Since stats say that no one person has overdosed on marijuana, it's just a plant, most weed users say hell no, I'm no addict.

Now us that are fans of those kinds of trees, let's not deny the distance we'll go for our green. And we clown crack heads but know that our  hunger for our high can be just as intense. Yes, some weed smokers scrape together eighty-two cents for their blunt hoping the Arab guy at BP Amoco let you slide. If not, they'd be pissed, but may have to settle for a Good Time.

And no, I don't know this by watching no gangsta flick or the Wire on HBO... I KNOW THIS. Remember, I've told you since letter one, I'll always be honest with you. And I was serious.

And they just won't dammit legalize it. Words from the hood say taxing it would be impossible. Others say that getting the government involved may just mess the whole deal up. I say, too late, the government's been involved since day one.

Most non- weed smokers will treat weed like any other drug. In their eyes, break the weed down on the nearest cd case and just find a way to inject it in your veins. Because to most who aren't 420 friendly, a drug is a drug. And I respect that. And do know that marijuana can serve as a gateway drug; a clear path to ex pills, meth and other stuff people may chemically alter in their bathtubs.

Some weed smokers are once a day, twice a day, all damn day. The power of mary jane has made good employees late for work, cabinets bare as results of late night munchies and failure of drug tests when you know you could've gotten the job.


And we have our smokers with the "it makes me think better" or "it's just better before and after sex". But if we can all face a reality, sort of taboo in a way, but a reality, that weed does impair the thought process. That's what being high is. And I'm no scientist and can't say I've done much research other than the encyclopedia of experience, but it is indeed a drug.

Truth;  we like the 30 to 45 minute high. Shorter than that if somebody blows us.

My fear is not that weed will kill us all or that we all better hurry and stop smoking it to save the environment. Because even though we all should have a love for the earth, that's not at all stopping the smokers from a session. And while environmentalists urge us to go green, weed smokers emptying their blunts or hitting their bong...their going green alright!

But my fear is that our denial of a high has dragged us real low. I guess maybe Wiz Khalifa's bars have our generations wrapped in a perfectly pearled white grape owl, too enclosed and high to think outside the blunt.

Some smokers out here spending their ComEd money, taking from their momma's purses, letting the weed smoke them. But being real with yourself about it is the only way to deal with it. Or else, we'll all deal with it; but on a much larger scale.

Love,
Vee