Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jun 2010
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Author: Al Martinez Note: Al Martinez is a journalist and author for 
newspapers and magazines across the country and a frequent 
contributor to the Daily News.

DO WE NEED ONE MORE DRUG TO SHIELD US FROM REALITY?

I predict that by the end of the year the sale of marijuana will 
become so common in L.A. that Mom will be able to say, "Timmy, run 
down to Vons and get me a quart of milk, a loaf of sourdough bread, a 
pound of tomatoes and two ounces of pot."

Even though an effort is being made to limit the number of places 
that sell marijuana, and even barring home delivery, there will be no 
way to keep it totally under control.

Any effort to confine its sale to specific venues will be out the 
window by the time that old devil weed has made inroads into our 
culture. Fake prescriptions will pop up by the thousands and burden 
the marijuana stores to the extent that sellers will be expanded to 
include pet stores, gas stations, coffee shops and street vendors.

Its sale will satisfy not only its users but those who profit from 
it, including growers, sellers and the city. There's nothing like 
making money to keep a product in the public eye, or the public bong.

Kids who don't already have the habit will pick it up from their 
friends and parents and before you know it every third person in L.A. 
will be wearing a dim smile and calling everyone Dude; beggars will 
carry signs that say "Will work for Weed."

Marijuana has never been my drug of choice even though the very air 
reeked of burning hemp during the 1960s when I was covering the 
student uprisings in Berkeley. You could get stoned by just 
breathing. I was a martini man then and I'm a martini man now and I 
rarely smile, dimly or otherwise, and I call no one Dude.

That is not to say I've never tried the stuff. Since I was writing 
about them a lot I decided one evening to eat a sugar cub soaked in 
LSD. But instead of rising into psychedelic space or trying to fly 
out a window, I remained in my own world, as bland and colorless as 
it was. I just sat there drinking beer, of all things, and waiting 
for my soul to soar. It never did.

Someone remarked that I was unaffected because I couldn't tell the 
difference between fantasy and reality. It reminded me of the famous 
boozer/comic W.C. Fields who, when asked if he ever suffered delirium 
tremens from overdrinking, replied, "I can't tell where Hollywood 
ends and the d.t.'s begin."

Next, on a separate occasion, I tried a pipe loaded with kief, which 
is made from the crystals of a cannabis plant. There were maybe four 
couples involved, and after a few puffs, everyone fell asleep where 
they sat, practically in midconversation. Only my wife Cinelli 
declined to smoke the pipe and remembers the evening as very weird, 
with everyone slumped in their chairs like oversized rag dolls.

I guess that's the way it was about 2,000 years ago when the ancient 
Egyptians were using pot to treat sore eyes. It worked. After a 
sufficient number of hits the patients just fell asleep, thus closing 
their eyes. In such a state the soreness was gone.

One wonders what inroads the drug sellers will make next. Well, how 
about controlled cocaine parties? What you do for those inclined to 
sniff things up their noses other than decongestants is to confine 
the festivities to closed auditoriums, sell a certain amount of the 
drug to each partygoer and let them have the time of their lives 
until the coke is gone and they're too stoned to party any longer.

Then when the doors are open and they stumble out onto the streets, 
you arrest them for being under the influence of a banned substance, 
fine them and release them until the next coke party. There again, 
you see, everyone makes money, society gets its pound of flesh and no 
one is hurt.

A pamphlet once distributed out of Chicago warned that "friendly 
strangers" might try to sneak "marihuana" into your tea pot or your 
tobacco in the days when you rolled your own cigarettes, describing 
the drug as "a powerful narcotic in which lurks murder! Insanity! Death!" Wow!

I don't believe you necessarily go from one or two hits to becoming a 
serial killer. But I do wonder if our culture, already a little 
screwy, needs one more drug to shield it from the realities of the 
world we should be moving to face head-on before it's too late. To 
cure or relieve pain, sure. But where there's money to be made, I 
can't help but believe that the whole humanitarian process is going 
to be ridden like a drunken horse over the wishes of the people and 
we'll all go to hell smiling dimly and calling everyone Dude.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom