From the April 7, 2009 Tufts Observer, My Going Green column. I've added links to some of the text where I felt it appropriate.
I’ve been writing for nearly a year, and still I haven’t yet focused on the idea of marijuana as medicine. That’s mainly because up until a few months ago, I actually sided with ex-Drug Czar John Walters when he said in 2003 that medical marijuana made as much sense as “medical crack.” I felt then, and still do now, that by looking at cheeba as medical issue, we gloss over the more important civil rights and security issues that I’ve tried to cover in previous columns.
But one simply can’t pay attention to the ongoing marijuana debate as closely as I do and continue to believe that administering crack rocks from the local bathtub-lab to patients has the slightest similarity to suggesting they puff leaf of Mother Nature’s homegrown bounty.
As for me, I credit cannabis with helping me overcome long-term anxiety issues that exploded during my first semester. I started smoking daily soon after I had my first panic attack. I haven’t had one since. The only times I’ve felt my classic feeling of anxiety come around tend to be on vacations when I haven’t been able to medi … I mean smoke for several days.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an advertisement for self-medicating with illegal drugs. Marijuana affects many people poorly, adding additional pressure and paranoia to their lives or evenings. This is just my personal experience, and it should go without saying that you need to find what works best for you—and don’t you go blaming anyone else if it your experience is no good, especially not some pot columnist.
But marijuana’s beneficial psychological effects—including alleviation of depression, schizophrenia, and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—pale in comparison to its effectiveness in addressing the physical. Pot and its derivatives have repeatedly been proven powerful and singular methods of treatment for pain, nausea, inflammation, weight loss, PMS, and cancer.
Yes, I did just say cancer. For cancer patients, cannibanoids address the debilitating side effects of conventional treatment strategies in ways that, for some, are irreplicable. While this particular utility is just now gaining attention, older anecdotal and recent scientific evidence has made the beneficial connection between compounds in cannabis and actually fighting cancerous cells themselves.
Much of my anecdotal evidence comes from Rick Simpson, who has been giving out hemp oil (often for free) as medicine for several years. Rick has dozens of patients; patients who were sent away from their doctors with nothing to look forward to but death. These conventionally “doomed” survivors have testified to the power of Rick’s medicine. I encourage everyone to challenge their skepticism, check out those testimonials, find out more about Rick at his website: www.phoenixtears.ca and download Christian Laurette’s documentary on Rick: “Run From the Cure.”
More anecdotal evidence comes from Professor Donald Tashkin of UCLA who recently completed a 30-year study of marijuana users. In 2006, he reported: “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”
Concerning the more experimental and scientific, work is currently being done—almost exclusively outside of the US—to investigate the cancer-fighting properties of cannabis. Manuel Guzman from the University of Madrid has done significant work investigating just how THC kills cancerous cells and if any bio-chem major wants to look it up and give an explanation, I’d be very appreciative. It has something to with blocking pathways or connections… I don’t know.
What’s really going to piss you off, if you’re anything like me, is that while all of this information seems new, our government has known about the amazing powers of the cannabis plant and its derivatives for the last 20+ years. Did you know that in 1988, a senior DEA judge named Francis L. Young completed a massive study of the appropriateness of re-scheduling marijuana from class I (no accepted medical use) to class II. He concluded:
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
Over 20 years later, cancer patients are having their homes raided by SWAT teams and sent to prison.
Anyways, I like to end these on a high note so I will say that things are looking better. More and more states are investigating plans to allow the sale of marijuana for medical uses. Eric Holder has announced that the DEA will stop raiding California dispensaries (this has already been violated but at least he said it). Meanwhile, the research is pouring in, showing the power of cannabis to help and heal.
I’ve been stressed by work all week so I think it’s about time for me to medicate.
Stay happy,
—Reggie
P.S. Since I wrote this article I've been made aware of Granny Storm Crow's List, a very thorough list of legitimate medical studies into cannabis and it's effects. Please go check it out.
All this talk about Brownies has me thinking about smoking methods so I hunted down my column from the March 8th edition of the Observer on the various smoking methods available.
One of the awesome things about weed is how many different ways there are to consume it. Hell, today alone I’ve already smoked from a vaporizer, a small pipe, a $400 bong, and a one-hitter… but I’ve had a hard week. Each smoking apparatus has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages and as a toker, it’s your job to pick the one that appeals to you the most.
Pipes:
I never used to like pipes, I found them too harsh on my throat but recently I’ve taken a liking to them. Pipes are great for their convenience; you just pack the bowl and light it. Thanks to the harshness of a pipe, it’s hard to take massive hits at once so the high from a pipe is usually relaxed. Ideally a pipe should be shaped so that the smoke hits a bottleneck or other barrier before hitting your mouth. This has the dual function of giving the pipe a proper pull (think Bernoulli’s equation) and cooling the smoke slightly to reduce harshness. That in-pipe obstacle may also mean the difference between sucking down flaming asteroids, and, well, not.
Bubblers:
Basically small bong-pipes. I am personally inclined away from these things since they are often overpriced and extremely difficult to clean. However, I sat across the circle from a guy who swore by his back home—a glass triple chamber brought back from Amsterdam that bestowed phat rips that wouldn’t make you cough if you tried.
Da Bong:
There are more bong styles than I could describe in ten pages but if you’re ever interested, check out a head shop. Over the last two years I’ve seen a growing trend in bongs that I really like—clear, straight glass tubes with diffused downstems designed to pass smoke through water many times for a clean and cool hit. A great bong needs to be at least big enough to allow for really massive rips. You just can’t beat the bong when it comes to getting you really stoned, really quickly, really tastily, and really well.
The debate rages on about design. I prefer the straight shaft over the wide bottom beaker style for simple cleaning purposes. A clean bong allows for sweeter tasting hits and that’s important when you’ve got a big bowl of purp.
Material:
Everyone is going to tell you to “go glass!” and, for damn good reasons. Glass is pretty and clear, easy to clean and has the perfect thermal properties for a device filled with ice water and attacked by high people with fire. It doesn’t release any noxious fumes and even has its own artisan cult. That’s why next time you see somebody’s $400 bong-ash catcher setup, quickly count and stay in control of all your limbs because it’s fragile. I know it’s a challenge, especially after your face has been pleasantly obliterated by it.
This is no reason to scoff at a homis non-glass, though. The ceramic owner might give you some BS about being “from the earth, man” but he’s actually right. It too has great thermal diffusion properties. As for plastic/acrylic…look, it’s not the best, but you can’t deny that the convenience of being able to literally throw your bong at someone.
Joints:
My father, Dwaye Hubbard, wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about if I mentioned bongs or even glass pipes. Like most of the old folks, he smoked only joints. For some people, it’s hard to see why it’s worth it for people to smoke anything else. Joints are easy to roll, portable, adjustable by size, and require no more equipment than something you can pick up at any convenience store.
Everybody should be able to roll a joint, which means if you don’t know how, learn, which means you need to practice, which means “get high.” There is a silly number of rolling techniques and styles, so you only need to know how to roll what you’re smoking; for me that’s small little pin joints so I use smaller papers like Zig-Zag Kutkorners. If you prefer larger cone joints, you might want something bigger like EZ-Widers. Either way, if you don’t know how to roll already, pick up the appropriate papers and a bag of tobacco and spend a lazy afternoon practicing. You can give your efforts to the cig smokers near you, they’ll be appreciative.
Just like all things “weed,” there are tons of paraphernalia options when it comes to papers. Something of interest to the concerned joint-lover—being that inhaling paper may not be particularly desirable—is the cellulose paper. These clear papers are apparently lung friendly, but are a bitch to roll with. In the same vein, be aware that the gummy strip on papers is an adhesive usually made from horses. Maybe because you don’t want to kill horses, or maybe just because you don’t want to smoke them, papers are available without. Your joints won’t suffer a bit.
Blunt:
A special offshoot of the joint is the blunt. A blunt is basically a big-ass joint rolled in a tobacco leaf instead of a paper. Blunts are freaking awesome on occasion and taste delicious but they tend to leave you with a strong case of the Itis.
The honey dutch is a popular variety and nothing is more iconic than the guts of a cigar, discarded appropriately in your waste bin. Blunt wraps occupy a middle ground between joints and true Southern Blunts.
Vapes:
The newest of all smoking devices is a vaporizer. A vape is any device that you smoke—with no smoke! Instead of combusting the leafy plant, vapes have a heating element that warms the ganja to the specific vaporization temperature of THC etc (see last week’s column), around 390 degrees. This means that the good stuff is literally lifted off the unburnt leaf for you to inhale. It is great for health reasons since you don’t inhale burnt plant matter. I love the high I gets off my vaporizer; since there’s no smoke, the high is much clearer and enjoyable. They are also great dorm room alternatives. Be advised: they do smell strongly while in the act, but the pungent pot vapor will not permeate clothing and dissipates much faster than actual smoke.
Be advised, there are lots of ins and out to vapes. For instance, you may have a favorite vape temperature setting. But this setting is only vaporizes the ingredients at and below this temperature, and while the major ingredients like THC vaporize a good bit cooler than combustion point, there are some chemicals that do not (see my last article to remind yourself weed is more than just THC). One option is to collect all of your brownish, vaped weed and cook with it.
Dont Forget:
Don’t forget about the steamrollers, pin-holled Hurricanes, Hookah-bongs, glass cigarettes, and poly-joint adapted vape-bong hybrid. But this is a Tufts publication and not High Times, so I’ll cool it. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned edibles...
It really is amazing how devices can change the experience. All the rituals of the bong are completely different than those of the joint and the highs reflect this. Even with the same strain of sweet Mary Jane, how you treat her matters. But this is one of those rare times when it really is “all good.” Rip from your Roor like Phelps while your buddy puffs on the apple pipe. Then swap. Or don’t. If you and yours want health, pick up a communal vaporizer and roll fatty spliffs when you feel like blowing smoke.
It’s all beautiful, like most things.
Now I’ve got Kush to vape. Hopefully you can fill in that mad lib too,
I was in a nostalgic mood so I felt like hunting down my first column from Sept. 29, 2008:
Hi, I’m a pothead. It’s an odd thing to say, to admit and take responsibility for a drug habit, but I am one. I originally approached the editor with a pitch for this column because I think marijuana and the culture that surrounds it is no longer at the fringes of our society. It is no longer in jazz-dens and hippie communes. It’s in our homes, our schools, our lives.
The majority of Americans have tried it, and it’s easily available. Campus cops turn a blind eye to its use on certain days and many professors puff. Still, it is the white elephant in the room, a taboo that lead to the construction of a still expanding and, in my opinion, soon the be majority counter-culture.
Some consider my use, knowledge, and defense of marijuana despicable. Even the word ‘Tufts’ on my diploma wouldn’t get me a job with a respectable background-checking company. Because of this, many intelligent reefer-smokers have not come out and freely admitted to consuming a substance that has, historically, been present in almost every culture.
I’m going to avoid making claims like pot is less harmful than alcohol (it is) or throw out wild claims that elements of the drug war were being used as a cover for organized racism (they are and always have been).
Rather, I’m going to try in this column, to offer a window into a lot of the more intimate details that the members of the community who don’t consume illicit substances, or even those who don’t do them frequently, aren’t exposed to.
In later installments I will detail the campus culture surrounding the drug, and how the people for a large metropolitan area interact with it and one another. Instead, I will know tell you more about myself and my habit.
To qualify myself as a trustworthy source on such matters, let me describe my career as a drug user. I didn’t try smoking grass until 11th grade, and didn’t really begin using it with any frequency until the end of 12th grade and the summer before Tufts. I was always predisposed to it, a neurotic Woody Allen-esque child who thought too much for his own good (sound familiar, Tufts student body?).
As of now, I’ve probably smoked pot every day, except for a few days on vacation (when I couldn’t get it) and of course, Yom Kipur. I’ve toked with well over 300 other students since I came to Tufts, as well as two faculty members and the coach of a sports team.
I first began smoking consistently as a freshman. It was a social drug, perfect for the cool nights of late Fall. I was living within a mile radius of thousands of students who, just like me, were looking for a good time. Pockets of students tokin’ dotted campus every night, and I was amongst them. I made new friends and caught a buzz.
Pot quickly became more than just an icebreaker. It became a way to cope with the all of the day’s tedious peccadilloes towards me. Living in a tiny, cinderblock-walled dorm room can drive even the soberest of stoics to sparking one up. Pot relaxed me. It was, and still is, the main reason I smoke.
As the work and stress mounted during my first semester, so too did the smoke intake. I still did all the things that I would usually do: exercise, socialize, try to get laid, fail to get laid, and plan what to do in the future, but I smoked.
Here I am, a few years later, technically a criminal and working my way towards s degree from one of the best academic institutions in the world. Not too bad for a pothead.
My story is just one strand in a long strain of hybrids. Each member of the marijuana community, whether knowingly apart of it or not, has his or her own story. There are a lot of us here on campus, some smoke more, more smoke less, but we are here.
I think marijuana and its tag-along culture can harmoniously exist with the Tufts community. Look no further than the library roof for proof that it is becoming a drug of the masses, a new brand of cool made cool solely by the fact that there are squares that oppose it. We at Tufts are a strange bunch—we get our rocks off racking our brains over issues most people our age don’t care about. We ponder philosophy, program code, solve equations, analyze policy—and I think we’ve earned the right to spark.
A PDF copy of this article along with the awesome cover can be found here (link no longer up... e-mail me if you want the damn pdf)
Tufts: Clearing the Smoke Surrounding the Cannabis Economy
Editors’ Note: Reggie Hubbard is a pseudonym employed by Tufts students and marijuana users who, in order to protect their identity, request to remain anonymous. Reggie writes a weekly alternative culture column that explores and reports on issues and stories concerning marijuana.
BY “REGGIE HUBBARD”
Many of the facts presented in this article were gleaned from interviews with regular marijuana users and sellers on this campus. Due to the illegal nature of what is contained, every effort has been made to protect the identities of everyone involved. Many people will object to the way that I have presented information. In order to address such objections and to facilitate dialogue, I will answer all questions e-mailed to me at reggiehubbard@gmail.com and posted on my blog: http://reggiehubbard.blogspot.com. Please be aware that responses will be posted on the blog.
Depending on whom you ask, there are five to ten pounds of marijuana smoked at Tufts every week. At an average of $60 per eighth (3.5g), that’s somewhere between $38,400 and $76,800 of retail-priced marijuana consumed on this campus every week. At a price ranging from $300-$400 per ounce when brought onto the campus, this leaves around $15,000 or over two pounds of marijuana in profits to those who sell cannabis on or around campus.
Over the last two months, I have been gathering this and other data. I’ve met and interviewed all manner of people involved in the Tufts marijuana market, from the freshman consumers to small-time dealers, all the way up to three individuals who were once or are currently responsible for the importation of pounds into the campus sphere. These people agreed to talk to me because they trust me.
The sizeable margin of error in my estimate comes from the secrecy and uncertainty that inherently accompanies any black market good. A similar uncertainty obscures national marijuana figures too, which are made on the highly questionable assumption that the government stops five to ten percent of all cannabis before it can reach users, resulting in an estimated 500 thousand to one million pounds per week of US habit. You can doubt the words of dealers, but it’s bound to be better than the government’s estimation of its own efficiency. The ability to guess the size of what many consider to be America’s largest cash crop is so imprecise that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment admits, “No reliable estimates are available regarding the amount of domestically-cultivated or processed marijuana.”
Still, the Tufts campus numbers may seem a little high, but considering that we are a top-tier, New England university with a sizeable concentration of wealthy students in a state that just reduced cannabis possession to the severity of a parking ticket, that half gram of herb per undergrad per week seems a lot more reasonable.
The marijuana community is really a collection of overlapping social groups, within which there is plenty of marijuana smoking and, when you really think about it, a lot of trust. In almost every social group, whether based on a sports team, fraternity or sorority, club, dorm, acting troupe, or just an assemblage of friends, there are bound to be a fair amount of pot smokers, and, like anybody who shares a habit, they bond and form cliques. It’s no different than the way in which the heaviest drinkers, gamers, or cyclists find one another in the midst of a larger social milieu.
No stoner is an island—every extended stoner group knows a “guy” or two. Regardless of whether you help a buddy obtain the phone number of said “guy,” or you pick up O’s to split amongst friends, this is drug trafficking. In the college bubble however, the lines between helping out a friend, distributing, and dealing get blurred and forgotten. Eddie Einbinder, author of How To Have Fun And Not Die, notes, “It’s always thekid starts dealing pot because he’s buyingtoo many eighths a week, realizes why aren’twe buying an ounce and just smoke for freeand maybe make some cash.”
Of course, sometimes people plan on selling drugs.
Frank had an ambitious plan of making $50,000 by selling weed all throughout college. Jake wanted to pay off his own toking habit that he picked up senior year in high school and if the alcohol bills got covered too, all the better. Frank told me that that he estimates at least 15 lbs. per week were coming in back then; he was responsible for distributing five of them. Weed then was markedly worse, selling for $35 or $40 per eighth, which probably explains the hike in the amount circulating. Jake stopped selling when he came back for his sophomore year and made the decision to stop smoking; when he tokes up these days, he pays with clean money. Frank made $20,000 his freshman year. Things got sketchy and he called it quits while he was (way) ahead.
The obvious question for people like Frank—students bringing enormous quantities of cannabis onto campus—is, where do they get it and whom do they get it from? It comforts me that there is no single answer to this question. Marijuana seems to sprout from just about everywhere: ex-hippies who have sold to Tufts kids since the 1970’s, young townies, people in Vermont, Maine, New York, Western Mass. And various people associated with serious Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs as the DOJ calls them).
The wide range of sources for marijuana is one of the facets of the trade that interests me personally. Today, the majority of crops originate from a handful of operations that disseminate via standardized shipping routes. In fact, the five plants per person limit in place in the Netherlands coupled with the majority of consumption by tourists has resulted in an illegal international trade of highest-grade herb from North Africa. Even in Amsterdam, reefer has illegal roots.
The fertility of the pot market is one of the main reasons Pat Buchanan is now a fan of legalization. “There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton’s way and Mao’s way,” he comments, “Americans are never going to adopt the Maoist solution. For the users of drugs are all too often classmates, colleagues, friends, even family. Indeed, our last three presidents did not deny using drugs.”
“I make money because I have a connection.”
Anyone interested in selling marijuana needs three things: capital, a scale, and somebody who trusts them enough to sell them some grass.
I might point out that not a single person I spoke to has sold marijuana consistently for two years straight. One might assume this trend is due to high-risk stresses on cats like Frank, but small-timers fluctuate in and out of the market depending on schedules, availability, social situation, and the need for weed. At another point on the spectrum is Hank, a junior who is friends with someone who sells ounces. Once every week or two Hank will pick up a bag and weigh out six eighths that he gets rid of over that time period.
Still, the market for pot faces natural shocks like any other, most often at the beginning of semesters. This January, as often happens, many of the big distributors decided to stop dealing without passing on their connections to the next generation. This left a void in supply and high demand. Within weeks, many entrepreneurs, freshmen and sophomores especially, were arranging to bring in small amounts ranging from an ounce to a quarter pound. This recent shock also had the effect of escalating the acceptable price range towards a very heady $60 to $70 an eighth.
I have witnessed the distribution of three pounds in twelve hours following atwo-day drought. The pot market is a well connected, grassroots network.
This is why part-time smokers can transition into big-time sellers overnight when they run into special, one-time deals. In February, in the midst of the high-quality headies-only market, Jim—a sophomore who doesn’t normally sell marijuana was offered a half-pound of mid-grade marijuana from a local friend for $1000 ($15.63/eighth). In no time, Jim had nothing but a thousand dollars profit and a batch of weed brownies to show for it.
Most dealers are motivated by the prospect of free marijuana. John, asenior, claims that he doesn’t make a dollar from selling weed, although he manages to provide up to a quarter pound a week. John smokes weed for free. But, being the philanthropist that Tufts expects him to be, he estimates that he inhales no more than a third of his personal ganja since he shares generously with friends and visitors to his merry abode. Perhaps unsurprisingly, of all the dealers I spoke to, John seemed the happiest to be selling weed. He truly loves it and being an upperclassman, doesn’t live with the fear of repercussions that often come from being involved with freshmen or other loose-lipped souls. John began dealing only this past year during a lull in October when he had a friend who moved to the area. John’s lack of business motivations is driven by his love for the good herb and his humble understanding that he, too, can only “smoke everyday for free because [he] knows somebody.”
Others who sell larger amounts are inspired by the need to pay for other drugs or alcohol. As Jake put it, “the black market is incestuous.” Most of the profits from the pot trade pay for marijuana, but, for thosewho can make greater profits, marijuana sales can pay for more expensive drugs like cocaine, opiates, and all sorts of prescription pills I never bothered to learn about.
Some people sell marijuana as a full time job; Bryan sells between a QP (quarter pound) and HP (half pound) a week in eighths and quarters to maximize profit. Hepays for the rent of his off-campus apartment with the proceeds and is still left with some spending money. But dedicated involvement takes up time. “You gotta answer phone calls, and you gotta be available,” Bryan told me, “Stoners have no loyalty, they’ll go to whoever can get them weed.” Still, that work ethic pays off; the day before I interviewed him, Bryan made an easy $100 in an hour by walking down College Ave.
One motivation that is not usually noticed by dealers until they have been actively selling for a long time is the improved sense of business acumen. Running any business is tough, but running one in which you must negotiate marketability with privacy, profit with friendship, and potiquette with The Law, is as tough as it gets. Without question, I would trust an ex-reefer jockey as my banker over some quantitative economics major who might just cause the 2037 interplanetary financial meltdown.
What I call pot dealers, Jack Cole, a 26- year veteran officer who spent years as an undercover narcotics agent before becoming founder and Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), calls “accommodating friends.” Still, for participating in the market, if caught, they could face prison time or at the very least expulsion, a permanent note on any school records, and a news story outing them on the eternal Google machine.
Jack Cole and the others at LEAP have a saying: “You can get over an addiction but you can’t get over a conviction.” What former Lt. Cole is saying is that it is possible to get over an awful addiction, but, once the legal system has you at all, they have you by the short and curlies. It’s why most schools already know better than to turn over students to the actual police for drug offenses. In school, it is much cleaner and easier to deal with such situations than if lawyers get involved and a student is left with a criminal record that might prevent them from getting a job (and eventually donating money back to their alma matter). It’s also a lot easier for a school to not have to defend a possibly illegal search if the only punishment is expulsion.
Even if Johnny Q. Law doesn’t get involved, punishment in the drug market can affect a student irrevocably. Even for very minor dealing, most schools will expel a student. But an equal or greater danger is campus media coverage and, as I have mentioned, Google. The Daily, reporting on an incident in September, printed the names of three students. Those three people, barring a change in name, will forever turn up on the Internet as drug dealers. For allegedly providing a commonly traded and appreciated good and due to journalistic indiscretion, these three have been branded.
The probability of getting caught grows with time as more and more people smoke the original dealer’s weed and as his name become casually (and mythically) associated. Bryan notes, “You can’t get your name out of people’s mouths 100%.” This is why any time Bryan takes on a new client, he asks: “If you’re caught and the cops say ‘just tell us where you got it and you can go.’ What do you say?” A wrong answer means you might not even get to know Bryan’s name (hint: it’s not Bryan.) Bryan also doesn’t sell to girls most of the time because, sadly, “girls talk too much.”
As mentioned briefly above, marijuana sales often fund “harder” drug habits. Aaron Houston, the only full-time marijuana lobbyist in Washington comments, “When you have the black market, there’s encouragement to engage in other black market activities.” Eddie Einbinder adds to this, noting, “College kids can get rich and that could possibly lead to other problems with drug abuse.”
This happens at Tufts. One dealer, who funds his Oxycontin habit with pot sales, confided in me that, like himself, some dealers fund and nurture harder drug habits. Even barring new experimentation, the ability to be high 24/7 for free allows many dealer to go through college in a stoned haze.
What I have described happens on every college campus in this country (perhaps barring military academies and a dozen special cases). Those who fear for the well-being of the Tufts student body should console themselves with the knowledge that what transpires here is more muted and less dangerous than the goings on at many schools. Also, for most students here, drug use gets no more extreme than reefer or maybe the once-a-year psychedelic.
The demand for marijuana by students will continue to drive massive amounts of the population towards drug dealing. By DEA estimates, 900,000 teenagers in America are selling drugs (so juniors and seniors aren’t included).
This article comes out on April 20th, 4/20: the unofficial holiday that we stoners have claimed as our own. Today, at least half of the undergrads here and at schools across the nations will spend the day smoking weed and hanging out in massive, extended acts of illegal protest. All this pot came from somewhere in the US, Canada, or Mexico, from loving home growers and industrial scale grow “ops.” For most of us, the sack in hand will have gone through five or six intermediaries, the last two of which were probably fellow students.
The government is, in their own words, at “War” with you. No one is benefitting, and a vanishingly small few continue to support such as war. Still, the pot you might smoke to celebrate 4/20 is illegal.
If you are so inclined, go out today, smoke some civil disobedience and keep supporting change we can breathe in.
I’d like to talk about the pot market, the sixty billion dollar ($60,000,000,000!) pot market. The nature of the reefer market is the primary reason why legalization is the answer and decriminalization is not. Decriminalization would prevent hundreds of thousands from getting criminal records (last year over 800,000 people were arrested and charged for possession of marijuana; an FBI figure that drug czar, John Walters lied about at a press conference) but it won’t eliminate the actual criminal element of it, nor would it help regulate it.
Marijuana is grown by all sorts of people. Most of it in this country is produced by people growing fewer than 30 plants; we shouldn’t worry about them, they are harmless and in a world with legal pot they’d be the equivalent of microbrewers. The rest of the pot in this country is grown by organized criminal groups. Recently, due to the tightening of the Mexican border, Mexican drug cartels are now growing a lot of marijuana in US national forests, and in the process have, according to an AP report, polluted the parks with poisons and all sorts of illegal-in-the-US fertilizers, sprays, and poisons.
From these growers, there are a number of intermediaries who handle the pot until it reaches someone you might know or only have have contact with for buying pot (unless you grow it, of course). Most campus dealers are small time, and only slang bangs to support their own habits, and maybe the munchies. I’d even go as far to say that almost everyone who smokes more than just occasionally has sold weed at one time or another (and sometimes not for profit) just because they had a friend who can’t get any. That’s right, I just accused the majority of Tufts’ campus of being drug dealers, and technically, a lot of us are.
I believe this is actually the reason why a lot of people become marijuana “addicts.” It is extremely easy to sell pot, especially in high school and college. To a collegiate dealer, the abundance of cheap or free marijuana, combined with the fact that there are virtrually no legitimate real world worries in college, makes for a sticky situation. Many of them just lie around all day and get stoned, and from dealing they have sufficient funds to do so. I should also say here for my own protection that I do not and have never sold marijuana. You can guess: I’m either employed, a trust-fund baby, or I grow my own (whatever answer helps you sleep at night).
I think we need to control marijuana, to regulate it. I don’t like the fact that for me and for most people I talk to, it was easier to get pot in high school than it was to get booze, especially considering the research that shows younger people who smoke too early (or drink or take too many prescription pills) can have certain problems in how brain development. Until regulations are put on pot such that it is OK for a 21-, or 20-, or 19-year-old to walk into a store and buy it legally, we can’t enforce stricter punishments on selling weed to underagers (I’m all for, in a weed-prohibition free world, jail time for those who sell to young kids).
But pot is not regulated. It doesn’t come from a legitimate source. Does that mean people are not buying it? Look around our campus; people are buying it, and often. But where does that money go? No one can say for sure, that’s the nature of the black market, but it’s no secret that it doesn’t end up in the hands of good people.
I don’t like the fact that I’ve given a lot of money to Mexican gangs, and American gangs, and terrorists. I don’t like that I support people’s addictions. More than any of that though, I don’t like the fact that a plant that helps me relax, loosen up, and laugh can get me sent to prison for possessing it. I don’t like the billions of tax dollars that go to enforce the prohibition nor do I like that those enforcements have indirectly contributed to the financing of violent gangs and the pollution of public land.
Most of all, I don’t like the personal freedoms that the government takes away when it makes marijuana illegal, and I especially hate the measures that the government and police feel they need to go to in order to make sure people listen.
I need to go smoke a joint. You should go smoke one too.
