I'm reading a NYT article titled "Travel’s Back. And It’s High Season/While the pandemic had travelers cooped up, a growing number of states legalized cannabis. Love it or hate it, you will probably encounter it on your next trip" by the aptly named Julie Weed. (Excellent illustration by Russell Cobb, by the way.)
The article begins:
For Caitlyn Hunter’s 21st birthday trip to Las Vegas last month, her mother booked spots on a “Las Vegas Cannabis Tour,” a business started during the pandemic that guides tourists through marijuana dispensaries in that city. Ms. Hunter, of Houston, Texas, expected an educational afternoon where she, her mother and grandmother could smoke marijuana together, and her grandmother could learn about different marijuana strains that might help her with knee pain.
What they got instead, Ms. Hunter said, was a “crazy experience,” involving a guide in 4-inch pink stilettos cracking dirty jokes, a raucous van ride around the Las Vegas Strip (with a sober driver), the consumption of multiple cannabis products, a shopping bag full of decorative bongs to use as flower vases back home and, at one point, a grandmother unable to speak without bursting into uncontrollable laughter. In short, Ms. Hunter concluded, a perfect celebration.
I don't understand what's crazy. A mother, daughter, and grandmother got their hands held so they could get inebriated and buy bad souvenirs in Las Vegas. It's all subjective. They felt they were having a crazy time.
I guess these ladies are not from the set of people who have abstemiously excluded the word "crazy" from their vocabulary, as we were discussing 2 days ago. Looking for that post in my archive, I ran across a post from 2018 where I noted the problem "crazy":
By the way, some people think it's wrong to make an insult out of "crazy" and words that mean crazy, because there's collateral damage to persons with mental illness. But it's so common. It would be insanely inhibiting to self-censor that one, but I did used to have many long conversations with a person who insisted on my refraining from deploying "crazy" as an insult. I know what you're thinking: He sounds crazy.
Back to the NYT article. It begins with that Caitlyn Hunter birthday story, but you have to read quite far down to get to the cold facts: Those ladies paid $150 apiece — that's $450 — to get driven around and cracked dirty jokes at for 2-and-a-half hours.
What else is there in the world of cannabis travel? According to the head of the Cannabis Travel Association International, there are "things like the cultivation tours at Huckleberry Hill Farm and Papa and Barkley Social, which offers a cannabis-themed spa, dispensary and consumption space," and "cannabis pairing," where you "get advice on the strain of marijuana that might best enhance a hike or specific meal."
So... don't think of cannabis as the equivalent of alcohol generally, think wine specifically, and there's your monetization of the legalization.
ADDED: In the comments at the NYT article, there's a lot of talk about involuntary encounters with cannabis while traveling: Smelling marijuana smoke in your hotel. Of course, the hotels ban smoking anything, but that smell is there — or is there a smell of something else that was used to mask the smell? One solution is to steer people toward edibles, but with edibles the effect is different and it's also delayed, as Maureen Dowd famously demonstrated.
I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.
Crazy!
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5 comments:
Terri writes:
""ADDED: In the comments at the NYT article, there's a lot of talk about involuntary encounters with cannabis while traveling: Smelling marijuana smoke in your hotel. Of course, the hotels ban smoking anything, but that smell is there — or is there a smell of something else that was used to mask the smell?"
"I lived in San Francisco 25ish years ago when the total indoor smoking bans were just beginning. I remember going to a bar one night that had big NO SMOKING signs on the door, and then walking in and being hit by a wall of smoke, just a different kind."
Wendy writes:
"I was reading the travel pice and then the piece about Howard Dean and one thing that came back to my mind was what are the parents of my kids' friends doing with these edibles etc.
"I live in Massachusetts and in my town, there are about 5 dispensaries! And I live in a small town (pop. about 30k) it seems insane. I am of an age where I remember the PSA's geared towards parents that essentially said ask your kid's friend's parents about guns in their house when they go over to play. I thought as a kid was over the top, but I grew up in semi-rural western PA and guns were not taboo a good portion of my friends and or their parents hunted. Parent, I am still a bit meh about it, partially because of MA's gun laws, heck I have to go to my police department to get a firearm ID to legally carry MACE or Pepperspray.
"My kids are of the age where I am thinking there will be sleepovers soon and looking at the posts on our local parents and town Facebook pages I see a lot of discussion about the various dispensaries and I actually feel worse about those than guns. Combine the easy legal access, with horror stories of kids finding eating and overdosing on their parents' cannabis gummies, or other edible. Should this be the new PSA for parents ask the parents of your kid's friends if they have cannabis edibles in their home at the time of sleepovers and or playdates, if yes how do they store them and keep them away from their kids?
"There are always new things that parents have to worry about that their parents didn't and I think this legalization is what I need to worry about and I haven't quite figured out how I would ask about it. I am guessing I am not the only parent thinking this either but I would love to read about what other parents are doing."
J writes:
"I hope for all 50-state legalization of the crap. Take the pressure off the few states where it is legal. Marijuana is a nightmare in CO.
who are these high-seekers? In General they are travel-Jerks who want to get high and transients who want to get high. Oh jolly for the rest of us who want to live in peace. They burn down our forests. They are so stoned, they have no idea how to put out a camp fire."
Matthew writes:
"Key sentence: So... don't think of cannabis as the equivalent of alcohol generally, think wine specifically, and there's your monetization of the legalization.
"Professor, you hit the nail on the head! But is wine broken? And is wine drunk solely for its mind-altering capabilities? Wine tastes good, and if you drink enough of it, it will get you a little tipsy. The only purpose of cannabis is to get high. I’m old enough to have seen “cannabis” go from ruining my 7th grade best friend’s life (he furtively smoked it in a grove of trees behind our school, and—though intelligent and creative—still sleeps in the same bedroom half a century later) to becoming the essence of bourgeois lifestyle in my home state of California, and before I’m gone I’m sure it will be legal in all 50 states. Wonderful. Just what this country needs: another intoxicant. We don’t have enough intoxicants already?"
Joe writes:
"I lived in San Francisco 25ish years ago when the total indoor smoking bans were just beginning."
Tokyo circa 2014. Shockingly, for the Japanese to be so incredibly fastidious and clean in everything they do, smoking indoors was common in all settings except work.
The scene: A rainy, humid, monsoon night in a tiny dive bar across from our apartment. It's very small and the walls are dark wood that have seen better days.
I order my usual; fish and chips and a Bass Ale. The air is filled with smoke. The tiny TV is showing English football but the sound is off. The internet radio is tuned to BBC Surrey and they are playing hits from the '60s and '70s with some sort of DJ narrating in a nasally, working-class accent.
I finish with a glass of really good Japanese whiskey (before it got 'discovered' and impossible to even find) and a really good Cuban cigar...preferably Cohiba.
A perfect evening.
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