The world of cannabis is changed. It's an epochal change since I started smoking pot as an 18 year old, nervous from absorbing too many 80's war on drugs 'Just Say No' ads and when the only weed I could get a hold of was not so affectionately called Mexican brick weed. It smelled like lawn grass and a dime bag purchased off shady dealers in Washington Square Park or shadowy figures on 2nd Avenue late at night would cost you about $35. The seeds and stems helped fill and weigh down the bag ensuring you were getting well ripped off. The high was...great. It was. To a young pot smoker experimenting, that was good enough. Of course we wanted better and I had heard about the old strains Acapulco Gold, Thai Stick, Panama Red, Maui Wowi as well as, then, newer strains like Trainwreck and Bullrider. They were exotic and mostly unattainable to me. I wasn't fortunate enough to know anyone with the connections to get my hands on the more potent strains of the late 80's- early 90's but occasionally I got lucky finding better quality. It didn't happen often so I got what I could get. It required some amount of risk taking. I had to be willing to buy from strangers most of the time. In LA my friend Tim and I would drive to a gas station on the corner of Pico and Hoover we called the drive through. You could get lucky with dealers coming up to you while you pretended to buy gas. The weed was still crap but it was weed. During this time period I made it a habit to find the places in any given city where I could find these kinds of transactions. It seemed there was always a place if you knew who to ask and who trusted you enough to tell you. Looking back on it I realize the potential dangers of all that. I could have gone to jail from a sting operation. The dealers could have been violent or robbed me. You never knew what you were getting into but that was part of the excitement. There were a few situations over those years that definitely made me nervous but they all worked out fine. It's enough to say that without a trustworthy dealer you were on your own to figure out how to get high. It's only because it's so easy today to not just buy weed legally but buy incredible quality potent pot, that the prohibition era methods of buying marijuana seem so dirty and dangerous in comparison.
In 1996 California passed Proposition 215 which allowed for medical prescription marijuana use. It didn't really open the flood gates the way it was expected due in large part to the state blocking avenues for the proposition to be implemented. Nonetheless in the mid aughts (as memory serves) infrastructure progress had been made enough for there to be a genuine process for "patients" to obtain a prescription (if deemed medically appropriate). It was then that all sorts of businesses sprung up advertising for prescription services in the back of culture and arts alternative papers. It was a wink and a nod to the public as these ads would essentially list medical conditions that would qualify for a prescription. I was living in San Diego at that time and I was seeing these ads for a good year or so in City Beat newspaper.
"Do you have problems sleeping? "
"Do you have gastrointestinal issues? "
"Do you feel anxious?"
...and on and on they listed legitimate health issues that would qualify as acceptable for marijuana use. The brazenness of these ads made me laugh.
I was tired of relying on friends and dealers to get my weed, tired of feeling like a criminal about it all and believed it was my right as an adult to use it. I decided it was time to see how legititmate the prescription process was. I looked at the prescription services ads, chose one randomly and made an appointment.
I drove to a dirty commercial office space with blocked out windows in a bad neighborhood that immediately felt like I was walking into a mistake. The cost to get a prescription was somewhere around $150. These businesses were strictly cash transactions which immediately gave them a shady image. Inside there were about 6 young guys sporting tattoos, attitude and in various states of stoned staring at me when I came through the door. The vibe was a bit aggro but it all seemed to relax after I checked in with the front desk and I took a seat on a couch that looked like it'd been picked up in an alleyway. I started filling out my paperwork. There was other cheap ikea looking furniture that had all sorts of flyers, promotional cards and weed culture magazines on it. There were marijuana posters of strains on the wall. The room was lit low with flourescents giving the space an even cheaper and creepier atmosphere. It felt like an operation that was ready to pick up and leave in a moment's notice if necessary. It didn't feel legal despite its legality and with good reason. There were reports of busts by the authorities on places like this which were nothing more than intimidation tactics to shut down the emerging legal marijuana market. These incidents kept the public confused. No other state had legalized marijuana use in any form at that time. While California struggled to work it out the rest of the country if not the world was watching to see what would happen.
I finished filling out the paperwork and waited to be called back. Finally I heard my name and I was led to a room to meet the doctor. His office was dimly lit except for a lamp on his desk. I sat in a chair in front of him. He was wearing professional clothes, held manilla file folders and shuffled papers like he was doing important research. What was this charade about? We both knew why I was here. I pay you to give me a legal document so I can buy weed. You have medical questions you need answers for as a formality? Go ahead. Let's get this done. He starts in with me like he's my general practitioner. Goes through a whole medical health history. He's writing things down. Finally he asks why I want to use marijuana medically. My studied City Beat medical weed ad inspired answer? I was depressed, had a hard time sleeping and I'd heard marijuana could help. After what felt like too long an interview the doctor finally granted me my prescription (after paying the fee of course) and with a promise that I would bring him my medical records to confirm some of my health issues we'd discussed....yeaahhhh, I'll be right back with those records doc. I was given a laminated medical marijuana card, left the world's worst medical office and started driving to one of the several legal pot dispensaries in San Diego. As I was driving and the weird vibes of the so called medical office experience started to subside, the realization that I was now legally able to purchase marijuana and smoke it began to sink in. I was getting excited.
I pulled up to the dispensary of choice and started walking towards the entrance. As I got closer I could see there was a security officer dressed like a cop and carrying a firearm. Most hired security looks like hired security. This guy looked like a cop. It threw me completely off. I didn't expect to see the police at my first legal pot buy. I instantly fell into that paranoia cultivated from years of buying weed illegally and hiding my smoking. I was able to collect myself as I remembered that I did, in fact, have a license to purchase and consume pot. I walked towards the security and when I got close enough he smiled and asked if he could see some ID and paperwork. I presented them and as nice as could be, he opened the door to the dispensary saying, "have a nice day". Whew! That was weird and I'm not even high yet. I walked into a lobby area with a glass partition and a woman on the other side of it. She handed over membership paperwork to fill out (memberships were how California dispensaries managed and tracked who was coming into their establishments. I believe this was a state requirement at the time). This was all a new experience to me and I had no idea at all about the legal dispensary process. While filling out the paperwork my excitement, curiosity and nervousness threatened to overwhelm me. After handing back the membership paperwork I waited a short time and then I was waved through a door. I walked into the brightly lit showroom with shelves full of professionally packaged pre rolls, edibles, glass pieces, rolling papers, lighters and grinders. There were display cases with large glass jars full of giant nugs labeled with their strains. It may sound silly and it may sound like an exaggeration but what I was feeling was something similar to what it might be like to be 10 years old walking into the Willy Wonka chocolate room. I was sort of stunned taking it all in trying to keep my excitement to myself. A budtender snapped me out of it when she asked if she could help me. Uh yeah, I could use some help. She brought out some of the large flower jars, opened the lids and I took in the scents. I stared at the buds and the colors and my eyes moved quickly from one giant jar to the next amazed at the volume of quality and choice that were in front of me. She asked if I liked sativa or indica. Sativa...indica what? Never heard of it. Give me weed and lots of it. I felt like a caveman being seated at a 5 star restaurant. I had 20 years of pot smoking experience and I realized I had a lot to learn. She steered me to a couple of strains she recommended and without a compass to go by I just said yes. I purchased and left carrying weed in a stapled white paper bag with a receipt. The wholesome capitalism of it all was bizaare. I'd had cognitive dissonance before but this felt like I'd flown through a black hole and landed on alternate Earth. It was all I could talk about for awhile. To go from 20 years of covert street buying and hiding my usage to legally buying and smoking was fantastical. Colorado and Washington really broke the dam for recreational purchasing but that wasn't for a few years still. In California getting a medical marijuana card at that time was special and still slightly hush hush. This felt ground breaking. At least it was to me.
Marijuana is now mainstream. There's no sense of danger anymore and that's probably a good thing. There's so much money and sophisticated tech dedicated to growing, using and research. Anyone starting out wanting to experiment with it can find information online that will answer every question they could have. The seedy slang that helped define weed culture is gone. There's a whole new language. It's not weed, pot, reefer, ganja or grass. It's cannabis. You like buds? You must prefer flower then. Want something more potent than flower? How about a concentrate? Shatter, crumble, wax, oil? Want to do a dab? Do you like combustion or prefer vaping? Do you enjoy sativa or indica (the importance of these labels is already slowly being done away with)? I've adopted the language mostly and I've accepted the corporate big money influence but I can't say I don't miss the rebelliousness of smoking pot. There was a romance to it that's gone. I buy my flower and concentrates and I load up a vape and take 1-2 hits a day or two a week. I really don't need more than that. The stuff is so strong these days. Occasionally I pull out a glass piece and smoke. I enjoy it more than vaping but it's harder on the lungs. I'm old(er) and that gives me some license to be grumpy about the changes in the world of weed but despite that, one of my favorite things in life is to sit down with a friend, get high together and enjoy each other's company. That hasn't changed.
