Dealers become cannabaristas — legal pot is pretty dope
Congratulations Canadians, or should I say Cannabians?
It’s been three days since Legal Weed Wednesday, a date that’s now been called “historic” so often we may need to declare a national holiday to celebrate it.
There have been major news stories everywhere from the U.S. to India and Australia. A German paper proclaimed Canada a “pothead paradise.” The South China Morning Post cried “O, cannabis!”
BBC’s website showed a maple leaf flag replaced with a marijuana leaf. We are now the world’s highest-flying nation, along with our only sister stoner nation — Uruguay.
I find it all a bit mind-blowing, as we said in the ’60s. The government that long outlawed pot and jailed its users is now my local drug dealer.
Quebec’s new pot shop employees, our “canna-baristas,” are excitedly explaining to customers and media the subtle differences between a mellow “indica Hindu Kush” high, versus a stronger sativa Maui Waui, or hybrid Lemon Skunk buzz.
As a long-retired pot smoker, I get a buzz just reading it all.
Like many Quebecers, I support this somewhat daring experiment. I think it’s great people won’t be arrested for smoking recreational pot anymore. It’s criminal to make using marijuana a crime when almost half of Canadians have at least tried it.
It was enough to drive you to drink. That’s why most Canadians (though fewer Quebecers) support pot’s legalization.
Thrilled cannaboisseurs are singing pot’s praises as a feelgood stress reliever, sleep aid, life enhancer and miracle health supplement. Critics worry it could hurt many young people and become a gateway to heroin, or sniffing floor paint.
I have no idea what the future will bring — we’ll have to see and adapt — but I suspect other nations will soon follow.
While I’m fascinated by the moment, it doesn’t really affect me personally, since I stopped smoking decades ago, when pot was weaker ( but very unpredictable).
I loved the intensity weed gave music, sounds, aromas and munching midnight junk food. But like many people I often got introspective, or even paranoid, with my mind whirling in edgy circles.
“Uh-oh, I think this pizza place guy knows I’m stoned. Ohmigod! Everyone in the restaurant knows. They’re staring at me! They’re gonna call the cops!
“I’m getting out of here right now. Whew! … WOW! Look-it the stars — beautiful! Amazing! ... But why’s that airplane so low, and so LOUD?
“Oh No! — It’s gonna crash! Right here! I better get back inside the pizza place now. WOW! I’m hungry again!”
However, many friends react differently than me, as with alcohol. For them grass just heightens their senses and imagination and makes them feel relaxed, creative, happy and hungry.
Different tokes for different folks! Maybe I’ll try it again someday when I can drop in at my corner pot shop and ask some expert canna-baristas:
“Have you guys got something with a light, mellow, non-paranoid high and a friendly social buzz that ends in 55 minutes max, so I can be focused on the tennis court in an hour?”
And they’ll say: “Got it right here, sir. It’s a talky, no-tension, pre-tennis Tijuana Tangerine Dream sativa with a 48-minute buzz.”
For now, there are 100 unanswered questions ahead: will more young people start using grass? Will smoking-and-driving accidents increase? Will bored night security desk guards be stoned and get the giggles?
Will all of Canada get the munchies and grow fat? Will we eat all Quebec’s Halloween candy in the next week and run out by Oct. 31?
Or will things carry on more or less like before, but without the mob running the pot black market and innocent people going to jail for nothing ?
Whatever happens I’m afraid we’ll never find an easy pronunciation for the new acronym SQDC (Société Québécoise de cannabis) that comes out as easy on the tongue as the SAQ.
Overall, I’m really happy people can finally smoke up without fear, and that paranoid pot users can at least stop being paranoid about getting busted.
But frankly I’m happier as a barfly, since liquor brings out the friendly, extroverted side of me while grass makes me quiet and overly thoughtful.
I’m not alone. La Presse columnist Lysianne Gagnon broadened that thought last week and offered a personal theory on why Quebecers are less enamoured of marijuana than most Canadians — at least for now.
The fact is that for a permissive joie-de-vivre nation, we are oddly conservative about marijuana. Quebec has much lower support for legalization than elsewhere, fewer users and stricter government rules.
Gagnon surmises that’s because Quebecers are a gregarious, talkative people who prefer the convivial act of drinking to the sometimes more introspective experience of marijuana.
Who knows? Maybe Gagnon and I just puffed the same oldfashioned, bad-quality, paranoid ’70s weed, or maybe this is another area where we Quebecers are distinct.
Whatever the case, the times they are a-changin’ — and it’s high time.