Stoner Nation
Toronto, the cultural capital of our neighbor
to the north, held a massive concert last summer to
celebrate Canada's recent decriminalization of marijuana.
(A few politicians spoke of showcasing the city's recovery
from its SARS and Mad Cow scares, but we know what really
drew more than 430,000 people). By all accounts
a splendid time was had by all, with the possible exception
of a bottle-pelted Justin Timberlake, whose inclusion
on a bill alongside AC/DC, Rush, and the Guess Who suggests
that the organizers started smoking early.
Here in the States, official reaction
to Canada's new Tommy Chong-friendly policy has ranged
from stern disapproval to vexation. How are we
supposed to win the war on drugs when we've got a nation
of bad role models living right next door, toking on
blunts in the front yard for all the world to see?
Imaging trying to maintain interdiction along the world's
longest unfortified border while from the other side
wafts freely the sticky-sweet scent of budding sinsemilla
from the emerald acres of Manitoba and British Columbia.
In the coming years, this so-called "Canadian bacon"
will creep inevitably southward just like the hockey
teams, Barenaked Ladies songs, and short white comics
that came before, and no amount of public service advertising
and D.A.R.E. outreach will be enough to keep a generation
of college students from smoking themselves catatonic.
Drug enforcement will become impractical,
as the stoners choke our rivers with their roaches;
it's not a question of whether America will follow suit
and legalize it, but when. What does it mean?
Aside from moral decline and generalized sinfulness,
what will be the specific effects on our culture? What
should we expect when America fires up the national
bong?
The munchies, for starters. About
forty-five minutes after repeal, we will lose all control
over our appetites. Serving sizes will swell to enormous
proportions--movie popcorn by the tub, convenience store
sodas in sixty-four go cups, multi-course gourmet meals
of eating contest-sized portions, everything in sight
fried and stuffed with cheese. Obesity will become
a major health crisis, especially among children, who
will lead a sedentary life of console games, instant
messaging, and premature sexuality.
This obsessive consumptiveness will extend
beyond the kitchen to encompass oversized SUVs and big-cab
pickups in ever larger sizes until they're more like
military vehicles than passenger cars, overbuilt McMansions
straight out of a pipe dream, fake breasts made to order
for the horniness that accompanies the hookah.
Decriminalization won't do anything to
assuage the paranoia characteristic of chronic pot smoking;
stoners will just refocus their tweakage on something
other than getting busted. Like Arabs, for example.
Other Muslims too, for that matter. And those
Sikhs; they claim not to be terrorists, but they've
got those turbans. Those guys will take it in
the neck, as will civil liberties in general--can't
be too careful. Libraries will be asked to keep
track of who's reading what, while the citizenry will
turn suspicious eyes toward politicians, clergy, and
captains of industry.
Irresponsibility will rise. People
will act with no regard to the future consequences of
their actions, converting resources into landfill and
smoke to suit our whims while remaining apathetic about
global warming and the inevitable consequences of an
increasingly belligerent foreign policy. Unable
to sustain a coherent train of thought or discern subtle
meanings, we'll eschew real journalism for loudmouth
pundits and extremist demagogues, and fewer than half
will even bother to vote.
Unable to learn properly or form short-term
memories, we'll make the same mistakes over and over,
fall for the same crooked schemes, commit gross errors
in judgment and trust when we should have known better.
Stoners are known to laugh at things that
aren't really funny. In our cloudy future, romantic
comedies will collapse into a derivative welter of poop
jokes and lazy postmodernism, and the sitcom as we know
it will cease to exist, replaced by mean-spirited setup
shows and lowbrow geekery.
Numb in the dull afterbake, we'll be susceptible
only to bright lights, loud noises, and other sensory
extremes, and our entertainment will be tailored accordingly.
It's a scenario too bleak to contemplate.
Perhaps it's not too late after all; maybe we can hold
back the tie-stick tide--but only if we're willing to
do whatever it takes. Therefore, I propose the
construction of a big wall stretching from coast to
coast and across the Alaska-Yukon line. And around
Hawaii, too--we can't risk losing the virginal archipelago
to the green menace. Let Gord and Charlotte and
Jolly Jacques Levesque further their nation's descent
into international ignominy with their glass chillums
and one-hitters. America must remain steadfast
in allegiance to the ideals held by the great hemp farmers
who founded our republic.
By Dan Janzen
Still have the munchies?
Don't miss Brandon Stahl's "Dr.
Happyweed"
