Today is April 20. All of you fans of cannabis sativa and the lifestyle surrounding it know what that means. The holiest of all holy holidays has been happening, Holy Hemp Day. Although not yet a federally recognized holiday thousands of your fellow local citizens will be ditching work early to celebrate.
For you square cats who aren't hip to modern drug parlance, "4:20" is a codename for marijuana or "dope" as it's known to teenagers.
A common misperception is that "420" is the number of active chemicals in the ganga plant. Another urban myth is that it's a police dispatch code. According to Wikipedia, always a reliable source, 4:20 just happened to be the time of day when a bunch of dirty California teenagers lit up after high school in the 1970s. That's kind of a bummer.
My own theory on the date and numerology is by adding the numbers 4 and 20 together you get the total hours between the end of Hemp Day, 4/20, and the beginning of Earth Day, 4/22. Coincidence? Or conspiracy?
To be fair, everyone lighting up today will be doing so for solely medicinal purposes adhering to strict doctor orders. For you people who prefer not to sojourn with Mary Jane here are a few survival tips.
Don't have pizza delivered tonight.
Don't read Slog over at the Stranger. I doubt they'll even be in their right minds in an hour or so.
Avoid Broadway, The Ave. and Pioneer Square.
Beware the contact high. Unlike certain politicians, I have never smoked but I have inhaled. Amazingly this occurred in places where one would never, ever expect folks to be smoking pot. Once was in high school metal shop (trigonometry class next period was never so interesting). The other was on a date at a bar in Fremont a few days after the cigarette ban had passed.
To be honest, the hemp lifestyle is about more than just rolling fatties and getting high. It's about rolling fatties, getting high and surrounding yourself with consumer goods celebrating the hemp lifestyle.
You don't have to look like that guy from those Freedom Rock commercials to truly appreciate all that hemp has to offer.
There are, like, ten million other uses for hemp. If BushcheneyroveIraqwarhaliburton didn't want make money for their oil company contributors by banning the industrial use of hemp, you too could enjoy many of these products.
Hemp diapers: I guess this is where the term Red Diaper Doper Baby comes from.
Hemp grocery bags: As I wrote in a previous post, inexpensive plastic grocery bags are destroying the planet and should be replaced with this affordable alternative.
Hemp lingerie: Sadly, the models featured in these ads look nothing like the female hemp enthusiasts I've met here in Seattle. One wonders why?
Hemp ropes: Perfect for any occasion when the world is getting you down. Also useful to sailors and the BDSM community.
Hemp menstrual pads: Moving on...
Hemp Milk and Hemp Cereal: The breakfast of champions.
Hemp condoms: Nature's perfect reusable prophylactic and no I'm not providing a link to the website that sells them.
Hemp towels: "Don't forget to bring a towel"
Hemp fuel and bio-diesel: If every vehicle was running on hemp all of our traffic and congestion problems would be solved.
Passenger: Dude! We're late for work again.
Driver: Nah man. I'm going to just pull over and look at this green road sign.
Jewelry: As a guy, you get mighty tired forking over C-notes just to impress that special lady in your life. What better, and cheaper, way to express your love - and save dough for power tools - than by giving hemp jewelry. Just imagine the look on your life partner's face when she sees the $3.99 hemp necklace you got her for your tenth anniversary.
Curiously, I couldn't find any hemp hunting gear, ammo pouches, fishing clothing or hemp NASCAR gear. The closest I got was this hemp fishing hat.
Lastly, I'll leave you with some words from America's expert on marijuana, the 1960s philosopher Sgt. Joe Friday, from television's Dragnet.
John Dietz: How come smoking pot is illegal and drinking booze ain't?Joe Friday: With marijuana, the idea is to get so high that you don't know who or what you are. There is no such thing as a quickie or one to be sociable. In pot-smoking circles if you're not flying you're a square. And "flying" means you don't know who you are or what you're doing. Son, no matter how you slice that, that's dangerous.
Joe Friday: Nine of you people think I violated your trust by arresting Jerry Morgan last week. Okay. But when did we vote to suspend the laws of the State of California? I haven't missed a class here--now when did we do that? You don't like the laws in marijuana, then you and your friends get together and you change them.
Joe Friday: When you say using dope is a "crime without a victim," who's picking up the tab for all the lost wages, the stolen property, and the destroyed lives? How many overdoses have you seen come through your hospital, Barbara?Posted by DonWard at April 20, 2007 02:30 PM | Email ThisBarbara (Shannon Farnon): Quite a few.
Joe: How many die?
Barbara (sadly): Too many.
Joe: Kids?
Barbara: Most of them.
Joe: The County of Los Angeles is spending a million dollars a month just handling kids who use and sell dope. Now who's the victim? We are. All of us.
Peace, love and tranquility to you all.
Sam
Seventh-year undergraduate student at Evergreen State majoring in Hemp Studies and Post Industrial GLBT Philosophy
Happy 4/20 everyone.
Posted by: thehim on April 20, 2007 04:33 PMRumor mill on the east side of the mountains is that Gregoire will be running for congress. True?
IP
And it's a real "clique." Once you are known to other stoners as a stoner, there's extra cred at gatherings, etc.
But if you've reached 30 and you have not figured out that drugs don't make for as good a high as the worthwhile pursuits of life like success, good relationships, raising children, excercise, etc. then you are pretty much hopeless.
It will be a good day when the last 60s hippy lights his/her last joint.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 20, 2007 05:24 PMThat's crazy, Don, but a lot of people believed some weird stuff about weed back in the day. And after reading Jeff B's comment, I see that some people still believe some crazy stuff.
Hey Jeff, Carl Sagan smoked pot his whole life and I can't quite identify when he "zoned out". I also know plenty of pot smokers who are in good relationships, raise children, and even a few who run marathons. Stereotypes about pot are funny (a whole lot of stoners are seriously lazy people), but the drug doesn't make people lazy or irresponsible, its effects just tend to attract a lot of lazy and irresponsible people.
Posted by: thehim on April 20, 2007 07:07 PMAs for hemp, you missed the big one: the Constitution is written on hemp paper. Hemp was the most common weed in America before marijuana was added to the controlled substances list in the late 1920's (early 1930's?) The reason that marijuana was added to the list was because the government was trying to stop the flow of Mexican immigrants to the SW United States. At that time, marijuana was a deep part of Mexican culture.
Marijuana was also increasingly being seen as a part of the Jazz scene and flappers, both of which were seen as evil influences on the young.
The other big group of people who used marijuana was American farmers. Since marijuana grew along roadsides throughout the country (like asparagus does now), farmers would pick it and mix it half-and-half with their tobacco, to make the tobacco last longer (since it was a luxury item). Farmers at that time typically only smoked their pipe at the end of the day after dinner, before going to bed, so it was probably a way to relax so they could fall asleep. And, of course, back then it was natural marijuana, which is much, much lower in THC than the current varieties, which have been genetically modified to increase the high.
The reason that hemp is associated with liberal people is because it has less environmental impact to grow and use than cotton or trees. That's because it doesn't require insecticides because it's a weed, and like dandelions, it's almost impossible for insects or disease to kill the plants.
Hemp was used for most products in the United States until after World War II, when the cotton industry successfully lobbied Congress to make it illegal by linking the plant to drug use. By eliminating this industry, the cotton industry greatly increased its profits.
I heard a great joke on Air America today. Randi Rhodes said that if you required gun owners to smoke marijuana, you'd never have a problem with people shooting someone in anger because the gun owner wouldn't remember where he put his gun, and once he found it, he wouldn't remember why he was mad anymore!
Incidentally, I don't smoke marijuana and I have no desire to. I learned a lot of this stuff from a PBS special on the history of illegal drugs!
Posted by: TechnoMom on April 20, 2007 08:07 PMI know all about the drug. My brother smoked weed for years until he quit drugs and got sober. My sister started with weed and eventually got to heroin. She almost died, and then got her life back together and has been clean and sober ever since. I too know plenty of decent people in good relationships who smoke weed, but they use it as a crutch to "enhance" every experience.
As far as drugs go, it's pretty minimal, but that doesn't make it any less of a crutch.
I'm actually for legalizing marijuana, because there is a lot of petty crime surrounding its use that gets blown way out of proportion. But I still regard those who use it as mostly childish and lame. And you are right, the problem is mostly the marijuana culture. And that has now spread into gangster culture, none of which is doing this country any good. It's the lame aspect of the marijuana culture which is the whole point of the post.
People who get all excited about "4:20" are just juvenile.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 20, 2007 09:42 PMWhat's actually funny is that much of the culture around marijuana is more attractive to our young people because it's illegal. Treat it like alcohol, and heavy pot smokers are as uncool as drunkards.
Posted by: thehim on April 20, 2007 10:53 PMDid it hurt when you had your funny bone removed?
See Genesis 1:29
Posted by: Arnold Ziffle on April 21, 2007 03:36 AMGod has given us Pharoah Sims. Sims hath given us the Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO). We have been given the shaft. Need I go on?
Posted by: Sam Drucker on April 21, 2007 09:33 AMBecause after all, kids today NEVER get drunk!
:rolleseyes: