Everybody Did Get Stoned

The above video (h/t Next Media and HotAir headlines) has things just about right, as far as I can tell.

According to most recent polls, California voters favor a ballot measure that could legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana. Certainly, the fact that so many Americans have smoked pot, and that so many leading politicians have admitted to having tried it, has made people more comfortable with the possibility.  Nationwide, according to polls, 42% of Americans admit to having smoked marijuana at least once – and that’s twice the second-highest figure (for the Netherlands) among surveyed nations.  In California the number is slightly higher: 47%.  In addition, around three quarters of Californians now support the medical marijuana initiative of 1996, despite extensive publicity suggesting that its provisions have been used precisely in the way critics suggested they would be:  As a way for any adult if sufficiently motivated to gain access to high quality marijuana in a legal setting.

The most recent of the aforementioned recent polls on Prop 19 showed the initiative slipping, but that particular poll looks like a possible outlier – stay tuned.  I’m still going on my personal poll of cousins at a family get-together:  All were rather enthusiastically in favor, though none were current pot smokers.  The view I expressed at the time was, “Marijuana destroyed my life, and I feel others should have the same opportunity I did.”  What I really meant is that, if California as a whole wants to lead the way into self-medicating against reduced possibilities, against structural unemployment, against competition from overseas that can’t really be defeated without aggressive (no fun) effort, against the general collapse of a a possibly no longer very attractive or functional interpretation of the American idea, so what?  I’m okay with it.  If more people adjusted to living an underemployed, sleepily euphoric lifestyle – well, I’m OK with it.  Maybe I shouldn’t be.   I just am.  If you can’t deal with it, that’s your problem.  What were we talking about?

Of course, that’s just the stoner inside me talking.  But the polls (except for that possible outlier) seem to suggest that the stoner inside me is also outside of me and all around me.

The anti-19 campaign hasn’t really gotten into gear yet, and some people may be moved.  Yet prior to argument and discipline, anyway, Californians were about ready to send a message about not worrying about things that they’re not absolutely sure are worth being worried about.  They want to get on the other side of worrying about things that are not worth being worried about. Maybe people will come to like a state where people don’t worry about things not worth being worried about.  Maybe that’s the future.  Maybe it’s okay.  Maybe it’s not.  Maybe dogs have spiritual experiences.  Whatever.

In that sense, it’s like a majority may already be a little high, maybe coming down, maybe thinking about getting higher, and doesn’t want to get bummed with a paranoid trip or too much reality, same difference.

25 comments on “Everybody Did Get Stoned

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  1. Doesn’t California prove they’ve been stoned long ago, and what’s the insinuation about the Grizzly

  2. The California State Song
    mit der musik…..

    I Love You, California
    words by F.B. Silverwood, music by A.F. Frankenstein

    I.
    I love you, California, you’re the greatest state of all.
    I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall.
    I love your fertile valleys; your dear mountains I adore.
    I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore.

    Chorus
    Where the snow crowned Golden Sierras
    Keep their watch o’er the valleys bloom,
    It is there I would be in our land by the sea,
    Every breeze bearing rich perfume.
    It is here nature gives of her rarest. It is Home Sweet Home to me,
    And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh
    For my sunny California.

    II.
    I love your red-wood forests – love your fields of yellow grain.
    I love your summer breezes and I love your winter rain.
    I love you, land of flowers; land of honey, fruit and wine.
    I love you, California; you have won this heart of mine.

    III.
    I love your old gray Missions – love your vineyards stretching far.
    I love you, California, with your Golden Gate ajar.
    I love your purple sun-sets, love your skies of azure blue.
    I love you, California; I just can’t help loving you.

    IV.
    I love you, Catalina, you are very dear to me.
    I love you, Tamalpais, and I love Yosemite.
    I love you, Land of Sunshine, Half your beauties are untold.
    I loved you in my childhood, and I’ll love you when I’m old.

  3. Thank you, Colin. Bob is music to my ears as I type. This was the feel-good blog experience I’ve been looking for. It was perfect to read one of Miguel’s unstoned stoned comments first. “Doesn’t California prove they’ve been stoned long ago, and what’s the insinuation about the Grizzly” No punctuation. No question mark. Why bother
    Just that “Grizzly” word floating out in space. You can’t make that shit up. Thank you all.

  4. Expresso Coffee, is my thing Scott, I wouldn’t want anything to dull the senses, and the idea that they are seriously considering waking
    the Old Ones from their watery redoubt (electing Jerry Brown) is a sign of deep inpairment, in my view.

  5. Brown hasn’t exactly been invisible for the last generation. He represents a willingness to experiment combined with great personal credibility going back 30+ years, and to his father before him.

    Meg, not so much. If she really has lost her lead, re-gaining it might be very difficult.

    We’ll see what happens when and if voters really tune in, but there’s a sense of Cali heading off on the road not taken.

  6. @ CK MacLeod:
    Glad you feel that way. When Jerry became the mayor of Oakland was the moment I really started digging him. It did show an absolute willingness to experiment combined with as deep a sense of integrity as you’re going to get from a politician.

  7. As someone who did have a Jesuit education, at least in part, I’m not particularly impressed, by this

  8. @ miguel cervantes:
    Admittedly, I am and was only going by second hand info in terms of being positively taken by his Jesuit days. What I know of Jesuits impresses me, but things are not always as advertised. I bow to your personal experience, Miguel, and go back to my original point about Jerry the mayor of Oakland. That one’s probably safe since you were probably not schooled by one of those. I take it the Jesuits weren’t big on ending sentences with a punctuation mark

  9. I’ll give grant him the Oakland experience, but his subsequent term in office, and statements therein, are disconcerting. Then again, I say
    “Release the Kraken”

  10. @ CK MacLeod:
    Obviously, cocaine does not a cosmetologist make. I’d take a 60’s style pot smoking stylist over a 70’s style one any day. Just look what one did to Linda.

  11. @ Scott Miller:
    Dude, you’re so bumming my high. I was already having trouble keeping it together after watching the YouTube of the oh so very much-changed Linda singing Poor Poor Pitiful Me in 1996 at the White House.

    May you stay forever young.

  12. @ fuster:
    Don’t worry, Fuster. Colin is not really on the take. Plus, you don’t have to worry anyway. As Miguel once pointed out, I have “a unique ability to piss people off who would usually agree with me.” I’m like Palin. As far as intelligent people are concerned, if anything, I scare them over to the other side.

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