No, I will not entitle this post "Rocky Mountain High"

Nancy Reagan says, "Just Say CO!"

The Colorado state government legalized recreational marijuana some time back, and when we were visiting last week, I was so excited to go to my first dispensary, I may have peed myself a little.  It’s not that I’m a repressed high-on, finally rebelling against the Nancy Reagan brainwashing that was the propaganda of my youth and now looking to retrofit the Honda Odyssey into a billowing, Cheech and Chong, highway bong, either. 

No, it’s not that at all.  

Admittedly, I am no stranger to the firsthand effects of THC (as I also know the nearly orgasmic experience of satisfying an agriculturally induced, 3 a.m. White Castle craving), but since I decided to become an adult (in my early thirties), smoking dope really didn’t fit in with me holding a job, funding a 401(k), or fully appreciating just how disgusting steamed slabs of square, perforated slider-meat actually are, and those dalliances became few and far between. 

So why the excitement then?

Primarily, it has to do with the historical paradigm shift that something like a legal dispensary represents. If you’ve ever bought pot in a state and/or era where and/or when it was illegal, you know the transactional costs alone made it more prohibitive than any enforcement actions dreamed up by local, state, or federal authority. The hours spent trolling arcades and bowling alleys for “that guy” that was always willing to sell; faking friendships with clingy, deep-fried smelling, food service employees simply because they would generally share; and never knowing the quality, price, age, or origin of the crop you finally reaped, makes me wonder what the net attraction really was in the first place. 

To suddenly have all those obstacles removed and know the joy of casual consumer access to competitively priced plants, edibles, infused beverages, and most importantly, commercially consistent quality, is something I could never have dreamed would exist in my lifetime. With the stroke of a pen, enlightened communities have stuffed their tax coffers while simultaneously transforming the potentially dangerous, unregulated, and un-taxed cloak and dagger transactions of my youth to something akin to a Chalupa purchase from the corner Taco Bell. 

Unbelievable. 

Sorry. It seems I’m on a soapbox now. I was honestly just going to blog about my actual visit with the requisite sarcasm and possibly a more timely Seth Rogen reference. I guess I still could, but it’s getting late, and I have some very special Gummy Bears calling my name. But since I’m now in South Dakota, enjoying them is once again criminal.