Don't be scared...it's alright.
It's just a celebration of freedom and sharing and, well....MOJO!
You want some mojo, right?
Come on in!
High Everybody!!
Blue Weed for Blue Country.
It's 4/20!
What's that? You say you don't know what that's all about?
Well... me neither!
I'm an old stoner and this "420" thing I never encountered until the mid-1990's. I just didn't get it when I first encountered it. Then it grew and grew and next thing I know it's everywhere.
It's become a symbol of Cannabis Culture (the technically proper name for marijuana smoking culture around the world) from whatever origin it sprang.
Cannabis Culture (not to plagiarize the magazine of the same name, though I sort of like "Stonership Society", thanks to our marijuana-free president.) implies that this is, indeed, a global culture. Cannabis smoking and use transcends all race, religions, creeds and politics.
Even in America, where being against marijuana and saying the stupidest things possible are a religion for Republicans (and some Democrats), thanks to the huge amount of hypocrisy available in the Universe, republicans can even smoke it, after a long hard day of screwing the little people and saying the most amazingly stupid things.
MSNBC had a report a couple days ago documenting the growth of "420".
Despite the BILLIONS of dollars wasted on reefer mad propaganda every years - for the past 40 years, pot smoking and pot culture is as popular and prevalent as ever...and capitalism has noticed.
Here are some excerpts:
As anti-drug activists chafe, the so-called "420" (pronounced "four-twenty") celebrations "are taking on a life of their own," said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, who has been working on marijuana issues for 17 years.
*****
For years, the 420 label remained obscure enough to be a viable code and inside joke. But by the late 1990s, it was being pressed into use everywhere from personal ads – "420 friendly" – to clocks and scoreboards in the background scenes of popular movies. Perhaps its most noticeable effect was the choice of April 20 as a day of reefer reverence, chiefly on American college campuses.
Of course, it's a taboo subject in the media, at least taboo to present it in too friendly a term, which this article is close to doing.
There is an economic exuberence about "420" and the size of "cannabis culture" is the reason. Companies sense money to be made because so many people consume these products.
For the same reason I say the Dems have to take this on and reap the rewards.
Of course, many Dems STILL cling to the gross fictions, lies, and bullshit that spews forth from the ONCDP and the White House.
Crap like this still holds sway with folks who just don't know no better:
"It’s tragic for our country," Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of demand reduction in the White House drug office, said in an interview with msnbc.com. "It is a tragedy that this is a media circus event and it does not take into account what I have seen in treatment centers, what I have seen in weeping parents who have asked me for help with their children."
Madras, a Harvard Medical School professor and addiction researcher for 20 years before going to work for the White House in 2006, said the high potency of today’s marijuana has increased its addictive properties. More kids from ages 12 to 18 — nearly 200,000 — are in treatment across the nation for pot abuse than any other substance, including alcohol, Madras said.
Paul Wolfowitz and General Petraeus both have amazing resumés as well and yet they aren't known for being remotely credible. I count at least 4, maybe five lies in 1 small paragraph there. Lying is a pre-requisite for employment with Team Bush.
And I've seen a parade of distraught parents as well, so Bertha can just bite me.
Forget her though! Today is the pot smoker's day. It's a party! Smoke a bowl for her!
And smoke a big fat one for Barney Frank! He's filed a bi-partisan bill for decriminalization!
Mr. Frank, again, sets the example for how Democrats can seize this issue, do something that will be popular and good for the country, and give the republicans fits - all in one fell swoop. He also substantiates my claim that only Democrats will be able to do this, though the Honorable Ben Masel seems to think there may be repubs who grasp this and might work to snatch THIS victory from Democrats as well. (Tell us more, Ben!) 3 cheers for Barney Frank!
Before the band starts up I want to get this off my chest:
We're here! We're Stoned! Get over it!
Pot smokers DESERVE their own day, the way they get persecuted in this society, as if we are actually doing something wrong. An arbitrary penalty combined with a massive propaganda effort has prejudiced much of American culture against us needlessly.
Arresting 800000 people a year - millions and millions in the past decade - just for a plant is persecution. Especially when all those arrests and all that money wasted on it don't make the county any safer at all.
Especially when the country is friggin' bankrupt because of rampant, high-level serious crime.
It's all the "upstanding" citizens causing the real problems.
That horrible debacle going on in Iraq? Brought to you by people who DON'T smoke pot. Pot smokers aren't responsible for THAT.
9/11 and the WTC attacks? Carried out by nicely dressed men with short hair who didn't smoke pot. Pot smokers aren't responsible for THAT, either.
The mortgage meltdown? Those big-ass, high-powered, upstanding "Financial Institutions" are often "drug-free workplaces" with random drug-testing so pot smokers aren't responsible for that either.
And face it: with all the historical nonsense about "amotivational syndrome, it's highly unlikely that pot smokers should be "responsible" for anything? We're supposed to be inert losers...right?
Remember this and deal with it: Lots of Americans smoke pot and they vote. Lots of them.
Ok.... that's enough grousing for now - today is a celebration!
BREAKING!: Doc Zombie, American Stoner, ne'er-do-well, and Dirty F'n Hippy™ PASSED the National Counselor's Exam!
I got my Master's degree in 1993... as in 15 friggin' years ago. I took back in March and I may have studied for it about 4 hours. I just waltzed in and passed it. I feel sooooo smug now.
Is this a bad message to the children?
Fire up the band!
Smoke 'em if ya got'em!
And in lieu of being able to actually pass joints.. please treat this as a Mojo Thread: rec as many comments as possible.
Be excellent to each other... and Party On!