T
his is the dilemma facing cannabis users today. Once a symbol of edgy rebels and artists, it has become – gradually at first but now more rapidly – stunningly, boringly mainstream.
In the 1990s, Chris Robinson, the lead singer of the rock band The Black Crowes, could still seem mildly rebellious when he wore pants decorated with pot leaves to the MTV Music Awards. Today, one of pot’s loudest boosters in pop culture, Snoop Dogg, owns a marijuana lifestyle brand and cohosts a cooking show with Martha Stewart called “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party.” When asked last year by the Hollywood Reporter for her thoughts on Snoop’s pot use on set, his septuagenarian co-host shrugged. “So someone smokes marijuana? Big deal!” We’ve come a long way from people passing around issues of High Times (and bongs) like samizdat. Even High Times , flagship publication of the old counterculture, which used to feature articles about “Secret Hash- Making in Mexico,” has entered middle age and embraced a healthier lifestyle. A story from a recent issue offered advice on “Classing Up Cannabis: Designing a Dispensary for an Ideal Customer Experience,” which noted the benefits of “design and flow,” “great lighting,” and “open
floor plans,” to pot sellers. What’s next, a line of High Times motivational Successories posters for your cannabis-friendly co-working space? Or consider musicians’ long creative relationship with weed, which used to add to their glamour and mystique. Louis Armstrong, a daily user of pot, which he called “muggles,” once spent more than a week in jail after being busted for marijuana possession. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Beatles laced many of their songs with pot references (“I Get by With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Got to Get You Into My Life,” “I Am the Walrus”), but at a time when pot was still decidedly countercultural, the references they chose were deliberately vague. Contemporary artists perform songs such as “Pack the Pipe” (The Pharcyde), “Mary Jane” (Scarface), and “Hits From the Bong” (Cypress Hill). The references might be blunt (sorry) but the mystery is gone. That’s because cannabis culture isn’t about edgy outsiders and artists anymore. It’s brimming with wellness gurus and marijuana lifestyle entrepreneurs and cheeky websites
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March 2019
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