Drugs Should Be Illegal Because Buying Them In Stores Is Lame
Recently, on vacation, I listened to the radio for the first time in years, and sandwiched between ads for reverse mortgages and personal injury lawyers I heard one for “Cape Cod’s top-rated marijuana dispensary.” Except for the wares being hawked, it was your typical radio ad: announcer’s voice uncannily sped up, business’ name repeated every three seconds, jingle so obnoxiously catchy that even the guy from Memento would get it stuck in his head. And I thought to myself, Are there really enough marijuana dispensaries on Cape Cod to necessitate a ranking? And more importantly: When did buying drugs become so incredibly un-cool?
Back in the ancient days of the Obama administration, when “budtender” and “cannabis concierge” were still nonsense words, if you wanted to buy weed, you had one option: knowing a guy. (And it was pretty much always a guy.) When you went over to his house—because he rarely came to you—you’d usually have to play a round of Mario Kart with him or make small talk about his new drum kit before you could leave.
And if you wanted edibles? Forget about a label indicating how strong they were—you’d be lucky if they even came in a loose baggie. Before the mid-2010s, the THC content of an edible was information that existed far outside the limits of human knowledge, like what happens after we die, or who really killed JFK.
And just like with the JFK assassination, one guy wasn’t necessarily enough to get the job done. Really, you needed multiple guys, since half the time your main guy would randomly stop responding to your texts, or fall asleep and not hear you ring the bell, or just run out of weed, Soviet grocery store style. So you’d spend a lot of time attempting to find guys, which usually involved sizing up everyone you knew in a given city—neighbors, coworkers, some girl you’d just met at a party—trying to figure out who might know one. Sometimes you’d get it wrong, and you’d accidentally ask a type of person who doesn’t really exist anymore—someone who not only didn’t smoke weed, but looked down on those who did—and then they’d always act a little weird around you after that, even though really it was their fault, because what were they doing wearing a Baja hoodie if they didn’t smoke weed?
All of this was a huge pain in the ass—but in retrospect, it was also pretty fun. I look back fondly on a lot of my wackiest guys, like the one whose girlfriend walked around topless in front of us, or the one who lived way out in rural Michigan, and who we called the Drug Wizard because he looked exactly like Gandalf, if Gandalf had really let himself go. Back in the Era of Guys, you didn’t even need to actually do drugs, because merely acquiring them was an adventure in and of itself. And all the effort you’d put into getting them made you enjoy the experience that much more, IKEA effect-style.
That’s all gone now, and not just for weed. Psychedelics may still technically be illegal, but they’ve fallen victim to this same process of enlameification. Ecstasy used to come in sketchy little pills with skulls or Pikachus stamped on them, and you took it at clubs so you could feel up strangers or trick yourself into liking terrible music. Now it’s called MDMA, and your stepdad takes it with his therapist to help process his divorce. LSD used to make you drop out of society, or at least get you kicked off the Harvard faculty; now it’s something you microdose so you can be 10% more productive at your job optimizing Google ads.
Could it be that part of the reason young men have become so much more conservative is that we took away most of their other options for rebellion? Drugs are self-care. Parents have tattoos. Polyamory is a daily presence in the New York Times. When my eight-month-old is a teenager, what will be left for him to rebel against? (“You don’t understand, dad—my AI girlfriend is real, and you’re a bigot for not wanting her to have equal rights!”) If drugs were still illegal, maybe all these anti-woke comedians would be getting stoned and forgetting about politics instead of voting for Trump and immediately regretting it.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad people aren’t getting sent to jail for having a joint in their pocket anymore, and I’m glad psychedelic therapy is helping people with PTSD. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with microdosing LSD for productivity, if that’s what you’re into1. But as a society, we have to find a happy medium between imprisoning people for buying drugs and making them easier to buy than deodorant and toothpaste. Tear down the dispensaries. Bring back the guys. Keep drugs illegal—and keep them cool.
I tried it once, but it mostly made me “more productive” at staring at the sky.