Hey Mom, This Is What Weed Legalization Actually Means
To many (especially the older generations of people who are sh*tting their pants as they live through the days they thought would never come), weed legalization means pre-rolled joints and coffee shops the likes of those in Amsterdam rather than your local Starbucks.
These people view it as bong hits in underground cellars and bags of weed in the streets. They see it as fancy dispensaries and parks with smoking laws, as bakeries with edibles and lollipops with THC.
What they forget to see, however, is the larger shift. The deeper meaning of this rapidly increasing movement towards the legalization of a product that was once deemed immoral and unacceptable.
Weed legalization is much more than government-regulated stores with doobies and rolling papers without the insinuation of cigarettes.
It’s a cultural shift, a monumental movement in generational history and culture. It’s a new chapter for America and a new shift in cultural preferences.
Weed legalization depicts a culture, a society we are slowly progressing towards as the Baby Boomers leave office and apprehensively hand us the reins.
It’s a shift to a chiller, cooler way of living and to enjoying our lives. You see, weed legalization is just a reevaluation of the culture that the previous generations had set up and deemed as acceptable and right.
To accept legalization is to reject the old stigmas associated with not only weed, but also the lifestyle it represents. It’s to admit that people like to lounge around and listen to music and appreciate art.
It’s an acceptance that life should move a little slower and food should taste a little better. It’s accepting that maybe stressing about work isn’t the purpose of life and taking your time to appreciate the little moments is more important than your nine-to-five.
To make weed legal is to accept the lifestyle that comes with weed.
It’s understanding that we can have our cake and eat it, too. It’s choosing jobs that support that mentality and respecting people who choose to live their lives by that mentality.
No longer is it rejecting the stoner for being a lazy piece of sh*t or failing to elect the president because he smoked some pot when he was younger.
It’s admitting that we all have vices and there are vices that should be taken much more seriously than the toking up someone enjoys after work, like prostitution or gambling.
It’s deciding to spend our time putting people away for real crimes, like murder and theft. It’s spending less money putting away kids with bongs and more money on people with guns and bombs.
It’s accepting that taxing weed is much more profitable and easier than fining people for it. It’s realizing that no one is hurting anyone after hitting a bong, but maybe the bottle should be reevaluated.
It’s ending the hypocrisy; the hypocrisy of selling cigarettes to 18-year-olds, while keeping the plant used to help those in pain away from the people.
Weed legalization is just this giant metaphor for everything our generation accepts as true and right. It’s an understanding that just because the older generations saw something one way, doesn’t mean it's the right way.
Top Photo Courtesy: We Heart It
