Reeferfront Times

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ese three guys are clearly in violation of our proposed new law. | VIA FLICKR/CANNABIS CULTURE

[MODEST PROPOSALS]

Pot Shots

As Missouri legalizes weed, it’s time we criminalize weed culture

Written by DANIEL HILL

No matter which way you slice it, it’s been an exciting week for Missouri-based fans of moving slow and being hungry, as 53 percent of midterm election voters approved a constitutional amendment legalizing recreational weed in the Show-Me State.

While there were some disagreements among pro-marijuana factions — with some fretting that the measure would enshrine the state’s controversial licensing process into something of a monopoly while others argued “let’s do it anyway, I want some weed” — the dust has now settled and the people have spoken: Cannabis will be legal in Missouri going forward.

That’s all well and good, and even Amendment 3’s critics have to admit that not jailing people over a plant is a step in the right direction. But with that hurdle finally cleared, it is time that we tackle the next big issue on the legal-weed horizon. That’s right: It is time we finally criminalized weed culture.

Since time immemorial, weed culture has been an albatross around the neck of the noble act of consuming cannabis. We’ve all had to endure a conversation with a dreadlocked white guy wearing a drug rug about how all the world’s problems could be solved if everyone just took a toke, bro. Each and every one of us has known that one person who makes a big show out of smoking weed at 20 past 4:00 on any given day, as if time itself were not an entirely manmade construct.

For that matter, we’ve all known plenty of pseudo-intellectual goofball dorks who like to get high and pontificate on the nature of time, perhaps even writing in an article for a local alt-weekly that it’s nothing more than “an entirely manmade construct” or some stupid shit like that. It’s all so very insufferable, and in a perfect world — a world that we are capable of creating — it would be banned.

Those “Interstate 420” shirts? Banned. Blacklight posters covered in pot leaves and aliens and shit? Extremely cool, but still banned. The band Sublime? Illegal now; sorry, Rome.

There will, of course, be room for some interpretation of our new anti-weed-culture laws. We are not tyrants, after all. In keeping, possession of a bong is not, in and of itself, a criminal act — bongs can be useful tools in the hands of responsible grownups. But any bong sporting a depiction of, say, a glassy-eyed Rick fist-bumping a stoned Morty will net you a felony — no exceptions.

Dispensaries can still have 4/20 deals — who doesn’t love a deal? — but they can no longer have them on April 20. Pick another day; we now celebrate the anniversary of Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard disproving the theory of spontaneous generation on this one. Man, that Pasteur sure was a talent.

It’s likely true that criminalizing weed culture will not put a stop to it, and the worst offenders will be simply driven underground to partake in their odious habits in secret. That’s fine — out of sight, out of mind. They can hold meetings at Spencer Gifts or something; we can leave them that. Hopefully the craft-beer guys join ’em.

As for the rest of us, we’re stepping forward into a brave new world, one where the masses are free to consume our happinessinducing drug of choice without the attendant juvenile baggage that comes with it. We are hoisting our Rickless bongs to the sky and refusing to live in shame any longer.

After all, we’re adults, damn it. It’s time we start acting like it. n

[WEED LAWS]

Missouri Says Yes to Legal Weed

Written by SARAH FENSKE

Legalized recreational cannabis has officially found favor with the majority of Missouri voters.

Amendment 3, the initiative legalizing recreational use of marijuana, won 53 percent of the vote in last week’s midterm. The measure fell behind early in the night, but continued to gain steadily as election returns were tallied.

The amendment eliminates bans on marijuana sales, manufacturing and consumption for adults in Missouri. It also allows for expungement of past nonviolent marijuana offenses and enshrines in state law a 6 percent tax on cannabis sales.

The vote came just four years after Missouri voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment approving medical marijuana. The rollout of the medical-marijuana program engendered numerous lawsuits and allegations of an unfair playing field — and critics charged that Amendment 3 doubled down on the same set of winners who benefited from the medical plan. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and the Missouri Democratic Party both gave the measure a thumbs down, in part over concerns that minorities would be limited to “microlicenses” even as the same beneficiaries of licenses for medical pot would be set up to cash in much more lucratively.

But others insisted that it was high time Missouri legalize a substance that other states were increasingly opening up to taxation and regulation — and remove laws that had a disproportionate effect on people of color. Supporters included the ACLU of Missouri and the Missouri AFLCIO. n