Admitting to the world that you smoked weed in your youth? Take a number.
Since smoking pot became legal recreation in Colorado last week (and now New York may loosen its law), columnists and talk show hosts are fessing up, admitting to they inhaled in their youth. Chris Hayes, David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg and so on. Maybe Sunday we’ll hear of pastors admitting “I smoked” in their sermons or issuing alerts that sin lurks in those marijuana emporiums.
Christians have been anti-pot since that notable church project film “Reefer Madness” came out in 1936. (Best line: “The burning weed with roots in hell”).
But there was no great religious outcry over Colorado’s legalization. Clint Rainey at “Slate” contends, “the evangelical position on pot is shifting” along with weed-friendly demographic changes. Pew Research finds 48 percent of Americans, including a majority of all adults under age 65, have smoked pot, and 50 percent say it’s not a moral issue.
So, I guess it’s time to speak up before someone smokes me out.
Like Bill Clinton, I never inhaled.
Unlike Bill Clinton, I never even lit up.
Actually, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette of any sort, much less a joint. I’m practically a traitor to my yippie-hippie-baby-boomer cohort.
This is no high-and-mighty moral point on my part. I don’t make a spiritual my-body-is-a-temple commitment. Neither am I a paragon of the abstemious life. I’m a fat old gal who likes wine. (Tina, I got there without weed)
…legal weed contributes to us being a fatter, dumber, sleepier nation even less able to compete with the Chinese
— Tina Brown (@TinaBrownLM) January 3, 2014
I told folks I didn’t smoke weed in the ‘60s for two reasons: Someone had to be clear headed enough to get everyone else home from the party. I was a designated driver before that became a Public Service Announcement. And getting busted in college would have cost me my college scholarship.
But those were just excuses. The next four decades show the truth. I’m just a control freak. Getting high might loosen me up in ways that I suspect I won’t like once the high goes flat. There is a school of thought (you know who you are) that this could be a major improvement in my temperament.
So, now that it’s legal in Colorado, should I fly to out for a Rocky Mountain High vacation? Would that be sinful self indulgence or simply silly?