Here’s a Headline I Never Imagined While Getting Stoned Before Homeroom…
“Hey Massachusetts: Don’t bogart that joint!”
Connecticut legalized recreational weed a few years ago. At this point, an exceptionally unscientific survey shows that legal pot shops are about as common as, say, Dairy Queens, in Connecticut. Not everywhere, but pretty easy to find. (Note to self: open a Dairy Queen next door to every pot shop in the solar system.)
The last time I smoked pot was October of 1982, when I was a freshman in college. A friend called me on a Saturday (Yep. On the phone. Texting was still three decades hence for your humble correspondent) and asked me if I wanted to hang out and get high. I was sort of overwhelmed by the amount of reading and studying I had to do in those early days of higher academe, and I thought about how getting high would pretty much kill any productivity for the rest of the weekend, so I said “Pass. Maybe next time.”
And that was that. There was no next time. I never thought about marijuana again.
So, it is with some measure of bemusement that I see the pot shops sprouting (budding?) up in Connecticut.
But that is NOTHING compared with our hippy-dippy stoner neighbors to the north in Massachusetts.
Last fall, I took a trip up to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., via the backroads to take in the foliage. The sheer quantity and size of their head shops are stunning. Within 100 yards of crossing the border, there is a huge one and they continue, at least one every mile, right into Stockbridge.
In the land of Dunkin’ on every corner, the pot shops are spreading like… well, you get the picture.
Not only is there competition for potheads between the two states, but there is also apparently a war raging between rival testing labs. These are licensed labs that verify the contents of weed, including the amount of THC (the stuff that gets you high) and other ingredients in the product being offered for sale to consumers.
This headline in my local daily just made me laugh:
“Connecticut cannabis lab sued, lawsuit claims 'inflated' THC levels”
Apparently, testing labs in Connecticut are courting weed shop business in Massachusetts by allegedly bumping up the THC count in samples submitted for testing.
You read that right: Massachusetts is pissed at Connecticut because we are saying the weed is STRONGER than it really is. Stated another way: this weed you are approving is not strong enough!
“The suit alleges that the eight named laboratories fraudulently report inflated THC content and alter tests to report fewer contaminants, in an attempt to obtain more clients.”
So, you thought you were buying 19% THC ganja, but it’s really only 14%. And there might be some other crap in there too. Like mold.
Whatever. Since I am not a consumer on either side of the border, I could not possibly care less. Further, when I was a kid, we smoked what amounted to a few scraggly twigs and some oregano mixed in with a what was likely a healthy dose of desiccated insect parts. So, today’s stuff, regardless of THC percentages, is probably pretty darn good by comparison.
But, never mind all that. Massachusetts is going to fight (in court)… for its right… to paaarrrr-tayyyy!
I am picturing the great border war of 2025, wherein Connecticut and Massachusetts militias face off in trench warfare involving pitched “Call of Duty” Playstation battles and Doritos rationing, while dedicated and brave soldiers scream “Remember the Panama (red)!” as they listen to Phish bootlegs on the front lines and make stealth cross-border Burger King runs.
Fear not. One would imagine that Beavis and Butthead are probably blissfully unaware of WTF they are smoking after the first few hits anyway, so this war is likely to peter out when the combatants fall asleep on the couch, or their mothers come home and make them mow the lawn.