America’s National Pastime: Lying to Ourselves.

58 thoughts on America’s National Pastime: Lying to Ourselves.

1. Three cheers for cohabitating pot smokerdom!!

2. You’ve inspired me! To smoke more! Yay, pot!

3. So I guess my question is: Why is pot illegal, exactly?

   A couple of possibilities:

   1. Too lazy to change a law that is only sporadically enforced.

   2. The people who are hurt by the law are of no political consequence. (i.e. negroes)

   3. It keeps a door open for authorities to exert pressure if they need to. I remember hearing a cop say that there are enough motor vehicle laws on the books that a reason can be found (after the fact) for stopping any vehicle.
   4. It can be used as an added charge for leverage in certain cases.Think of it in terms of the recent Pandagon post about statutory rape being used when actual rape charges fail.

   Also, people are assholes.

4. My totally unfounded theory: the ever-important war on drugs is harder to fight if we don’t at least appear to care equally about all drugs. Thus, the illegality of pot. I think you’re right that a lot of pot busts probably have more to do with other crimes than possession or distribution of marijuana by itself.

   I’m pretty sure there are racial implications here, too, although I’m having trouble tracking down anything to support me.

   According to our fantastic Department of Justice, just as an aside, the biggest concerns as far as marijuna trafficking goes are “Mexican and Asian criminal groups.”

5. I heard that pot’s illegal b/c of william randolph hearst.

   He owned a shitload of timberland.

   Scientists discovered you could make really good paper from hemp.

   Which would seriously devalue WRH’s timberland holdings.

   Pressure was brought to bear on the govt b/c of hearst.

   So we started hearing about the evils of teh marihuana.

   Now it’s illegal.

6. My neurobio professor said it’s illegal because of good old-fashioned American puritanism.

   Having fun = bad. Even if you aren’t hurting anyone, even if you aren’t really hurting yourself in the end, taking drugs is considered a moral failure. The shaming of drug users, for me, sounds so similar to slut-shaming (in fact, they often go hand-in-hand).

7. While Hearst is probably not the only reason pot is illegal, he did play a big role in allowing (or maybe forcing, I don’t know) his highly respectable newspapers to print outright lies about marijuana.

   Actually if you rent “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical” (which was put out by Showtime and features Ms. Kristen Bell/Veronica Mars and Mr. Alan Cumming) they go into that a little bit on the commentary and all the “facts” that are presented were printed as true facts, mostly by Hearst owned papers. Also it’s an awesome movie that everyone should see.

8. There was one argument I heard that once held sway with me until I realized it was built on circular logic.

   Someone once argued to me that pot is a gateway drug, not for users, but for dealers…that once people start dealing pot it’s a slippery slope until their involved in dealing harder drugs…now first of all, who knows if that’s true (I doubt it), but secondly…the only reason pot has to be “dealt” rather than sold in stores is because it’s illegal.

   Obviously a horrible argument, but I’ve never heard a better one.

9. My neurobio professor said it’s illegal because of good old-fashioned American puritanism.

   Hey, that’s the same reason my neurobio/cogsci professor offered too! (She said same went for ecstacy, which was originally developed and functioned as a marital aid — that the trouble with X is that it’s not taken in the proper dosage, not that it’s taken at all.)

10. *they’re

11. It’s illegal because it scores political points to publish details of drug raids. Also, with the large underground availability of cannabis, it’d be hard to control the supply and tax it.

    I’ve heard some really dumb excuses though.

    “Its a gateway drug” well, yes. Once you found out the government have sold you a pack of lies about one illegal drug it’s reasonable to assume some people would wonder what ELSE they’ve lied about.

    “Ordinary cannabis would be okay, but now that superskunk is available its too dangerous” In England we can get absynthe, but not the really strong, hallucinogenic absynthe, which is illegal. We can get vodka, but not the incredibly strong stuff from Russia. Surely the same would apply here?

12. Thanks for posting this. It’s ridiculous to hear pundits rail against “drug use” when they’re referring to something as mainstream as pot. It’s also silly to try to act as though saving sex until marriage is in any way the “expectation” in our society. Most people have premarital sex, and most people do or have smoked marijuana. Now, we’re not all crazy immoral wanton drug addicts, so the puritanical nutjobs in the government and the MSM are obviously not doing a good job representing American values.

13. Here here! on Reefer Madness, the Musical. We own it and it is a film that exemplifies beautiful storytelling, excellent music, flashy dancing, and woderful wit.

    I read an essay that I will now casually plagiarize as follows:

    There is a morality barometer in place and for various and sundry reasons, alcohol and cigarettes are on one side, and smoking pot is on the other. Even though alcohol is lethal at 10 times its effective dose, and pot has no lethal dose, alcohol is still considered to be “better.”

    I think we can thank the “war on drugs” propaganda for convincing many people (presumably the same people that don’t “believe” in Evolution and the truth of the christian bible, etc.) that being high on marijuana is, from a physical and psychological standpoint, “worse” than being as drunk as they’ve ever been. It’s a question of having nothing but lies on which to base an opinion. I know, for instance, that I might feel a little uncomfortable around a friend whom I knew to be on other “drugs” that I don’t personally do, and have no way of knowing the experience of being on those drugs and the affect they have on normal functioning. However, I will never be sure that my friend is experiencing reality the same as I am, that she is receiving the information I think I am communicating to her, and that in turn, her information to me as the benefit of being communicated using her full capabilities. The only reason I have for this prejudice is that I think other drugs are “worse” than the pot I smoke, and somehow impair the mind more. Like I said, I have no first hand reason to think this way, it’s just the information I’ve received on cocaine, heroin, opium, etc.

    For instance, I think the people at my current job would be shocked to know that they have never seen me NOT stoned- in fact, I have smoked pot all of my waking hours for the past five years of so. I think people, in general, would feel betrayed somehow if they found out that I was “on drugs” in their presence.

14. 992 pounds is 450 kilos, a nice round number. I’m assuming the stupid newspaper just converted to pounds without bothering to mention that such things are typically handled in metric units.

    I suppose it might have been 500 kilos, of which the cops made off with 50, but a hundred pounds of pot is an awful bulky package for someone to try to “liberate” from the arrest, isn’t it?

15. Reefer Madness: the Musical is awesome for the Vegas Jesus with his lame loincloth. I almost peed myself during that number.

16. uh, the “e” in “lame” should have an accent. la-may, as in, the shiny, metallic material.

17. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

    Marijuana was legal until the beginning of the 20th century, at which time individual states began banning its use, but it didn’t become a nationwide ban until Prohibition.

    Yes, the timber and nylon industries were very happy to help make marijuana illegal (hemp was also used for rope). But the movement to include it in prohibition was fueled by fear of Mexican immigrants, who were the ones who brought cannibis use to the States.

    The War on Drugs is a war on People of Color. Yes, many many people use it, but who gets incarcerated?

18. Harry Anslinger was the first person in charge of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He pushed the “Killer Weed” stories in order to scare America into voting for his Uniform Drug Act, which would greatly increase his funding. He couldn’t back down from this story, and stayed in the Drug War long enough to push through an international treaty against marijuana use in the late 1960s.

19. The War on Drugs is a war on People of Color.

    True. The “War” on marijuana is a racist pile of shit that’s been kept going by the prison lobby, as much as anyone. All those “privately-run” jails depend on the “war on drugs” to stay in business. That is one reason that I don’t smoke pot anymore. As a white, middle-class student, the odds of my getting in trouble if I was buying from someone are nil. But they’re not nil for the people farther up the supply chain. The odds are that I would be deriving my mild pleasure from their danger/desperation, and I’m not willing to do that anymore. And I have no interest in growing it myself.
    Also, I feel like smoking pot made me stupider.

20. Sara:

    Yay for neurobio professors! I have to say, it seems the only way to know the damn truth about what (legal and illegal ) drugs do to you is to take a high-level neuropharmacology class. *sigh*

    And having the whole picture certainly hasn’t made me run out and try new substances. It’s just mainly convinced me further that drug laws are misguided at best and immoral at worst.

21. The Demon Weed is demonstrably better, from a social costs perspective, than alcohol. Drunk people drive really, really fast and don’t know it, pick fights, rape women, throw up, and start the next day hungover. Someone stoned out of her mind will drive — if she has the ambition to drive at all — really, really slow and not know it. I’ve never known anyone stoned to pick a fight or rape anyone (though sex while stoned is a lovely experience). Next day? No hangover. My dad, when he was chief mechanic for a helicopter unit in Vietnam, greatly preferred the potheads to the guys who drank. The potheads were ready to get to work first thing in the morning. The drunks were useless until noon.

    Oh sure, you might get the munchies and eat the whole fucking bag of chips, but I do that sober.

    If I could smoke that Demon Weed more often, I bet I could get off a lot of the (prescription) drugs I use for pain management.

22. There was a lot of propoganda at one point about how marijuana was so dangerous because it made Negroes rape white women. The History Channel did an excellent documentary on the history of the war on drugs.

23. Why is pot illegal, exactly?

    To keep the Negroes and Mexicans from running wild and raping every white woman they can lay their hands on, and to protect the paper industry. It’s all in the Congressional Record.

24. I’ve never smoked pot, and I never will.

    But I still don’t think it should be illegal.

25. I think the pleasure-is-bad trope is the correct one. With booze, you can pretend you’re enjoying it for the taste (although that’s kind of a stretch with, say, bourbon), but pot exists only to get you high.

    Lenny Bruce had the best take on this:

    “What are you doing! You’re enjoying yourself! Sitting on the couch smoking shit and enjoying yourself! When your mother has bursitis! And all those people in China are suffering too!”

    (Guiltily) “I’m enjoying it a little bit, but it’s bad shit, anyway. And I’ve got a headache and I’m eating again from it.”

26. Oh, bourbon can be real, real tasty. When I’m feeling not quite so broke, I like the Knob Creek bourbon. Otherwise I just get Jim Beam.

    I knew a guy in school who preferentially drank Old Crow. Now that’s some nasty stuff. It did get you nice and drunk though. After a while taste stopped mattering. Being a smoker at the time probably helped.

27. Here is a good link explaining why pot is illegal. Your theory that pot busts are prosecuted largely because they want to go after more serious crimes is bogus. The system is entirely corrupt. Cops like doing drug busts because it is easier than investigating real crimes. You Americans have John Walters and assorted hacks running around spreading bullshit and reefer madness left and right. Canadians have similar problems with reefer madness. Check out this story I have been blogging about regarding a small town in Saskatchewan that was recently hit with reefer madness.

    I also believe that the drug war keeps going because people do not think it is an important issue. Take note of the fact that the only presidential candidate that has made mention of the war on drugs is Ron Paul. Nobody cares about it, which is pretty damn sad. Maybe we need to do a better job of getting after our politicians.

28. I’ve noticed that most local newspaper articles about pot busts stress the dangerous nature of ‘Mexican drug cartels’ who are moving in. Compared to old school hippy growers who are just mellow and harmless and good for the economy. I live in Northern California where it’s a big business so it’s in the news a lot.

29. Huh, I always thought it was the cotton industry that pushed for illegalization of marjuanna, but, odds are it was a joint effort across the timber, nylon and cotton factions, with a healthy dose of racist arguments with Puritan premises that came through.

30. I think the “standard expectation” quote you’re thinking of comes from the House of Reps report on the content of abstinence-only sex education (or the text the report is quoting):

    “The SPRANS program mandates, for example, that programs teach that having sex only within marriage “is the expected standard of human sexual activity.”66”

    The full report is here.

    I love the idea that pot could kill you, if only because I enjoy imagining how one would manage such a ridiculous feat.

31. 992 pounds is 450 kilos, a nice round number.

    Noooooooo! My segue! My beautiful segue!

32. The “war on drugs” is a crock and most of America knows it. My fiance(white & straight, FYI) was busted growing when the cops came looking for someone who lied & said they lived there(they had years ago). He spent a night in jail, and had to go to classes, but the plants didn’t even make it downtown to the station. In our state, 5+ plants is a felony, less is enough for personal use.

    An interesting story in The History Channel last week, went all into Marijuana prohibition. It was a combination of many factors, William Hearst’s greed, accompanied by xenophobia at an influx of Mexican immigrants & freed slaves. Enter Anslinger, who performed pot experiments on dogs, and testified in criminal trials all over the country, testifying to the horrors of weed.

    And another interesting story on MDMA, was aired by Peter Jennings(who as a cancer sufferer and a Canadian probably knew all about America’s stupidity on drugs) explaining its benefits on trauma victims in therapy, and how no one has ever OD’d on X. People has suffered from side effects, like dehydration & heat exhaustion, but no one has clinically died of a physical interaction with MDMA.

33. odds are it was a joint effort across the timber, nylon and cotton factions,

    I’d let nylon off the hook, since it barely existed at the time.

34. pot being illegal while alcohol is perfectly legal is crazy enough.

    what stuck out to me about this post was sex within the “confines” of marriage. funny they used that word. “confines”. not “bond” or some positive word. odd that they told the truth about it…marriage is good when people want it, but still even in america, it seems lots of people, especially women, are pressured into marriage, usually so not be looked down on for having sex or being pregnant.

35. My desire to become a forensic scientist increased concurrently with my transition from fundamentalist to atheist… I didn’t do drugs when I was a fundie because god says drugs are bad! – and after, I didn’t do drugs because I knew that to get a job as a forensic scientist, you had to pass a lie detector test, including about all your past drug use.

    What I didn’t know was that in practically every forensics job out there, you’re allowed to smoke pot up to 15 times and do other drugs up to 3 times (total, not each) as long as the last use was over a year ago.

    Of course, I didn’t find this out until less than a year before I needed to start interviewing.

    I am so mad! I could have had so much fun exploring drugs! I wish I’d known earlier!

    (Of course, the reason they have any rules about drug use is because there’s a shocking amount of drugs stolen from evidence lockers. I’m thinking the cops took 4 lbs and the drug chemists took an additional 4…)

36. Is it about Puritanism? Maybe. I think that the fundamental reason, which applies to Puritanism as well, is control. There are simply quite a few people who really believe with absolute certainty that they are endowed with special insight or moral gifts that allow them to tell you what you need to do. I had thought that this irritating and dangerous trait was largly confined to old school liberals who wanted to ban guns and virtually every type of food that tastes good.

    Alas, the Religious wackos and Fundie fanatics chased away most of us who subscribed to libertarian thought regarding individual sanctity. The result is what you see in “Concerned Women for America” and any other number of neo-con and theo-con associations and thinktanks currently in bed with Bushco. They don’t want you having sex outside of marriage, and are spending MILLIONS of our dollars to tell us that! They want to reverse the SCOTUS finding of an individual right to privacy (yeah, I couldn’t believe this one either…) so that red states can ban birth control devices and medications, and return to Comstock laws of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

    More and more often, I read and hear statements at places like TownHall.com that express a desire to return to the halycon days of women in the kitchen, gays in prison and white Christian males in charge like they are meant to be. That is not satire.

    I stick around in the Republican Party to keep the light on as far as dissent goes, and to piss off the Fundies for kicks (I am a trans gendered woman and I’m still married to my wife. They really hate that!:D…) If we are to keep our advances as a secular society, then we have to fight back. That includes keeping real science in the classroom, church out the government, and government out of the church. When you look at how cosmopolitan and skeptical that attitudes were towards religious hucksterism 60 years ago, it is frightening to see how much ground has been lost. We have much to do.

37. The only things I know about pot I read on a Cypress Hill album cover. I swear.

38. “People has suffered from side effects, like dehydration & heat exhaustion, but no one has clinically died of a physical interaction with MDMA.”

    Time for a PSA… Dehydration is a serious concern when using MDMA, but drinking a lot of water to counteract this can be just as dangerous. MDMA can cause hyponatremia, which is a decrease in blood sodium levels. Drinking a lot of water with an electrolyte imbalance can cause water to enter the brain cells via osmosis. Not fun (or so I imagine). Know about the drugs you use, and use them wisely!

    Also, your quote is a bit misleading. MDMA does, on a physiological level, cause hyperthermia and an increased heart rate. Not usually fatal (at safe doses), unless external factors come into play too. But the drug itself is a direct contributor to that particular cause of death. Oddly enough, studies in rats suggest that simultaneous use of MDMA and marijuana has a protective effect against hyperthermia, and also against serotonin depletion in the brain (disclaimer: I have no idea what this means for human users).

    But you’re absolutely right about the relative risk of MDMA… it’s safer than a lot of stuff out there. (Although interestingly, it’s a derivative of methamphetamine. At low doses it acts as a hallucinogen; at high doses it acts as a stimulant)

    P.S. I wish I had used my normal e-mail in my first post… it’s stuck in moderation 🙁

    P.P.S. Yes, I experience drugs vicariously through studying them. (It’s the only way I can, damn it!)

39. I’d let nylon off the hook, since it barely existed at the time.

    I’d heard that was the point, though. DuPont had just invented nylon and wanted to sell ropes made of it, and had to get hemp declared illegal in order to gain footing in the market (since hemp was cheaper and more widely available). They also apparently had a stake in Hearst’s paper scheme, since they sold a lot of the chemicals used to process paper.

    Corporate America: being bastards since pretty much forever.

40. Hmm. My first post appears to have been eaten by moderation. I’m not sure what was objectionable, so here’s the toned-down version:

    I regret not having tried drugs in my past – I thought it would prevent me from getting a particular type of job which requires you to pass a lie-detector test about past drug use. Turns out the rules for past drug use were much more lenient than I thought – a fact which I didn’t find out until far too late, unfortunately.

    I also pointed out the rash of mysterious dissappearaces of drugs from evidence lockers, and suggested the possibility that non-police law enforcement personnel may also have skimmed some weed out of that particular stash. (come on, we can accuse cops of corruption, but no one else?)

    In conclusion: I wish I had tried marijuana when I had the chance.

41. I’m concerned that legalizing marijuana will lead to a new group of impaired drivers. As long as it’s illegal, people are more apt to discreetly smoke at (someone’s) home. Don’t ask me why I’m concerned. But as a fun experiment, next time you get stoned, try to parallel park.

42. Pot is still illegal because our country is run by a bunch of fucking Boomers who are still having the same fights they did back in college.

    My theory is that pot busts are usually only made so cops can get to someone who they think is committing another, serious crime.

    Uh, no. It’s also so that the cops can seize the property of the pot owners, under “civil forfeiture” laws, even if charges are later dropped.

43. While all the above comments about why pot was made illegal in the US are good ones, we souldn’t think that smoking pot has no bad consequences for users. Several studies show a link between pot and schizophrenia and other pyschotic disorders. See here.
    Quote:

    Those who were heavy consumers of cannabis at age 18 were over 600% more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia over the next 15 years than those did not take it.

44. I agree with the people that say pot being illegal when alcohol and tobacco are cherished personal freedoms is crazy.

    There’s no case at all to be made that pot is more dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco. It’s neither as addictive as either nor as physically debilitating as either.

    And I hate it that I have to worry that my good friends who smoke pot are going to get hammered with our amazingly retarded drug laws.

45. iain, what you’ve just told us is that schizophrenics are more likely than non-schizophrenics to use marijuana.

    Because you couldn’t possibly be saying something as stupid as “correlation is causation”. Right?

46. And that correlation would make sense, as it would be an example of people with severe mental illness attempting to self-medicate.

47. Finally, our landlord said, “Well, I’m going to have to pull all these up. I don’t want to get in trouble. I’m going to go to the garage and get a shovel. I’ll probably be gone for about ten minutes, just so you know.”

    I gotta ask: How many plants were left when your landlord returned with the shovel?

48. I’m concerned that legalizing marijuana will lead to a new group of impaired drivers. As long as it’s illegal, people are more apt to discreetly smoke at (someone’s) home. Don’t ask me why I’m concerned. But as a fun experiment, next time you get stoned, try to parallel park.

    Years ago, when I still used to smoke & drive, the biggest issue for me was driving the speed limit. I’d be ambling along on the freeway, listening to music and enjoying myself, then I’d notice that all the other drivers were passing me and giving me dirty looks. “Oh shit, I’m only driving 40 mph!” I’d think, and then hit the gas and try to remember that the speed limit was 55. But…ten minutes later I’d be back down to 40, listening to music and enjoying myself. Until I noticed all the other drivers passing me and giving me dirty looks, at which point I’d think, “Oh shit, I’m only driving 40 mph!”

    Well, you get the picture.

49. I think this is appropriate.

50. I don’t think people should drive intoxicated in any way.

    But, then again, I’m way to much of a control freak to enjoy driving stoned.
    I’d prefer to stay in the comforts of my own apartment. Got the munchies? That’s why pizza places deliver.

51. I wish I had tried marijuana when I had the chance.

    Unless you’re dead, I don’t think it’s ever too late to try marijuana.

52. I can think of lots of ways in which pot could kill you. Like, if the aforementioned 450kg of it fell on your head, in a piano-in-a-cartoon kind of way. Or, if you were in an enclosed space when the 450kg were burned, you’d probably die of smoke inhalation. Of course, 450kg of ANYTHING would be lethal in the same sort of situation. But still, it’s theoretically possible for pot to kill you.

    I’m kind of wondering why they decided to switch to pounds from kg, if that indeed is the source of the “missing” 8 pounds. After all, such news stories are often meant as scare stories, and what could possibly be more scary than drug dealers, other than drug dealers who use the metric system? (Really, what better way to imply that scary foreigners are behind the whole thing?) Esp. since most Americans don’t have a good grasp on the conversion factors, and are just as likely to think that 450kg is a helluva lot more than almost 1000 pounds?

53. Oh, and on the “some people do drink for the taste” front, there are also pot connoisseurs who are practically indistinguishable from the wine people when it comes to focusing more on the taste/appearance/aroma/feel/whatever than the impairment. At least that’s the way they come across to hear them talk – I’ve never known any pot snobs to do the equivalent of spitting out the smoke, like wine tasters are supposed to do. There’s snobs for everything, and coffee-table books for them as well – they’re on the THIRD volume of both the Cannabible and Big Book of Buds, just to name two that were popular when I hung out with pot snobs.

    Not that there’s anything wrong w/being a wine or pot connoisseur, and there’s definitely a difference between an aficionado and a snob for both. Enjoying your hobby is fine and dandy, but the people who look down on others who happen to drink PBR or smoke whatever they happen to be able to get their hands on are insufferable for so many other reasons.

54. How many plants were left when your landlord returned with the shovel?

    Well, I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked like that unicorn ate about a dozen or so plants while he was gone.

55. So I guess my question is: Why is pot illegal, exactly?

    I’m gonna go with big pharma not being able to monopolize it, and lobbying politicians to keep it illegal.

56. The reason official society in this country despises marijuana today has to do with alcohol and “moral weakness”.

    People forget how pervasive alcohol was throughout early American history. Part of it was because it was a means of converting their crops to cash in the easiest way possible (Whiskey Rebellion, anyone?), but also because it was a way to attack the blues that sometimes can come with the rigors of being an individual (a very American concept, individual rights and responsibilities), and with that, the feelings of failure that can come with not being able to achieve the goals you might want to achieve. After all, you only have yourself to blame under such a model, right?

    And it’s no coincidence that most of the American temperance organizations were organized and led by women, who were usually using drunk, dissolute husbands as an example of the evils of strong drink. Alcohol equaled the creation of a weak character, or worse yet, the facilitation of making a weak character worse. And that, in turn, could lead to the destruction of a family.

    I think a lot of the pro and con perceptions regarding alcohol transferred over to marijuana over time, especially with the outbreak of Prohibition, then, later, it’s end. Instead of images of dissolute drunks, we’re now more likely to see images of dissolute stoners. (Think about that – have you ever seen, for example, a pot-based version of Nick and Nora Charles? Fully functional people, yet happily making recreational drugs part of their daily lives?)

    Add to that such foolishness as a Federal ban on funding for research to determine such things as what the long-term effects of smoking marijuana are, if any, and you have a situation shoehorned into place by a refusal to see beyond the facade for fear of giving countenance to being a “weak person”. (And I say this as a person who’s never used recreational drugs or even done much alcohol.)

    My two bits…

57. Yeah, blame the unicorn.

58. I recently went on vacation to London and Amsterdam.

    While in Amsterdam I went to some coffeeshops (i.e. hash dens). How bizarre for me, an American who’s been puffing pot regularly since 1975, to sit outside a nice ‘shop off the Liedesplein in a nice chair, with a nice cup of coffee and puff on the joint that I’d bought for 3 euros (about $5.25) with cops standing 20 feet away and not panic. Good smoke too.

    A few days later I went to a smartshop and bought some mild magic mushrooms. 8 to a carton; I followed the dealer’s advice and took half. I hopped on a train to The Hague (beautiful, I really want to go back for a more extended visit) and, while on the train, the ‘shrooms kicked in. After arriving, I went to the glorious Mauritshuis and looked at Vermeer’s, Rembrandt’s and other Dutch master paintings while tripping. Before I left, I went to a bathroom stall, took the other half, waited a bit outside at the amazing Hofvivjier (Water Court) park while waiting for the second batch to kick in and then went to the M.C. Escher museum. I was back in the ‘dam by dinner, smoked the rest of the joint while walking through the Museumplein park and went to the Van Gogh museum. An amazing day I’ll always treasure and the best part: not a whiff of paranoia about being busted. As long as you’re not loud, obnoxious and stupidly fucked up, they *don’t care*.

    Maybe one of these centuries, America will stop being Puritain assholes about pleasure. As Morrissey croons, “Oh very nice, very nice, but maybe in the next world, maybe in the next world….”

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