WARNING! WARNING! (age 21+ Cannabis)
27 April 2021
Seeing how this is an archival website, I’d like to introduce to my newer 420 readers, a series of essays I did for a non-profit pro-cannabis website out of New York City, some years ago. One that I’ve gotten involved with, back in the year, 2011. The webmistress was the wonderful Arlene Williams aka Ganja Granny. I love her to death! The website, Green Ribbon World, sadly disappeared here recently. I was happy and grateful to be a part.
Please note … regarding this republishing. We’re going back in time. Things were different. I was married for the second time. That union was dissolved one day shy of us being a couple of 22 years. Add the time we dated, and now it’s closer to 25 years. No resentment or hard feelings. I’d rather look forward more than backward.
Editing
Versions 2.0 of Uncle G’s Corner… I aim to clean up any remaining typos and grammar errors. Content remains the same as it first appeared. When I’m finally done (this could take some time) archiving all the past essays published, I’ll start writing new ones. In a way, I already have done so: Uncle G’s FUN 420 Reviews.
Uncle G’s Corner
Issue: Number 15
Written by Gary Brown
March 2012
Topic: Problem?
So what happened? All of a sudden I’d go to type and nothing would come out. Nothing I liked anyway. No good ideas. I tried a few times after that and the same thing happened. So that’s what happened. Nothing happened. I took it for what it was – time to take a break. And I did. So far the year 2012 is advancing as I figured it would. Not having yet figured out how to put a brake on time itself, it plunges straight forward with nothing much that I nor anyone to my knowledge could do anything about. As you read this, the same thing is going on. Time is going by. There it goes now, past your ears. Or does it just go through you? I say we live within it. Be careful not to bump, Time. Am not sure what would happen. Pondering that, here I am…again.
I ask myself. I say:
Self, what exactly is so damn wrong with being high?” And I mean being under the influence of cannabis. I wanted to define that because I didn’t want you, the reader, to conclude that I was referring to some location a mile up from sea level (although considering what webpage you are visiting, I don’t think there will be any confusion as to what I’m saying).
I’ll elaborate. Let’s talk about the munchies. A side effect of consuming cannabis. A few weeks ago I went to the grocery store, stoned. That’s a mistake right there. During my shopping trip, I purchased two cans of baked bean soup with bacon. As soon as I placed them in the cart, I knew that no one would consume this much soup, unless already very stoned. Which I freely admit, I was. At the time, it also sounded yummy with garlic butter crackers. I love how these ideas just pop in your head. Weird how so many things just sound better when high. Especially food/beverages. I love orange soda after I smoke too. Anyway, the soup ended up being crap. Just not my thing. I enjoyed the crackers.
What is so wrong with walking out of a weed-smoked room with red, bloodshot eyes and wanting to listen to Yes music? Believe it or not, some people think this is a very bad thing to do. And I’m not referring to listening to Yes music either. Speaking of the band, Yes is one of my favorite musical groups of all time. Just a few weeks passed when I was going through my ‘not writing’ phase, and my wife and I took a trip to Dallas. It’s not far, perhaps five hundred miles back and forth. Dallas is a cool place to visit. I didn’t bring any weed. I certainly didn’t want to get busted. The number one way to get busted with pot here in Texas is a routine traffic stop. “No Officer, I don’t have any illegal substances in my glove compartment.” Thanks for not treating me like a hardened criminal. Right. That would happen.
Anyway, my wife and I, along with my good friend Kevin Landreneau, along with a sold-out crowd, saw Jon Anderson in concert. A one-man show. He sang, played several instruments, and told wonderous stories. One was how he smoked a joint with Jimi Hendrix. How cool is that? My traveling companion and I also got to meet Jon after the show. Alexandra took a fabulous photo of Jon and me after the performance. I’ve been listening to the man sing, since 1973. I believe the first Yes album in my adolescent record collection was ‘Fragile’. Like with an old friend, I felt very comfortable around Jon Anderson for the few seconds we were actually together. I publicly thank him for that. Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous meeting someone I’ve admired musically for so many years. Opinions have varied on the group ‘Yes’ over the decades. They have gone through some difficulties lately. Throughout my life, their music was always with me. Their albums and my life run parallel. The “Uncle G” soundtrack should there be one, would be filled with Yes/Jon Anderson music.
Politicians – you know them, you hate them. The talking heads discuss their activities every Sunday morning on the television. Not the band, Talking Heads. MTV used to play their videos all the time. They would show clips from their film, “Stop Making Sense.” One of my favorite songs by them; Psycho Killer. Inspired by Alice Cooper. Imagine that. This was back in a time they called “The Eighties” before Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. MTV was a superior rock station then. So much so, I even paid extra so I could get MTV not only on my television but also on my stereo. It was well worth the extra bucks. That is until they were ruined by people who decided the station needed to be fixed long before it was actually broken. Sex reigns supreme now and has been for decades. Beavis and Butthead are back! So folks like me are again watching MTV, but only for the new Beavis & Butthead episodes.
In this corner, sits a disabled gentleman in a wheelchair. This was in the news. The video can be found on YouTube, which is where I actually watched it. Thanks to Mr. Ron Paul’s people I believe. So it was posted for a reason, and not by Mr. Romney. Some time ago at a location where Mitt Romney was appearing, our friend in a wheelchair asked the politician if he was supportive of medical marijuana. Romney replied back, asking the man if he was using synthetic marijuana. He answered the question with a question. Classic double talk designed to take domination of the situation. It was very rude under the circumstances. He blew away the legitimacy of the disabled man’s inquiry. Let’s examine what came out of Romney’s mouth. I’ll paraphrase, “Mister Seriously Injured Man, have you tried using fake pot?” Seriously, what the fuck?
Very little research was needed to establish that Mr. Romney has fallen for the narrow-minded theory that cannabis is a gateway drug, hook, line, and sinker. Why the approval of synthetic marijuana, especially if he believes all the negative crap we heard about pot over the decades. If true, one could conclude that he would therefore be OK with scientists figuring out exactly how to extract whatever good they could get out of the cannabis plant, hopefully recreating something to put in pill form. Why create synthetic pot if it isn’t helpful to the people who need it, right? There has to be a reason to make it. The problem is this isn’t Buck Rogers and we’re not in the twenty-fifth century. That’s assuming scientists have done it by then. There is no straight-up anything yet that is equal to cannabis that is man-made. Correct me if I’m wrong. And then it’s not a true copy, for it would have to not do one thing, and that’s getting people high. So let me tell you a secret. Politicians don’t want us under the influence of cannabis. After all, we might come out of the damn trance they put people in and realize how full of shit they may be. Wasted does not necessarily mean stupid. Sooner or later, someone stoned who was paying attention would question a statement. This must be the real problem folks like Romney have with reefer. Going ‘gateway’ gets the job done.
I’ll conclude it’s a dead-end tactic that could be beaten, as long as it’s allowed to be played out. Politicians don’t typically put themselves in that position. Not one where they could be beaten. Happens when one doesn’t fully understand or comprehend a certain subject matter. We can take advantage of that. Here’s our shoo-in. We in the game already know all about pot. Many of us have experience with marijuana. Ganja Granny personally tells her story of going through chemotherapy and how cannabis helped her through it. Our stories are real. Prohibition is bullshit !!! Let’s say for lack of argument that pot’s not 100 percent safe. What is? There is a flip side the politicians don’t tell their sheep. That’s all the good cannabis actually does.
Again, what is so damn wrong with getting stoned? According to the arguments from people who want pot illegal forever, it opens the mind to accept other means of getting high. Take a drag of reefer and you’re now OK doing heroin on the way home from work? I wrote thousands of words last year on this very subject – the gateway drug. My conclusion was that it’s bullshit. I believed that then. Feel the same way now.
One thing that makes this ‘gateway’ argument totally ridiculous is the legalization of one thing – alcohol. My Mom drank herself to death. I have yet to hear a story where someone smoked cannabis and their life went totally to shit, in which death was inevitable. As a rule, people who are said to have life ‘problems’ with pot suffer from some kind of undiagnosed mental condition where cannabis gets the blame. If you take someone unstable and let them smoke pot, they are still unstable. Pot is said to be able to work wonders. So much so scientists are still figuring out all the good that pot could do. A few puffs…maybe no longer unstable huh? Maybe? Positive stories are always sooner or later swept under the rug. Pot helps me with my medical problems. And here’s Mitt with his mind full of mush, only knowing about marijuana from what others told him. I’m not suggesting he get stoned. Maybe that would loosen him up some though? Appears like he has a stick up his ass most times anyway. He gave the dude in a wheelchair the brush off. He’s said to joke about how the subject of medical marijuana pops up at every rally he does nowadays. Here’s this damn gateway crap over and over and over again.
So what is so damn right about being drunk, basically high on alcohol? It is socially acceptable to drink alcohol. A fall-down, staggering drunk gets numerous opportunities before they are thrown in jail. Insurance companies get folks to act responsibly again and you go to twelve-step meetings for the rest of your life. The family is so proud. Build yourself up again from nothing. You lost the house. Your marriage went to shit. You lost all of your valuable personal belongings. You were sleeping in a park. It’s sad. This is a story we all have heard at one time or another. Maybe we even know someone who experienced it? Now, how many comparable cannabis stories can be matched up with all the bad booze stories? Got stoned and had sex. That could truly happen. Got drunk and raped and was so embarrassed no one was ever told. That happens too.
The pills one can get at a drugstore make us stoned. Some can cause one to be very mellow, while others make your heart race and you’ve cleaned the entire house in your mania. All of these substances from a drug store are perfectly legal. All you need is a Doctor’s RX, which is very easy to get. Those pills can be found on the street as well. The abuse of prescription drugs is wrecking countless lives, yet there is an alternative when it comes to using pot. So much shit is blamed on cannabis. A lot of negative human behavior has been blamed on weed. For example, I could use the excuse that I got so lazy from smoking bongs all day, that I didn’t write last month’s edition of Uncle G’s Corner. I never said that, but I could have. I could also say I let myself smoke more pot because I felt like shit with my average everyday aches and pains. Should there always be a reason? Pot’s fault ends up really being the fault of the individual. There is nothing physically addicting here. A person who is a thief is still a thief even if he smokes reefer. A half-assed lawyer would say it’s the effects of the weed and not his client’s true behavior. We in the know realize if one took away the guy’s stash, he would still and always be nothing but a damn thief.
In solidarity…onward through the fog,
Uncle G
Note: You may contact Uncle G, in care of this website: Ganjagrannysez@greenribbonworld.com, or try contacting him directly at: UncleGsCorner@gmail.com
PS (PostScript):
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02.) The main purpose for writing this every month is so people can read about cannabis in a more positive, and sometimes humorous fashion. If enjoyed, don’t keep it a secret. Make it like a joint…provide the link…..and pass it on.
Thank you !!!
End of Story
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