I cherish my memories of camping with my Boy Scout Troop, and the many things I learned from the older Scouts.
How to tie secure knots, for example, with lengths of hemp rope.
During one camping trip, I learned that our hemp ropes were made from a fibrous plant belonging to the cannabis family. And that marijuana also belonged to the cannabis family.
This was a type of knowledge not found in the Boy Scout Handbook.
Rather, it was the type of knowledge that led to late night experiments around the campfire, passing around short pieces of rope that were lit on one end — pieces about the length of a small cigar — and trying to inhale the smoke, with little result other than sore throats.
Maybe if we’d had a bong…?
I have since forgotten all those knots. But I later learned — when I got to college — how to obtain the right type of cannabis, and how to use a bong. Which could be part of the reason I forgot how to tie those knots.
But apparently, those classy glass bongs are becoming scarce… just as marijuana is becoming commonplace.
A study published last May in the journal Addiction had surveyed Americans and came to the conclusion that more people are now consuming marijuana on a daily basis — like, every day — than are consuming alcoholic drinks daily.
The researchers made it clear that “far more people drink” alcohol than use marijuana, if you are looking at occasional consumption. But if you’re concerned about “daily” consumption — as you might be, when you’re trying to get a study published in Addiction magazine — the marijuana users now get the blue ribbon.
Or maybe it’s a green ribbon?
The survey found that the ‘median drinker’ reported drinking on four to five days in a month, compared to about 15 days in a month for the average cannabis user.
But those cannabis users aren’t ‘smoking’ marijuana the way we did in the good old days. (After we gave up on hemp rope.) Nor are people buying bongs. And the funky little headshops that sell ‘smoking paraphernalia’ — a type of retail business that seemingly ought to be thriving in the age of marijuana legalization — are slowly disappearing.
We have entered the era of the “edible”. THC is now likely to be an ingredient in a chewable candy or other food-like product.
Products that resemble the candies and cookies we ate as kids are especially popular. Gummy Bears, for instance. Jelly Beans. Skittles. Oreos. Hershey bars.
The type of products that make addiction fun.
But the people who paved the way to legalization — the headshops and the artists who made the elegant glass bongs we passed around the living room — are losing out.
From an April 1 article by journalist Michael Antonoff in the Washington Post:
For the first time, marijuana has surpassed alcohol in daily consumption in the United States. These should be booming times for bongs, cigarette papers, rolling trays, grinders, pipes, hookahs, screens, roach clips, brushes, pipe cleaners and air deodorizers. But despite the rising popularity of weed, the paraphernalia of headshop yore is becoming largely irrelevant. When people eat a gummy… they require little else…
…Today, the excitement of funky paraphernalia design, and the tension of whether it was legal to sell, is largely gone, replaced by pharmaceutical-grade drugs in screw-top containers and resealable pouches with nutrition panels…
Not that I have anything against nutritional panels. So long as you read them before consuming the edibles. Afterwards, it’s too late.
In his article, Mr. Antonoff notes that the headshops that appeared in the 1960s, on the outskirts of every college campus in America, became a symbol of the nation’s apparent downward spiral into marijuana ‘addiction’. In 1978, Georgia became the first state to ban paraphernalia, to be followed by other states and communities. The bans were eventually overturned by the courts, but a lot of headshops couldn’t afford the legal expenses.
Not that we would have trouble purchasing a bong, if we really needed one. But we will probably buy it online. For, like, $16.99.
(Amazon prefers to call them ‘hookahs’ which makes them seem a bit classier. But I think they look industrial rather than classy.)
Mr. Antonoff’s conclusion:
It seems grossly unjust, now that Americans have entered the easy era of legal cannabis consumption, merchants of paraphernalia are still losing out. Those who pop gummies today owe headshop owners a debt of gratitude — and, if they can find a shop, a purchase.
I’ll drink to that sentiment.