Mind Fields – Cannabis Can And Sometimes It Can’t

Mind Fields

I started smoking marijuana at fifteen. At that time, marijuana was simply Pot. Weed. It was Reefer, Dope, Ganja. Sometimes it was just Shit. It was so hard to obtain that we went to dangerous housing projects like Jefferson Barracks or East St. Louis.. These are completely black ghetto neighborhoods. Here’s the classic scenario: drive to East St. Louis, to a certain intersection. A man will be there at nine p.m. taking orders. Give the man your money.  Pull around the corner and wait in the car. Half hour goes by and everyone who passes gives you the skank eye. Wait in the car. Another twenty minutes pass. Shit, did the fucker burn us and bail? There’s more skank eye from the locals. A nondescript Ford rounds the corner, driven by a white man in a fedora. “Get down, that’s a narc!” We hunch down over the drive shaft that runs down the center of the vehicle.  He could be anybody. Probably not an officer of the law. We laugh nervously: maybe he’s scoring weed, too. Haha.

I’m about to crank it up and call it a night, write it off to misery when the connection shows up, rapping quietly on the frosted window. He’s palming a baggie. Whew. Groovy. Thanks, man. More side-eye looks than a herd of horses as the connection sneaks off. 

Cannabis Bud

Now it’s called Cannabis. From old habit when I talk to myself I call it Weed. But…hey… It’s the majestic Cannabis. It’s not a weed. I won’t call it that any more.

I could write about cannabis all day. One thing that stuns me (aside from the THC) is the post-legalization culture that has arisen in a few short years. The explosion of new ways to consume cannabis is one aspect of this cultural eruption. Would you have dreamed, twenty years ago, that you would go to the “pot store” to get your cannabis? YES! I go to the POT STORE! WARNING: it CAN get expensive. Some of the marketing is clever and ‘scammy’. The research for this article has cost me a couple hundred bucks. Pot is getting the late-capitalist treatment and is being commodified in ways inventive beyond the craziest dreams of any baby boomer. Vape pens full of THC. Resins, waxes, elixirs, inhalers, collectors, nectar tubes, dab nails, glass in a thousand exotic shapes: this stuff Is appearing at breakneck speed, overwhelming in its complexity if not hilarity. 

Oh…cannabis…wonderful cannabis, the jazz musician’s vitamin. I have smoked in many cars of vintage breed. They were not, at the time, vintage. Back in the day we called auto vehicles “shorts” i.e. Where’s your short, man? I parked it around the corner. Continentals. Thunderbirds. Impalas. Our shorts were often the only places we could smoke pot, so they loom large in our fantasies of past reefer madness. Now we have cannabis named for every kind of wacky idea that marketers can devise. Here are a few brand names: OG Skunk Cult, Canna Candy, Fumero, Caldera, Purple Phase, Errl’s Oil. Here’s one: Guava Fig X Face Mintz Extract.

In 1965 ten bucks would get you a matchbox of Mexican grass. The name brands were Michoacan and Panama Red. There were Thai Sticks. Sometimes we could get black or brown hash from Lebanon or Nepal. An ounce of grass was called a “lid”. Of course, three and a half lids are an eight ball. But back in the matchbox days it was either a nickel bag or dime bag. This is sixties stuff, I aint jamming with Fats Waller.

Legal weed is a fucking explosion! The pot store looks like a bank! The packaging for the inventory is on display in cases against two walls, while the cashiers occupy windows at waist-high counters around the other two walls. The merchandise is offered in all its colorful boxes, jars, droppers, cartridges and spliffs. Twenty-five-year-old cannabis experts talk to customers about the products. This strain of cannabis has such and such a percentage of THC ratio to CBD. This one has 88.5% THCV. This one’s good for pain, this one’s good for sleep, this one won’t increase your appetite, this one will. We get new terpenes every six months. We have designer dope for the elite. Ninety bucks for a one gram jar about the size of a quarter. Shee-it! Weed should not be expensive! Never never. Stop it! 

I get my dope from a dude named Steve who lives in an RV at the corner of Colegio and Runyon. It comes in baggies. No boxes no jars. Ten bucks for a big bag of buds. That’s more than a lid.

That’s Old School.

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Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.

Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award. Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.

More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com

Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos

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