By Alison Barnet
Cool, man! Groovy! We’re getting yet another pot shop—a “cannabis dispensary”—conveniently located in the neighborhood. Wanna get high as a kite?
To some of our neighbors, too young to have lived in the Sixties, nearby cannabis outlets are welcome, bringing back pot, weed, reefer, beatniks, and hipsters. How naïve! Do they also think these shops will be playing Joanie Baez and Bobby Dylan? They say cannabis is no worse than alcohol. OK, but why are we adding on another layer of possible addiction, legalized or not?
We live in a society that pushes unhealthy habits and encourages addiction. If It Feels Good, Do It! From cigarettes and smoke shops, to online gambling, to food that makes us fat, to vaping, to social media, to cell phone addiction, to gun sales, to pharmaceutical companies pushing dangerous drugs, to cannabis outlets. Tons of money to be made by them, not us. We should know better. Isn’t anyone thinking about what comes next for civilization? No, It’s blowin’ in the wind.
What’s goin’ on? What’s goin’ on?
Are we too distracted by social media and the internet to think clearly anymore? Why are children and teeny boppers allowed to eat edibles that make them sick and lands them in the hospital? It’s happened too many times already.
Medical marijuana may be helpful to many people, but why don’t doctors prescribe it the way they do everything else and have patients fill prescriptions at genuine pharmacies? There is the possibility aging hippies may go into a head shop—sorry, a cannabis outlet—and flip out—not on grass. It might blow their minds to see how dreadfully the world has changed, if they don’t know it already. The cheap illegal pot they used to know is now a trendy commodity. Greed over groovy. Profit over people. We don’t need it.
Today is NOTHING like the Sixties. Even the smell from someone smoking a joint is different.
We should take a lesson from the Sixties and Question Authority. Think what a Summer of Love we could have!
Alison Barnet is a longtime South End resident and author of five books on the neighborhood’s history.