Keeping Pot Illegal
The increasing legalization of marijuana in the US is a dangerous trend that overlooks the many threats that made weed illegal in the first place. Pot's inherent risks should not be ignored, or the mistakes of the past are sure to repeat, and this poses an enormous threat to personal happiness.
In 1987, during a Grateful Dead concert at the Capital Center in DC, the true danger in marijuana revealed while walking through the caravan. While walking with a group of friends trying to find a good place to party, three joints burned between five of us adding to the giant cloud of smoke rising above the throngs of deadheads. The bright, sunny day filled with music from all directions as people milled about and lounged smoking weed, tripping, and sucking nitrous.
All seemed well as I walked with my friend Dylan beside me and other friends following right behind. Approaching a dirt road, I went blind in a moment of choking and coughing, but when the gagging ended, the smoke dissipated showing an old, slow driving station wagon. The car stopped before us and the windows lowered revealing six young, aspiring hippie girls who began yelling to Dylan and me, “Hey guys, want some sandwiches?”
Looking at Dylan and seeing his confusion, I turned to the girls. “No, we’re not looking for sandwiches. Do you have any buds or LSD?”
The hippie in the front passenger seat flipped back her long, silky blond hair uncovering a flower painted on her cheek. “No guys, do you want some sandwiches?”
The rest of the pretty, stoned hippie girls chanted, “Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Sandwiches!”
I looked to Dylan in confusion and he said to the girls, “What the fuck? We don’t want any sandwiches.”
The blond in the passenger seat leaned out of the window and pressed the fingertips of one hand to the fingertips of the other and began pumping her hands as though they were a beating heart while stating clearly and slowly, “Sand-wich-es.”
Hearing only an unintelligible series of hieroglyphs, Dylan and I stood confused shrugging at one another until finally one of us said, “We don’t want any damn sandwiches. Get the hell out of here.”
The girls drove into the psychedelic ether never to be seen again as Dylan and I stared incredulously. As they disappeared into the sprawling caravan of deadheads, the roar of laughter came from our mutual friends rolling about in the dirt behind us. We turned and Dylan shrugged. “What?”
Our friend Mike screamed, “You two are fucking idiots. SANDWICHES!”
The lamenting and cursing for the lost hippie love opportunity clarified the true danger of marijuana and why it should always remain illegal.