Busting the slacker stereotype

Colorado is legally selling marijuana by the eighth on an ounce.

“The price of an eighth is between $35 and $50 and then there is a 21.22 percent sales tax,” reports businesswoman (or perhaps I should say canna-business-woman) Toni Fox.

That ends up being about the street price, except without the risk.

Customers included James Ramsey, age 28, who last year found himself in jail for pot possession. He’s going to frame his receipt.

Brandon Harris, age 24, who was sent to pot rehab at 19, drove all the way from Ohio to make a legal buy.

And one man prepared for Colorado’s legalization months ago. “I sold my house a couple months ago to move to Colorado.”

This woman and her husband drove from Lubbock. “For my husband, it’s probably more for the marijuana. But for me, it’s more of like, the history. Like, being able to say 50 years from now, ‘I was there.’ Kind of like the old people say, ‘I was at Woodstock.'”

Whoa, did you just call me an old person?

Yeah, but the stores are trying hard to bust the Woodstock stereotype – organized, businesslike – and no mud. And they opened on time.

“We do have a money-back guarantee if it doesn’t work for them,” said Fox.

Pot still does have an image problem, however. And I think it’s because of the songs.

It still carries a lot of counter-culture baggage and irresponsible behavior.

Of course, my generation thought every song was about pot, like “Puff the Magic Dragon.” But if that song is about pot, why does little Jackie Paper abandon the dragon when he grows up?

Anyway, pot needs the kind of sophisticated music that made alcohol sound so acceptable and safe, like when Frank Sinatra sang that “he got no kick from champagne.”

Sinatra could even make cocaine sound innocent, “Some, they may go for cocaine. I’m sure that if I took even one sniff, it would bore me terrifically, too.”

But in the end, pot will be accepted, and I’ll tell you why: It’s this guy, “I’m happy to stand in line and wait for it here, because knowing where the money is going is fairly important, and I’m happy to pay the tax dollars.”

He just said the magic words, “happy to pay the tax dollars.”

Washington state, will be opening its pot sores in about six months and I predict that within two years, it’ll get to the point where the feds take marijuana off the verboten list so that state lines won’t matter.

I also predict even Frank Sinatra will start singing about pot.

“Fly me too the moon …”

Well, it’s not about astronomy.

Read more:
No welcome yet for pot shops in many Washington cities
Q&A: What you need to know about Washington’s legal marijuana industry
Plenty of green, but legal marijuana businesses can’t take it to the bank