A brief look into today’s marijuana culture and legalization

But Then I Got High

By Meghan Tibbits, Staff Writer

“I was gonna clean my room — until I got high/ I was gonna get up and find the broom — but then I got high/My room is still messed up and I know why (Yeah, hey!)/ Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high.”

Those lyrics may seem silly at first, but the American rapper Afroman’s hit single, Because I Got High, actually offers some thoughtful social commentary. In the modern world, it isn’t only modern pop-culture that’s filled with marijuana references; even politicians have decided to partake in the conversation.

But exactly how educated is the average Canadian about marijuana culture?  The media seems to present us with a variety of stereotypes, leaving little room for more nuanced individual opinions. Afroman is just one example of this.

In light of these generalizations, Arbitrage Magazine decided to sit down with two self-proclaimed “stoners” in order to find out exactly what they want the public to know about marijuana culture. For understandable reasons, these two Ottawa students agreed to do the interview on the condition of anonymity.

ME, A “STONER”??

Their residence features a Bob Marley lava lamp and posters of the ska punk band Sublime. A large bong sits on the coffee table. The bookshelves are home to a multitude of university textbooks, spanning from political science to Greek to philosophy and everything in between.

That is a detail that our interviewees made sure to clarify. They are not stoners first and foremost; they are also students, brothers, employees, and much more. “When somebody asks me who I am, I don’t say I’m a stoner. If I said I wasn’t I would be lying, but it’s definitely not one of the first things I would describe myself as.”

[pullquote]“When somebody asks me who I am, I don’t say I’m a stoner. If I said I wasn’t I would be lying, but it’s definitely not one of the first things I would describe myself as.” [/pullquote]

The students describe a stoner as a person who buys and smokes marijuana habitually as opposed to casually or just for fun. They refer to it as a “lifestyle choice.” 

In a survey conducted by Arbitrage on 100 students, one out of ten smokes every day. About two out of 10 consider themselves casual smokers — they only use marijuana at parties or when it is available. And three out of 10 have never tried it. The rest — about 40 percent — either smoke a few times per year or used to smoke and have since decided to stop.

When asked whether or not they thought marijuana can be beneficial or harmful to society, nearly four out of 10 students said it can be beneficial and about two out of 10 said it can be harmful. The rest, roughly 45 percent, believed that the social effects of marijuana are a combination of the two.

Our interviewees fall into the third category. Although they do smoke habitually, they are not completely ignorant of the harmful effects of recreational marijuana usage, stating that “marijuana definitely does affect your motivation; there are no two ways about it.”

“That’s a negative thing about it. Like any leisure activity, like drinking alcohol, or smoking a cigar, there are better times to do it and there are times when it shouldn’t be done. You still have to be responsible for yourself. Like, smoking weed and reading a history textbook are definitely not conducive to one another.”

They are likewise very well-read on the theoretical benefits of marijuana decriminalization. According to the Green Party of Canada website, if we dedicated half of the resources spent on enforcing marijuana usage towards other crimes, we would have enough left to pay the tuition ($21,567.17) of 30,138 medicine students at McMaster University.

It is hard to argue with the fact that decriminalizing marijuana would be beneficial to the economy. On the other hand, our survey also shows that there are still many students who are concerned about the harmful effects of marijuana usage.

KNOWING YOUR MARIJUANA

The concerns expressed were mostly on an individual rather than social scale. A fair number of students commented that marijuana can be harmful to people who are using it for the wrong reasons, or people who become addicted to the lifestyle. The notion that marijuana is a gateway drug leading to harder substances also seemed to still worry some.

On this, our interviewees say that what it all comes down to is education.

“Personally, it was not a gateway drug for me even though I have had experiences with other drugs. The difference between me and somebody who goes into a life of addiction is that I decide when I want to smoke.”

“I don’t let it become something that I have to do when I get up in the morning. I don’t let it become something that’s going to control what I’m doing. You need to realize the negative effects of it so that you can have control over it.”

“All you need is to be properly educated about marijuana. If people were properly educated, the issue of it being a gateway drug would be way less apparent. When you classify marijuana in the same list of drugs as ecstasy and meth, you’re putting in people’s heads that it is the same, that it does have as much effect on your life as those drugs.”

“That’s the kind of mindset that makes marijuana something it isn’t. It’s a matter of education, it really is.”

They also suggested that the Reefer Madness — a 1936 American film on the melodramatic events following some high school students’ exposure to marijuana — marked the beginning of marijuana propaganda and a bias against cannabis.

But the situation appears to be changing. According to the survey, about four out of 10 students, both smokers and non-smokers alike, describe the decriminalization or marijuana as “social progress.” A much lower proportion, only one out of 10, believes it to be “social regress.”

[pullquote]Four out of 10 students, both smokers and non-smokers alike, describe the decriminalization or marijuana as “social progress.”[/pullquote]

If the general consensus of the youth population remains the same, it is very likely that marijuana will be decriminalized in the next decade, if not sooner. The impact that this will have on society as a whole remains to be seen, but a little insight can be gained by analyzing states such as Colorado and Washington, who have already fully legalized the substance.

As for our stoners, they speculate that habitually smoking marijuana will eventually lose its lustre. As they extend further into the responsibilities of adulthood, the amount that they smoke will gradually diminish. Fondly, they proclaim that, “These are the glory years, the golden days.” And for now, they are content to live out these glory years bathed in the soft glow of a Bob Marley lava lamp.

Meghan Tibbits is a first year University of Toronto Journalism student. She enjoys watching Jake and Amir Outtakes repeatedly and steadily working her way through the entire Netflix Library. She also relishes in giving you thought-provoking and hopefully humorous perspectives on current events and other various topics. Her biggest pet peeve is when people write things on twitter like “Live your best life today” or “To live without a steady struggle for truth is merely existing” or whatever. God, that’s annoying. She hopes to one day become John Green. No, I mean literally become him. It’s a little weird. Her favourite book is The Catcher in the Rye.