It's cool and all, but it's time to move on.
After weed's exciting legalization in Colorado, the bright glitz of optimism has faded into dull doldrums of indifference. The things that once thrilled us now do nothing more than excite a single synaptic transmission in our cerebellums, as we struggle to get excited about the newly-legal drug. And while we love legal weed and we always will, we've entered into a new era of jadedness about it that's made us get over the novelty of a few key things.
Here come some now!
1. Weed snobs
Who among us hasn't been involved in at least one of these conversations:
A: The mental tenacity brought on by the vaporized Maui Wowie really put me into less of a self-realization spiral than the piquant fumes of the Blueberry Kush, although I feel like Tristan Tzara's interpretation of both would lead him to a place of fascist denouncement using altered household themes and nonsensical cutouts of Dostoyevsky as vehicles of expression.
B: … What?
Legalizing weed has created the sort of marijuana abundance that's led to weed snobbery, as pot becomes as nerdy as fine wine or craft beer. People are smoking with their pinkies out, full of self-aggrandizing sentiment for their artisanal weed selection and unhealthy body of knowledge around it. And while that's cool, there's only so much pretension we can take. Weed, after all, is just a humble plant that just wants to make you visualize new galaxies. Chill .
2. Governor Hickenlooper
What can we say; the guy flip flops more than a sorority on Spring Break in Cabo. First, he was against Amendment 64, calling marijuana legalization "reckless." But now, he's all for it ever since he started receiving pot lobby donations from NORML. He's changed his stance from from overprotective ignorant parent to free-wheeling weed enthusiast, and we're over it.
3. Tourists
At least 18 companies offer bus tours of marijuana facilities, and a Denver bed and breakfast markets itself as a “bud and breakfast." Marijuana tourism agencies have completely sold our their tours, brimming at capacity with out-of-staters who see legal weed as something more revolutionary than a lunar landing. It's more clear than the Clear Eyes you squirt after a good toke that weed tourism is a huge deal in Colorado.
In fact, tourists made up nearly half of recreational marijuana sales in the Denver in 2014 area — and 90 percent of recreational sales in mountain resort communities.
And while we love that these tourists are sinking money into Colorado's economy, they're also clusterfucking us to bits. Traffic has become insufferable, airport lines are nauseating, and people are coming from far and wide to gawk at us and our really lovely way of life. Next thing you know they'll be a marijuana theme park here and … wait that's brilliant.
4. National news stories about weed: it's so taboo, man
It seems like every other day, we come across a national news story or 10 about weed in Colorado. We're so inundated with weed reporting within the square boundaries of the state (mostly done by us, LOL) that we've forgotten how taboo weed still is in other parts of the country.
For example, USA Today and TIME both have late articles out called "Marijuana sex spray for women hitting Colorado shelves today." Which is nice, but we covered that back in June (we even tried it out, read about that here), when it was novel information.
Maybe it's still taboo or other people, but we feel like we've reached our weed journalism intake limit and it's giving us heartburn.
5. People moving here without jobs and shit
Everyone is moving to Colorado. EVERYONE. And they're all looking for marijuana industry jobs. But none of them have jobs yet. Which means the weed job marked is flooded. That's a good thing for the economy and the growth of the weed sector, but that also means it's fucking impossible to get a job trimming buds these days.
6. Pushing up home prices
Speaking of everyone moving here, have you noticed how it's made your rent go up like $1,000? Denver's housing market is actually the second-fastest growing in the country, behind San Francisco. In 2013, rent went up an uncomfortable 9%. People want to live here so badly, that they're willing to live in a house with baboons as roommates, rent a place that's currently on fire, and live in mortician's closets.
We don't know about you, but we can't afford that shit. And since we're not trying to live in Westminster or Aurora, the only option is for the government, who's making bank on legal weed, to pay for half our rents like our moms always used to do.
7. Weed conventions
A bunch of people trying to get you to try their dabs and edibles in one giant room used to be kind of cool. But ever since weed started becoming more potent than Everclear, going to those conventions is basically you saying,
"I want to go somewhere where I can have a panic attack but all the exits are blocked by people who are too high on shatter to move."
Until they start having weed conventions that large-scale excuses for pizza parties, we're not going.
8. Weedgirls
We get it. Girls smoking weed are hot. Girls not currently smoking weed are also hot. Girls are just hot. Moving on.
9. Redman and Method Man
What's that you say? Redman and Method Man are coming to Denver for the 41st time this year? Sound the alarms and call the press!
We get it. They were in "How High." They smoke weed.
Nothing against the rappers; we love them as much as the next guy, but we've been going to Red Rocks, and every other concert venue for that matter, to smoke weed in public at a show since the day we learned what weed was. Going to a Method Man or Redman show where everyone is smoking and they're smoking and the red rocks themselves are smoking … it just doesn't delight like it used to.
10. Driving to another state
If you've ever been frisked by a gaggle of cops and their little dogs too for having Colorado plates, you know what we mean.
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