Conversing Peacefully with Your Family at Thanksgiving It’s been quite a year, folks. Hell, it’s been quite a week. In the last few days alone, our…
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Conversing Peacefully with Your Family at Thanksgiving It’s been quite a year, folks. Hell, it’s been quite a week. In the last few days alone, our…
When you’re named Starshine, people expect you to be a pothead — and it’s not an unfair assumption. I was, indeed, raised in a cloud of skunk smoke, and cannabis is the national flower of my people. Many was the Sunday I spent rolling my eyes as my parents and their pals hissed on spliffs and cackled at things that weren’t funny as Pink Floyd warbled through our house. I would open a window, go back to playing Barbie, and think, “One of these goons had better have a plan to make me dinner.”
Even as a teen and adult, weed never lit my fire. The cotton-mouthed high that drags you down a rabbit hole of ungainly pondering with scheduled detours for jagged paranoia, slack-jawed lethargy, and wanton Triscuit-hoovering just isn’t my rapture of choice.
Which is why I was surprised to find myself plucking jiggly dollops of drug-infused gelatin from silicon ice-cube trays on a recent Sunday afternoon, rolling them in powdered sugar and plopping them into tubes labeled Fruity Pebbles.
It’s not easy keeping kids off ganja these days. The world, it seems, has gone to pot. President Obama admits to having “inhaled frequently” in his youth. Hollywood Dudes-of-the-Hour Seth Rogen and James Franco shared a joint (or an authentic-looking prop) onstage at the MTV Movie Awards last summer. Regular moms can get hash prescriptions for anxiety and pick up a dimebag from a clinic on their way to yoga.
Even when photos surfaced this year of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps taking a bong hit, the nation sort of shrugged with disinterest. Most of his endorsement deals failed to flinch. Last week, Subway launched a new TV commercial featuring Phelps (does he always look that stoned?) and the Sly Stone anthem “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Can’t you just see Subway’s board meeting after the bong photo broke? “Fellas! We sell snack food! Tell me again why this is bad news?”
If a guy can suck skunkweed recreationally and still win 14 gold medals, what’s to dissuade teens from taking their first curious puff? In my experience, there’s only one way to keep your kids from becoming potheads.
You’ve got to become one yourself. That’s right. Light up for the sake of sobriety. Inhale in the name of clean living. Take a hit for the temperance team.