• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, August 8, 2019

Arizona Iced Tea is partnering with a Denver company that produces and sells weed vapes, candies, drinks, tinctures, and topical creams. Most of the other big beverage makers are also in various stages of developing THC-based drinks, making it seem inevitable that your days of depending just on alcohol to get high could be coming to an end.

Eyeballing the windfall of tax revenue being collected by Colorado and California, nearly every other state is trying to calculate how to get into the pot business. Many states have already allowed and encouraged the growth of CBD oil from hemp — which has become the snake oil of the 21^st century, being marketed as a cure for everything that ails you. It doesn’t cure (nor even much help) anything, something you will find out only after you waste some serious money.

In spite of the fairy tale that THC is a “gateway” drug that inevitably leads to “harder drugs,” it appears that state by state will decriminalize or outright legalize THC products until we make America truly great again by simply making pot totally legal at the federal level.

This will not be simply a return to the hippie culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. First of all, most people look pretty stupid in bell bottoms and tie-dyes -- and second. pot has been cultivated to be astronomically more potent than it was at Woodstock (RIP once and for all, for Christ’s sake) and what was dealt out of the third floor of the Sig Ep house. 

But that is the beauty of the edible movement. As the pot business becomes more professional, you’ll be reasonably sure that the dose of THC in each mint or gummy is what they say it is. So, unlike taking a toke off a randomly offered joint, you can know in advance just how high you are going to get and dose yourself appropriately. Takes a little practice, but it's far safer for the rest of the world than your usual four glasses of wine.

Indeed, there has been an increase in traffic accidents related to THC-high drivers in both Colorado and California, but they tend to be far less deadly than when drunks have at it. And let’s face it, some small percentage of users will abuse anything that alters their reality, if only mildly. Personally, I would rather be in a car with a THC driver than a vodka-sated operator. 

Measured edibles will reintroduce THC to the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll generation -- who, by and large, gave up smoking dope as they had kids and moved up the career ladder. I am already surrounded by seniors who get high when they go to concerts, movies or even just watch the sunset.  I know younger folks who microdose in preparation for everything from writing a PowerPoint to boarding a plane. 

I am fully cognizant of the argument that you should only get high on life and that using THC is an escapist crutch to avoid reality. But as edibles (and soon drinkables) spread across the nation, it will be a huge improvement over those who abuse alcohol and become unbearably boorish.  

I can’t wait to be one toke over the line, sweet Jesus (again).