It's weird for a guy from the sixties to read about my beloved Minnesota on the verge

of legalizing marijuana, allowing possession of a pound and a half for people twenty-one

and over, opening an agency to license shops, setting an eight percent sales tax, erasing

the convictions of old dopers. When I was in college, I went to parties where people

sat in dim apartments, doors locked and eye out for the cops, the grateful dead on the

turntable, and illegality was a big part of the appeal. We were rebels in the cause of

higher consciousness, but Minnesota lacked the reliable criminal element to supply quality

refurn, and our stuff was like mulch, and the euphoria was mostly the stoop of faction

you get from holding your breath. We would have gotten more euphoria by riding a good rollercoaster.

The big thrill was looking around the room and wondering who might be an undercover cop.

I'm not opposed to legalization. I think it's crazy to lock people up for wanting to

be stooped, and if your doctor prescribes marijuana, goody gum drops for you. But when

I smell marijuana smoke, I get away from it as quickly as possible before some pothead

on a skateboard and wearing headphones comes crashing into me, getting high, lowers alertness.

Go back and read beat poetry written in dim smoke-filled rooms, and most of it is less

interesting than the average computer manual. Alan Ginsburg was a very sweet man, and I went

to a couple of his readings, and I learned that it was good to sit near the exit that fifteen

minutes of Alan chanting was sufficient. I preferred beer parties, which often led to

hilarity and camaraderie, and guys singing surfer songs, and the slupe John B, and I saw

her standing there, whereas marijuana led to pretentious inwardness and contemplation of one

self as a rainbow, or a rubber duck, or rhubarb. This is an old man talking, and my experience

tells me that introspection is short-sighted, and that the great thing is to make yourself

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