MARIJUANA OBSESSION - Autobiographical Critique

Face it old man - "you're obsessed with marijuana".

So I face it...

I look in a mirror; what do I see?

What I see is why I don't look into a mirror.

No, not anything bad, I'm really a good guy, I know that. Being obsessed with marijuana isn't what i see looking in a mirror... what I see is the challenge life has been and how fortunate I've been to have had the very unique experiences I have had, and to be able to look back on them.

But not in a mirror...

In a mirror I see a person alienated from his family, and society... for really asinine reasons. My choice at age 21, for example, to get a job as a custodian at a community college. It was my dream... but there was the disgrace it caused to my mother... and then there was sex, OMG, sex! Not a place we can go just yet... but let's consider an obsession towards knowledge, being human, fitting in, and finally, my interest in cannabis, which happened quite unexpectedly (and covered under earlier posts) actually.

My family mocked me as a "career student", since once I started using cannabis, I suddenly loved learning... and my job provided free tuition, so I could take any subjects I wanted... and I did, but alas, "the family rulebook", like the Supreme Court might rule, found that "career student" was an unacceptable use of my life.

Like Sarah Silverman, I just wouldn't "grow-up"!

I am, therefore, pretty much in self-exile from my family... in the 1970's we were expected to go to college, get a good paying job, get married, buy a house, have children, and grand-children, and die. College was but a stepping stone - one not designed or established so one would really learn, but an extension of high school, where you furthered your "prescribed" implant of information to go to the next square.

I blame a book my Aunt Helen gave me, Christmas, when I was 8yo, by Ray Bradbury - "R Is For Rocket", for making me different. Not cannabis or marijuana as many like to call it. Cannabis simply opened my eyes to the obvious... or what should have been obvious in my opinion... that education was and could be much more than the next square.

Having uncovered that secret however made me an outcast - yeah maybe in my own mind, but think about it - how many persons really look at college as a place of enlightenment, a place to learn, a place to become all you can? A place to research your most intimate interest, a place to socialize and find you're not so bad after-all...

If, like Sarah Silverman was able to do in her 2010 autobiography, I was able to do in my blog... I would not only feel very happy, but I'll bet, I could knock your socks off! The title of the book is "A View From Behind the Mop", and I've been working on it for almost 35 years... it's a story that happened by accident, when I chose the "road less traveled". What's ironic is that I didn't search for this road, it found me. As it should.

I had decisions to make for the first time in my life... and I embraced them, rather scared at first, but I did. But then, that "family rulebook" and almost daily calls from my mother, all starting out innocuous, but all leading to that rulebook, and to continued "parenting", which not only really annoyed me, but by age 21 that's an infringement.

Marijuana, happens to be a topic I've extensively researched since the 1970's... and had ample opportunity to experience first-hand. And to be quite honest, since I turned 50, like clockwork it seemed,  I haven't used cannabis very often since then, because pot is for young people. At least that's how the laws affect it's use, in my opinion. Instead, now I reflect on my life... smoke a lot of cigarettes and consume a lot of beer. Yes, and I do work 40 hours a week and commute an additional 17hours during the week. The irony - I've been told it's healthier drinking and smoking butts - Why? Marijuana is illegal, that's why.

Marijuana Prohibition is simply plain wrong. That's why i write about it... that and because my First Amendment rights permit me to. I'm also bothered by how cannabis, which was accepted in this country until 1937, suddenly became "the demon weed". If you've read my history of marijuana you'd see the term "marijuana" is directed towards Mexicans to begin with, and a prejudice... we called it ganjah, not marijuana. It became the target of immigration reform back in the 1930's... which then led to Reefer madness and the problems we have today, sorting truth from fiction.

Considering what's going on in our world, it's ironic that I find myself writing a blog that's considered "at the fringe", as I try and separate fact from lies. That the likes of people like Charles Manson and Joran van der Sloot are celebrities, getting numerous marriage proposals, and attention; that Wall Street needed us tax-payers to bail them out... hey, I could use a "bail-out" too!!!.

Marijuana is not the problem... Reefer madness is - the concept, the idea. It a comedy of tragedies... one that grows more elaborate and ludicrous every day. I need not remind my readers that on Change.org for 2010,  "legalization of marijuana" was voted the number 1 issue for reform in America.

I'm hardly alone... it turns out. Though I feel like I am.