Right Time, Right Place

Tonight I had a great time listening and dancing to some reggae music in a great theatre in Boulder. What makes it more interesting than just a night out with some good music was the fact that it was customer appreciation night sponsored by a company that sells supplies to indoor gardeners.

Of course there are all kinds of things that people take pleasure in growing indoors, like orchids, tomatoes, herbs, fruits and vegetables, but the real boom in gardening entrepreneurs came with the legalization of medical marijuana in Colorado.

After enjoying the pleasures of smoke illegally most of my life, it feels very interesting to be living here while this happens and watch the cultivation and consumption of smoke become on the one hand, a gourmet experience, and on the other, a sort of every day above ground business.

Growers have advanced their art so far that smoke is no longer referred to simply as smoke. It now has names for the various strains that these geniuses have cultivated.

Other companies may have customer appreciation golf outings or customer appreciation banquets, but how appropriate for the growers to have a customer appreciation night in a theatre with reggae bands.

I am just smiling about the whole thing. How lucky I got to happen to be living in a state just when legalization happened. It's a weird reality. A whole new crop of green entrepreneurs are doing their part to create local businesses to boost the economy. The reality kind of zings again when talking someone in another state where these things are not legal and they are still worried about hiding everything and not getting caught. And when you remind them that it is not that way everywhere any more, they go "oh, that's right. You're in one of the states where it is legal.

Eventually it will happen. Just like beer could not remain illegal forever. Eventually, politicians will wake up and decide that it is smarter to legalize it and make money taxing these new legal businesses instead of spending tons of money trying to prevent people from doing what they want to do and will do, no matter what their status is. One of these days there will not be legal and illegal states, and there will be customer appreciation concerts featuring reggae bands everywhere.