Legal High — Mile High

Legal marijuana. I never thought I’d see it happen, not in my lifetime. Legalized medical marijuana is one thing, but now the states of Colorado and Washington have legal marijuana. I never thought.

My life-time of smoking marijuana began in about 1968, just about every day since, lots of Zig-Zag joints at one time, mostly Mexican rat weed, then on to smaller pipe fulls as the smoke grew up in power and price, every puff, every toke full of magic.

And now there are all sorts of edibles and drinks and shops where you can walk in and buy marijuana over the counter. It’s a long way from home-made brownies.

I’ve got to experience it to believe it. I’m traveling to Yellowstone through Denver with my brother for his first visit. I was a park ranger in Yellowstone. You should be so lucky as to see the park through my eyes, my heart and soul.

I guess I could get a medical marijuana card here in California, but who needs one when my source is very close by, and the medical clinics I’ve brushed up against seemed a bit shabby-shady, bars on the windows, shady characters hangin’ around outside. And I guess I still like lingering in what the weed has always been, under the radar, outside the suits and ties that bind, so long as I’m not lingering in a jail cell for possessing a little bit.

“Welcome to Denver!” The entire desk set at the Enterprise rental counter shouts at you the minute you enter. They leave out “Marijuana Capital of America…”

I’m sitting waiting for my brother to arrive. “Welcome to Denver!” Are they high? I think you’d have to be to carry on like that all day.

I corner two of them and pop the question about legal weed. “Yes, people ask…,” “Yes, we think it is mostly your age group…” — meaning visiting Woodstockians.

So legalized marijuana does actually exist and people are asking, and here’s my brother. No, he doesn’t, never has. Oh, well.

Well, we stopped at the Little Bighorn battlefield in Hardin, Montana, next to the Crow reservation; the Crow were Custer’s scouts that day. Custer was high on somethin’. Perhaps an overdose of ego?

Anyway, we had a few days in Yellowstone with fly fishin’ on the Yellowstone River. Saw grizz. Talk about a little Rocky Mountain high. And yes I had a little Cali high with me. Since it’s all about marijuana — how do I take a little Cali high on the flight to Denver? I take a large pill bottle, empty half of it, wrap a little smoke in plastic, insert in pill bottle, cover the little baggie with pills to the bottle brim. Small glass pipe goes in my toilet products pile. It has worked for years.

Years waiting for legal — but after seeing grizz in Yellowstone anything after that is just suds, even legal buds.

Stopped overnight in Fort Collins on the way back to Denver. Very hesitant to ask anyone about legal shops in town because it has been illegal for so long. But eventually I ask a young woman in Arby’s. Yes, Arby’s, next to our motel. After some hesitation on her part I realize she thinks I meant Pawn shop, not pot shop. No harm, no foul.

So, my brother has flown off. I’m in downtown Denver, where pot is legal. I know the 16th St. Mall in Denver from a past visit. I know legal shops are there.

The 16th St. Mall is just that, a shop all big and small. I’m writing some of this in the Tattered Cover bookstore, the real hardwood deal, just up from Starbuck’s and the other Starbuck’s so you get the idea, with free bus service up and down the mall.

Warm and cloudy. Denver is nice but again, after grizz who cares?

My first “legal” shop is Native Roots. I think I know what to expect from all the news reports. A very unassuming building, immaculate white stone stairs down to it, a not-exactly-hippie mural of natural symbols in black and white. Security guard, young, clean cut, no gun or mace, clean uniform, immaculate white stone entrance, bunker like.

The guard checks my ID. The shop is behind closed doors. I’m kind of not liking it already. In I go, absolutely immaculate, much more lab than “head shop.” The security guard is in there with me. Hmmm.

A lab coat wouldn’t be too out of place, young folks, lots of marijuana in sample bottles, all sorts of strains, all sorts of names, glass pipes galore, nothing wooden, my preference, edibles neatly packaged, almost like a jewelry store.

I’m allowed to sniff the product. The woods, the earth, in all their different wonders. I’m wondering about so many things. I wonder where it’s all heading. The right direction to be sure, all the staff here with licensed badges. Can’t smoke in here or out there. Kind of strange but… The folks at the Enterprise desk were glad the new tax dollars from the legal were going to school. We joked about lottery money going somewhere so I wonder…

In here they have a viewing window like an aquarium so you can look in at the cloned green plants. They sell the clones. They don’t grow on site. It all feels a bit “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” But still legal. Forgot to mention that they also checked my ID at the sales counter. Ok.

Back out in the sunlight from the deep bunker. Now I’m in the Lodo Wellness Center, right in the same red brick neighborhood, big outside wall advertisement with the green cross.

Its lobby is oriental in design, sort of like a lobby for a Chinese restaurant. No security guard. Short marijuana plants in a window display, again, like alien plants. Not for sale, just a sample of what they grow on site.

The receptionist is very nice. She tells me security guards are optional. Age groups? All age groups. Customers who haven’t smoked for years.

The shop itself is open door, immaculate. There are two young guys weighing out the beautiful buds, not in their studio apartment, but out in the open, metric-iPad scale, not actual gold dust scales like back in my day, and no plastic buggies. Feels odd, but wow-wow!

There’s Kong and Durban Poison and Green Apple and many more. The smell test is Humbolt perfumed.

As an out-of-stater I can buy up to seven grams at $20 a pop. Native Roots was $15-17. Locals are allowed up to an ounce at about $400. One pop allowed in each shop. I’m not buying, just looking. I’d love to take candy wrapped brownies back home with me but not on the flight. Can’t do it in public and it’s not cool to carry it out of state. I hear that at the neighboring state borders of Kansas and New Mexico folks are being stopped and fined. So everybody is making money I guess.

The young lady here at the lobby desk fills me in on the private buses and hotels that are pitching the pot tours. Yummm.

There’s a couple at the front desk from LA, here on business so just checking it out, former hippies. We mostly agree that legal is good but the feel, the roach around the table feeling is missing. We agree though, we’ll stick to the old ways and lobby hard for the new.

One more shop and that might be enough. That touch I brought with me from Cali fills me with the full fine effects of all sides of the visit. If you like coffee and beer with your legal, visit Denver.

Ah, the heck with another shop, two is enough to get a sense, still feelin’ sort of odd about the whole business, and as business hopefully builds is big tobacco on the prowl, ready to pounce? Will the underground of it re-grow as legal gets bigger, more expensive than say your local guy who now wonders how much to grow — keep up or scale back? Such legal problems we should all have…

Of course I asked about Maureen Dowd, the syndicated columnist. The poor dear came out to Denver from DC to sample the system and the wares, and I’m guessing she is still thinking it’s 1968. The guys at one of the shops told me that the vendor she bought the brownie from of course told her its content and effect. We agree that she being Maureen Dowd, she probably didn’t listen or understand. She eats the whole brownie with a glass of wine and a 911 moment ensued. To her credit she did tell the tale in her column, but it came across as more scary than stupid. She did pay a price in “letters to” and other columnists taking her to task.

My task here is done. Congratulations to Colorado and to Washington State! And am I hearing in Rhode Island sometime soon? That means Manhattan and Boston will come a’callin’, hopefully leading to more legalization and fewer prison cells nationwide. So, come on California! After all, isn’t our state symbol the grizzly bear?