Cultural Lessons: In 2008, Pop Culture Took A Few Long, Hard Tokes

[Ganjarden]

At the core of The Wackness is a love story between a spoiled psychiatrist's stepdaughter and a pot dealer in New York City. That the protagonist and his mentor deal and puff marijuana is never made much of an issue and, why should it be? In 2008, popular culture just said yes. From the screen to the art world, literature to the hippies running the Amazing Race, everyone seemed to be getting irie, popular culture providing a bailout the government couldn't endorse.

Even the Golden Globe Awards got high on amiable stoners. When James Franco earned a best actor nomination for his role in Pineapple Express, it was confirmed: Weed had officially become mainstream and Mary-Louise Parker's pot dealer had turned the suburbs' clocks to 4:20. Of course, there's a downside to all this toking. A B.C. study found that while drinking and driving was down, drug use among motorists had gone up. According to a December study by the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse, while 8.4% of nighttime drivers tested positive for alcohol, 10.4% proved positive for drugs.

Maybe when the most popular U.S. president-elect in memory admits he "inhaled frequently," and everyone's favourite film Slumdog Millionaire is soundtracked by the great M.I.A. song Paper Planes, there's a lingering effect when the smoke clears. "I fly like paper, get high like planes/ if you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name," goes the lyric to the M.I.A. song, which was played ubiquitously on both urban and rock radio. Apparently, music's most popular genres both agreed on broadcasting from the smoking section. What was it about 2008 that made everybody not wait to inhale? Against the collapse of industry, Lil Wayne sipping cough syrup and Twilight's Kristen Stewart smoking hash suddenly didn't seem so offensive. This year, the potheads were the good guys. It was the bankers who were getting locked up.


News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: National Post
Author: Ben Kaplan
Contact: National Post
Copyright: 2008 The National Post Company
Website: Cultural Lessons: In 2008, Pop Culture Took A Few Long, Hard Tokes

 

[reefersmoke]

Let's hope for more of the same in 2009 and the general populace continues to realize that we have far more daunting issues to deal with than fighting the popularity of a harmless plant.



A

 

[michaelkaer]

Up here in Canada we are waiting for a final word from a high court judge on the Long case. It has been appealed and I think this is the final appeal is will go through. The courts have found the law around simple posession to be unconstitutional. If a person is charged under law that is null and void then the judge has no choice but to throw it out. The fault lies at the feet of the harper government and the liberal government before him for not dealing with this issue by changing the constitution. Now with the common people saying legalize it or at the very least decriminalize it being in the vast majority, the government could easily get a bill passed to ease up on pot. What does harper do? He wants to slap a minimum 6 month jail time per plant. That is not going to fly. his days are numbered just as bush's days are. He has managed to keep in power till the end of January but past that, it is up in the air. His own people want him to step away. He is completely out of touch with the pulse of the nation.