Tired of Selfish Weed Smokers? They're everywhere and they don't care

 by Roger Simon

Some would call Norwegian tennis star Casper Ruud—currently competing at the US Open— rude with an e for bringing up something many of us have been thinking for years.

The NY Post reports under the headline: “Casper Ruud hates the weed smell at US Open: ‘Worst part about New York’”

I don’t know about “worst,” but it’s certainly up there. Every time I go to New York I feel as if I’m getting a contact high just walking around midtown Manhattan, a contact high, to be clear, I don’t want.

(This goes for many other cities, notably Seattle, Denver, Portland and everywhere in CA. In the case of Seattle, you trip over smokers getting off the ferry. It’s like an opium den in 19th Century China.)

I have no right to be a prude about marijuana. I smoked it regularly in my thirties. As I detailed in “Turning Right at Hollywood & Vine,” I did a fair number of other drugs popular at the time as well (psychedelics, etc.). Most of them I only tried once (okay, twice) because I am fortunate not to have an addictive personality—except for the ribeye steaks my doctor tells me are lethal for my kidneys and I am currently trying to shake.

As is well known, marijuana has changed over the years, becoming many times more potent. Curious about that, roughly ten years ago when I was still living in Los Angeles, I picked up the new vintage (there were as many choices as at a luxury wine shop) at a couple of the upscale marijuana emporiums then blossoming along Ventura Blvd. One of them had valet parking yet.

I told the seemingly knowledgeable sales folk I was not interested so much in getting high as in getting a good night’s sleep. They both claimed to have just the thing for me.

Sorry, no. In both cases what I paid (or overpaid) for kept me up past three a.m. in an anguished paranoid mood I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Was this due to my aging body? Maybe partly. I don’t know. But so much for reefer. I haven’t touched the stuff since.

Nevertheless, as we also all know, smoking it has been become ubiquitous. We don’t need Casper Ruud to tell us that. It’s everywhere.

Technically speaking, you’re not allowed to smoke anything at the Open, but the fans don’t seem to care. As another tennis player, Maria Sakkari put it about the alternative, “There’s a park behind, people can do whatever they want.”

Only they don’t. They prefer to smoke inside Arthur Ashe Stadium where ticket prices reach quadruple digits for the final rounds. I guess if you pay that much to watch tennis you should be able to do whatever you please while there. The athletes who have trained so hard to entertain you be damned.

Or maybe not.

Of course, this extends well beyond tennis and into the larger question of the legality of Mary Jane that evidently President Trump is considering making national (for the most part it’s almost already there anyway).

I don’t want to see anybody arrested for what I used to do regularly. I’m not that much of an old fogey hypocrite. Part of a free society is giving people their choice of self-destruction.

No, I don’t want to get into an argument about what’s worse, bourbon or pot? But, just as I don’t like to see alcoholics puking in the street, I’m not happy with people polluting our public spaces with pot smoke. I suspect I’m not alone in that.

One suggestion is simply to have smoking areas, designated areas in the park, as Maria Sakkari suggested. Music venues could be another designated area.

Unfortunately, I doubt many people will adhere to this. Those of us who are tired of having pot smoke blown in our faces either may have to suck it up for the rest of our lives or go somewhere far away where it is forbidden like Antarctica…. Oh, wait.

https://americanrefugees.substack.com/p/tired-of-selfish-weed-smokers