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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOn Smoking Weed in the Late 60s and 70s
It was illegal to possess marijuana or to smoke it back then. Guess what? We smoked it anyway and possessed as much of it as our budgets would allow.
We mostly smoked it in the privacy of our homes, and bought our stashes from people we knew, who bought it from people they knew. We didn't blatantly smoke out in public, although you could do that if you looked around carefully first. Sometimes we did that.
I smoked it daily for about six years, recreationally. I smoked it with friends as a social thing. I got high, got the munchies, ate and fell asleep happy.
Mostly, I smoked it in the evening. I had stuff to do during the day, so I didn't smoke it then. I was working on my degree, and I did need to think once in a while, and had books to read and papers to write. I also had papers to roll with, but didn't mix the two.
And here's the thing: It was illegal. But, nobody I knew ever got busted for it. Nobody I knew got busted for selling me an ounce of crappy weed full of stems and seeds, and I never heard of anyone they knew getting busted, either.
But, it was illegal. We smoked it anyhow, because, well, it was weed and it was fun to get stoned.
Now, it's getting legal in many place. But, I don't smoke it no more. I quit in 1974, the first time my friend told me my ounce was going to cost $100. Nope. No, thanks. I don't smoke it no more.
I'm 73 years old now. My dope-smoking days were between 1968 and 1974. It was illegal then. I still smoked it.
Cartoonist
(7,291 posts)We had a cop in our small town that had a reputation as a big nose. He was known for smelling weed during traffic stops. There were a lot of busts, but no jail for white high school students.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)Never smoked anytime there were cops around. Never got busted. We were careful.
It wasn't white privilege. It was being careful.
Solomon
(12,300 posts)Represented hundreds of people busted for marijuana. Never had to represent a white person for msrihuana. I once went to a marijuana anonymous meeting with a client. The white people laughed about how they never got busted when cops caught them. The cops would telll them where to smoke it at
No white privilege my ass! The marijuana laws were specifically enacted as a war against black people. Look up the history of it.
You didnt have to be so careful but I guess you didnt know that. Plus I guess you think white people are careful and black people are just stupid.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)He got busted.
So did her boyfriend. Scared the crap out of me.
TeamPooka
(24,123 posts)Runningdawg
(4,488 posts)One couple picked up a dude who had wrecked his boat and was drowning in the middle of a lake. Lake patrol discovered he had a couple OZs on him. They arrested everyone. They took my friends car, truck, boat, house and seized all their bank accounts. Sure they were eventually cleared, after paying $$$$$ but by then the storage prices for their stuff was over a million dollars. And they never even got high....
I gotta tell you. I'm nearly 60 and just got my card. I usually carry a piece of candy in my purse for panic attacks and my asshole STILL puckers every time I see a cop.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)But then, I never went to Oklahoma. No reason to go there.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)I can assure you that you havent missed a goddamned thing.
samnsara
(17,554 posts)MicaelS
(8,747 posts)It make me hungry, horny and sleepy, in that order. And I never really liked being high, so I quit.
FakeNoose
(32,198 posts)... so I had a steady supply of pot if I wanted it. Well I only smoked occasionally but I could have done a lot more. Like you, I never knew anyone who got busted for possession or smoking it. People living in the country (like my friends) could scatter seeds and grow it in several remote places. Just don't plant a big field of it, the narcs would have eventually found it.
For awhile in college I lived in northern Indiana where "hemp" could be found growing literally like a weed just about anywhere.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)in Iowa. As we were driving down a road, we passed a corn field. At the bottom corner of the field, near the ditch on the road was an enormous marijuana plant that had been fertilized with the corn. It was at least 12 feet high. On several of the branches were huge flower clusters, with purple leaves and buds coated with little balls of resin. Jebus! It wasn't a hemp plant, like the stuff that grew everywhere in the ditches. This was someone's pet weed.
I made my wife's brother stop, and I cut one flower head off the plant and we took it with us. I stripped it down carefully and put it in their dehydrator - the one they used to dry fruit and stuff. In a couple of days, it was ready. I rolled up some joints and my then wife and I lit up. We got her brother and his wife to join us. They weren't regular tokers, but they played along. Amazing stuff that was, even if it was ditch weed. I felt a little guilty about stealing someone's pet dope, but screw that, really. There were at least four ounces of the dried stuff from that one monstrous flower head.
I tried to figure out some way to get it back to California, but decided not to take the risk, so I left it with her brother and his wife. Over time, they smoked it all up and shared it with their friends. What a sad day it was, flying back to California without it.
FakeNoose
(32,198 posts)I'll bet the farmer who planted it didn't even know you got some of it. It grows like that in California too, and my friends were growing it in upstate New York. So pretty much anywhere, if you have a few remote acres of land and if you can wait 3 or 4 months until it blooms.
Those days are over for me though. I'll bet it's been 30 years since I smoked pot.
malaise
(267,452 posts)Let me put it this way - people here light up at political conventions, music concerts, football and cricket matches. weddings, christenings, funerals, etc., etc. - there is less public smoking these days because of the public ban on smoking cigarettes.
The middle class here always did like you - smoked in private - but poor people felt the wrath of the police and the pot smoking politicians.
These days you can have five plants.
IADEMO2004
(5,538 posts)Cold War Spook
(1,279 posts)I was in the army. I got busted in 1966. For my crime, I was sent to Frankfurt am Main to finish out my 18-month tour. The last base was Ft. Meade Md. They wanted me to reenlist, but my next tour would have been as an interrogator in Vietnam. If they had told me about all the dope in Vietnam I probably would have reenlisted. All the VA doctors I have had do not report weed in your blood tests or urinalysis. Better ask yours first before taking any tests.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)I discovered that you could buy hashish in the local pharmacies at the time. So, I did, of course. Our barracks at that remote base on the Black sea always smelled like a hash den. It was more or less tolerated and nobody ever got busted.
I resisted the urge to take any of it home with me. But, it was absolutely amazing stuff, and actually legal medicinal hash at the time in Turkey, although illegal on the base.
Cold War Spook
(1,279 posts)I was on a small base, Site 23, outside Ankara.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)I was at TUSLOG Det. 3-2 near Samsun, Turkey. USAF. Russian linguist/analyst. Like you, I ended up at Ft. Meade, working in that big building, until the end of my enlistment.
Cold War Spook
(1,279 posts)Russian linguist studied at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California. 47 weeks, 6 hours a day 5 days a week. In fact, I was at the Steinbeck Theater watching a Russian Opera, The Queen of Spades when at the end of the movie the manager came out and told us JFK had been shot. All our teachers could say was they hoped the shooter wasn't a Russian. They didn't tell me why they wanted me in Vietnam but later when I learned that the North Vietnam SAM sites were controlled by Russian officers, I thought, man, if they wanted me to go with a unit of Special Forces into North Vietnam to capture one they were crazy.
Submariner
(12,477 posts)got everyone locked up in a nasty Turkish prison. For that reason, Turkey has not been high on my bucket list of places to go.
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)Lebanese blond hash was available in pharmacies there at the time, sold by the gram for not very much money. It was medicine, see... The word was the same in Turkish.
Cold War Spook
(1,279 posts)who wouldn't mind being a prostitute in a karahanee, not sure of the spelling, a Turkish prison for women who are paying off daddy's debt. You walk into this town, where all the girls are showing off their wares. They are clean, regularly being checked by doctors. It was nice going in there to do a little window shopping.
LakeArenal
(28,673 posts)The narc came to the door with money for Mrs roommate who was in shower at the time. Mr. put it on the coffee table and served 45 days in jail at Christmas. Was supposed to be 60 days. 15 off for good behavior.
His roommate spent a year in jail.
So yea. Folks went to jail then.
Two interesting points.
The jail had plenty of pot in the cells.
About six months after Mr. got out of jail his older sister ran over and killed the presiding judges sister. Pure coincidence and no charges filed.
samnsara
(17,554 posts)....i can get an oz for under $60. I spent $3500 on a BC Northern Lights Bloom box.I can grow all year long. My son in law got me an oz of Blue Dream for under 100 oz..but i still walk to the corner pot store and buy weed CUZ I CAN...and thats the best reason of all.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)I'm pretty sure the rate of MJ use in the Netherlands was considerably lower than here for example.
Basic LA
(1,630 posts)I'm 73 also, & it's still my reason. (What a pleasure now to walk into a little shop & buy it legally & "recreationally." At least here in California.)
leftyladyfrommo
(18,806 posts)Going on 50 years. I'm not crazy yet.
Voltaire2
(12,511 posts)for possession and selling weed. You might want to research the stats. For example, CA arrested 37,514 people for pot in 1967. That is just one state. A big one, but just one.
http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/moscone/chap1.htm
Texas was and is notorious for not only arresting the fuck out of pot smokers, but also incarcerating them for ridiculous amounts of time.
"About 98 percent of Texas' 2016 marijuana arrests were for possession, as opposed to more serious distribution-related criminal offenses. But even simple possession carries stiff penalties here up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine for anything below 2 oz."
https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2018/05/04/while-other-states-decriminalized-texas-ranked-no-1-in-marijuana-arrests
And the Reagan and the 80's and the war on drugs: one fallout is that we have hard stats on drug arrests.In 1987 there were nearlyt 500,000 pot arrests.
https://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/enforce.cfm
struggle4progress
(117,947 posts)struggle4progress
(117,947 posts)llmart
(15,476 posts)He is a huge proponent of marijuana. He has traveled all over the world and been in countries where it's legal and used as regularly as Americans use alcohol. I believe it was in a NY Times magazine where I read an interview with him that just blew me away. I think he uses quite regularly. He has such a squeaky clean reputation and appearance which makes it all the more delightful to know that he's a toker.
obamanut2012
(25,869 posts)hunter
(38,240 posts)And it's not for lack of trying, by doctor's prescription or any other means.
Prednisone comes the closest but when I take it too long it makes me psychotic. I suspect using cannabis too long would have a similar effect on me, but that's not a risk because I don't enjoy the cannabis "high."
I have found a few drugs that make me less unhappy, and those are legally prescribed. These are the sorts of drugs that keep me grounded. If I want to take some kind of "trip" I can always stop taking them, and I have.
Nevertheless I support the nationwide legalization of cannabis. It's legal here in California and there are a couple of shops in town that sell it.
For all the drug war hyperbole, legalizing recreational cannabis here in California has been remarkably dull.
The shelves of the cannabis shops are stocked with a wide variety of products, with different properties and different levels of the various cannabinoids; a much greater variety than anyone could ever get from some sketchy guy they knew.
I think all drugs should be decriminalized.
Opioids and amphetamines are cheap and not especially dangerous in a mildly supervised living situation. Such living situations, other than jail or prison, ought to be easily accessible to addicts, much easier than the constant struggle to obtain and pay for dangerous street drugs.
Moral arguments and law enforcement have not, and will not, solve the problem of drug addiction.
brush
(53,331 posts)the Bay Area to New York. I knew I had to be alert and on my toes in a new city and new job. I enjoyed getting high, smoked socially with friends, also mostly just regular strength weed with seeds and stems. Occasionally we'd get our hot little hands on some Michoacán or Panama Red or some Acapulco Gold (or so we were told. They were stronger though). Sometimes even flower tops from the growing regions in California. It was a fun time. We did mescaline and acid at times. All of that was happening then.
Glad I went through it but but my relocation made me realize how much time getting high tookfrom looking to cop to finally smoking and then the time being high.
I must admit Ive tried some of the current weed and it is much, jmuch stronger now and I really don't have time to be that high that long nowadays. It was like bing on an hours-long acid trip.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,065 posts)but we were very careful only to do it indoors; sometimes we went so far as to stuff towels along the crack under the door. People did get busted - not often, and none of my personal friends were among them but it happened. The high was nice but I didn't care much for the smell, and I haven't touched it since the early '70s. Even if it becomes completely legal for recreational use in my state I don't think I'll ever take it up again.
ms liberty
(8,438 posts)I'm really not sure what your point is. Are you saying that it being illegal then means it's no big deal when it's illegal now?
MineralMan
(146,116 posts)Nothing more. Smoking it has always involved some risk until recently. Now, the trend is toward legalization. Legal in California now.
We used it, but very carefully, to avoid the risk.
Voltaire2
(12,511 posts)And here's the thing: It was illegal. But, nobody I knew ever got busted for it. Nobody I knew got busted for selling me an ounce of crappy weed full of stems and seeds, and I never heard of anyone they knew getting busted, either.
Which really seems to me to diminish and trivialize the stunningly adverse consequences of prohibition.
Why would you want to do that?
Around 1,000,000 people per year are arrested for pot.
melman
(7,681 posts)This is all about a certain candidate with less-than-evolved ideas on this topic. With a record to match.
The idea here is to defend that and scold the people who might have a problem with it.
That's the whole point of this.
Voltaire2
(12,511 posts)As it is we get to play guess the agenda.
melman
(7,681 posts)But it doesn't appear to be OP's style.
btw, I know you knew what it was about. but I just wanted to type it out bc this thread was pissing me off.
walkingman
(7,462 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)I had roommates in college that would reach for a joint right after the morning alarm clock went off.
Alcohol was a much more social drug.
Now, LSD ...
melman
(7,681 posts)How wonderful. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't quite as lucky and it had a terrible effect on my life.
But I guess I just should have known better because after all it was illegal...right?
maxsolomon
(32,918 posts)I'm not sure what your point is, either.
At some point, your marijuana was grown (or imported, or sold in large quantities) by someone taking a considerable risk to life and liberty, and many of them paid dearly for it. Felony convictions. Prison.
I know one (white) man who served time in Indiana for growing.
I also know a (white) woman who was jailed in Utah for possession.
The spreading legalization movement is proof that ALL of that effort, from the 20s on, was a pointless tragedy. When will it be legalized at the federal level? When small states lose their grip on power in this nation. That is to say: not in my lifetime.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Does that mean I should try shrooms? Do you think the legal ones will smell better?
Pot was more fun when it was illegal.