Not Your Father’s Weed – Happy Father’s Day!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Explicit.

A Father’s Day message for all those laughing at legal not being your father’s weed. Happy Father’s Day.

Believe it or not, June is upon us – summer has begun.

Amidst a pandemic, protests, and rioting, Missouri is poised to have operational marijuana facilities shortly.  I can think of no better time to take a moment for a lighter topic – let us pay homage to another June event – Father’s Day – this year on June 21.  This is the month we celebrate Dear old Dad.  While we provided recommendations for Mother’s Day gifts for the Moms who medicate – for Father’s Day we’re taking a different approach – and you’ll meet my dad, who is not only the smartest person in the world, but also provides his opinions on all topics – with his backup reasons and rationale.

The 1960s was a decade of the counterculture, which encouraged a revolution of questioning social norms everywhere – clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and education. “Pot” and “grass” were shared among friends and opened up a forum for talking and challenging the status quo.  A little background – my dad was born in 1955 and grew up in the era of rock-n-roll, hippies, war, and weed.  He preferred pot to alcohol and could have been considered a resident expert on the topic of cannabis.  A voracious reader (and self-proclaimed Ph.D. in YouTube) my pop is an information seeker.  Even back then, he was ready to read and learn about any topic that interested him, and without the unlimited access to information online, many of the things learned about were via friends and whatever media was available.

Dad and his people smoked what we call “Dad Weed.”  You can Google “Dad Weed” and plunge into the rabbit hole that is the World Wide Web, but there was a great piece from Eaze a year ago that I think sums it up.

Here’s a summary of my favorite parts:

DAD WEED – Dad knows what it is. And what it isn’t. Because he’s Dad.

• Your whizbang vaporizer thingy? When the battery runs out, Dad will spin up yet another joint that’s shaped like a Cheeto, and you will be grateful for it.
• Dad weed gets you high.  Always has, always will. That’s one job.
• Dad weed is inexpensive flower, though he probably doesn’t call it “flower.”
• Dad weed is rolled or packed in a bowl. Those are the options.
• Dad weed can be indica, sativa, hybrid, or all of the above for all he cares.
• Dad weed was probably grown outdoors, because it definitely looks like it’s just back from a fishing trip.
• Dad weed makes Steely Dan somehow sound better – and new music sound even more like car alarms.
• Dad weed makes your eyes red, your mouth dry, and your hippocampus lights up like your house during the holidays. (Even Dad gets carried away sometimes).
• Dad weed has terpenes and CBD. When you talk to Dad about them, he goes into a reverie. Not because he’s listening and learning. He’s thinking about something else. Probably something to do with Home Depot.
• But Dad weed doesn’t come in janky baggies anymore. It gets tested for pesticides and other contaminants. It comes in lovely glass jars or pouches.

What Dad weed is not.

Dad weed does not “connect to Bluetooth,” come in a stylish pack of five, or get labeled with words like “Felicity,” “Animate” or “Rekindle.” Dad knows darn well what weed is for. And your indoor-grown, 30% THC miracle marijuana is cool with Dad – just don’t expect him to talk or hang out after that session.

My parents both worked full time, and with the advent of adulthood, and responsibilities, not to mention drug tests, my folks, like others of their generations, put the weed away back in the late 70s.  Shelved except for the random and spontaneous opportunities like a camping trip, the cannabis of yesterday was quietly put away and forbidden.  Around the time I entered my early twenties, one of Dad’s friends was arrested outside a grow shop for purchasing cultivation supplies, and despite multiple conversations over the years about pot, I wanted to dig deeper in learning about pot and its prohibition, as well as the atmosphere surrounding the plant through the ages.

My generation heavily favored alcohol to pot, so while I made many foolish decisions, none of them were cannabis-related.  I wasn’t ever forbidden to try weed, but I was threatened within an inch of my life if I drove drunk.  This, among other life lessons, was one that helped frame my own acceptance of cannabis, which after all, is a PLANT.  It’s from the Earth!  Still, I wasn’t interested in consuming cannabis, but I did want to learn all I could about it.  Thus began my over 20-year fascination with the “drug.”  Over time, I did my own reading and became a curator of all things cannabis, immersing myself in investing in early pot stocks, and seeking out culture commentary at every turn.  Out of this came my career “plan” for later in life – stay gainfully employed in corporate America until 50, then retire and move into the cannabis industry.   Dad and I talked about my plans frequently and he was supportive and started educating himself about what cannabis use and culture look like in the 2000s versus the swinging 1960s.

It was in my late 30s when I really felt the impact and negative consequences of chronic insomnia and anxiety.  The cocktail of pharmaceuticals required to address both issues was extensive, and I was tired of filling my body with chemicals and the side effects inherent in multiple pills.  At 40, I turned to cannabis for the first time for my own use.  Suddenly, the cannabis journey became more than simply a business proposition and a fascination.  I was able to sleep, I could conquer my anxiety, and it gave me a whole new battery of questions and things I wanted to talk to my Dad about.  He, as always, loves to have intelligent discussions and we spent countless hours talking about the different kinds of “high” the different delivery methods, edibles, and most importantly, the prohibition of something that our government had outlawed in a political power play years before.

One of my favorite Dad stories about me using cannabis was at Christmas a few years back.  He had bought me ammo for Christmas, and the Winchester company does the packaging of their .22 rounds in great wooden boxes with a sliding lid.  Having seen my “stash” and routine – at that time a repurposed prescription bottle and a pipe, he turned to me, grabbed the box of ammo, and said, “You put this ammo somewhere and use THIS for your weed.  You can’t be smoking pot without a good stash box.”  SO very Dad.

Fast forward – Dad retired, no more drug tests, and we gently waded into the topic of him resuming his use of cannabis.  He has chronic pain from arthritis that ravaged his body after working in blue-collar roles for over 40 years.  He had some 10-year-old pot stashed at their getaway in the woods and decided to indulge.  In casual conversation later, we talked about smoking 10-year-old pot and it made me laugh, but was quintessential Dad – where in the world would he get pot – he hasn’t known a dealer in 50 years?  Perhaps a few months or a year later, he was at my house for one of our recurring coffee dates and I nonchalantly pulled out my stash box and took a hit off my pipe.  I passed to him and he did the same. Just one hit.  Neither of us has a very high tolerance – clearly.  About 10 minutes later, the conversation had sort of stalled and I looked over and he said,  “THAT is not the weed of my youth.”  Their weed WAS different, not just in terms of potency, but also in terms of stigma.  This is a generation that got their cannabis in sandwich bags – not Ziplocs – the foldover kind.  It didn’t smell like today’s weed, and they had to do arduous “cleaning” when they arrived at their destination.  Stems, seeds, random bits of vegetation were all thrown away, and an album cover was more often than not used as a rolling tray.  There were those who were good at rolling a joint, and they were the designated rollers among their friends.  Pipes and bongs could be made from anything that was available, and if you had herb in the car, you drove far more cautiously and law-abidingly than ever in your normal life.

You’ll likely surmise, and you would be correct, that we began a new portion of the pot journey together.  After having been completely burned out in the business world, and unhappy as well as unhealthy with the 90+ hour workweek, I left my healthcare career and started the “plan” early.  This was a new adventure for both of us – I had been “in” cannabis for years, but was finally exposed and having a presence in Missouri’s cannabis trip to the market.  Podcasts I listened to, articles I read, conferences I went to, conversations I was having in the industry – all fueled our growing discussions.

At one point in time, I was interested in applying for a license, but fear of the required capital and not having any of the needed experience to win a license, that plan was abandoned.  When I came home from MJBizCon, full of excitement and an overflowing bag of paraphernalia, I had “new” stuff for us to try.  Topicals, pills, breath strips, tinctures, oh my!

Dad being Dad, he declared all of them as not attractive. As usual, he’s right – at least about some things – they weren’t all home runs.

The reality is that Dad likes to smoke his cannabis – one hit at a time.  Among other things, I came home from MOCANBIZCON with a dugout from our friends at Clovr and CBD flower from the Morgans at SkyTrace Farms.  I presented both to Dad and he started laughing at the dugout.  When I asked why he was laughing, he said, “We used to make these in shop class!  Mine wasn’t this nice, but we MADE these more than 40 years ago!”

Within a few days, I received a priceless text message – “That dugout is THE SHIT.”

Naturally, this made me laugh and when I asked how it was so great since he had made them and was familiar with them back in the day, his response was that it wasn’t homemade and it worked perfectly for his one-hit-wonder pain relief.

For my folks, getting high isn’t the goal – getting relief from pain (him) and calming stress (her) is their WHY.  They indulge in one hit only each and it does the trick.

A large part of this is the fact that the strains available to us today AREN’T your father’s weed.  Today’s strains are more hybrid than sativa or indica, and they’re far higher in THC than that of the past.

For this reason, I cautioned my parents when presenting them with Blue Amnesia, that they needed to take it slow.

My pop’s response was, “You can’t take it much slower than us.”

I was quick to let them know that this batch was highly potent, and after a week, on our Sunday Facetime (thanks, pandemic) chat, I was told, “We tried our new medicine. I haven’t seen your mother that unclenched in 30 years.”

Worried, I asked if it was too potent and he said it was great and did exactly what they’d hoped, but it was very potent and they wouldn’t run out for months to come as a result of such a small dose.

When I suggested grinding CBD flower and mixing to cut the potency, my Dad stopped me, “Tam, we LIKE the medicine.”

As an adult and looking back, at the time I was growing up, it didn’t occur to me that these kinds of conversations and exchanges didn’t take place in the homes of my friends.  I thought everyone’s parents were transparent about their own use of “drugs.”

I thought everyone told their parents about their own experiences.  Turns out, I was wrong.  But what I am right about, is that I’m extremely fortunate not only to have a new tie that binds my dad and me to share in something we both believe in, but I’m also so very fortunate to have a Dad who is always available to talk, listen and most importantly participate in my life.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there!