Marijuana Now Legal in Colorado, Unless it Isn't

This is what the world’s coming to. Back in my day, we didn’t
expect handouts from anyone—we had to work for our weed.

Perhaps somewhat lost in the tumult accompanying last week’s reelection of President Barack Obama was the passage of Colorado’s Amendment 64, which legalized the use of recreational marijuana and left the entire state feeling somewhat stunned that it was more pot-friendly than Oregon.

Well, Amendment 64 sort of legalized marijuana, anyway. Marijuana—or “dope,” as it was called by cool kids a million years ago—is still illegal according to the United States government, and while we did pretty poorly in our tenth-grade Government & Law class, we’re reasonably certain that Colorado was the sixty-eleventh state admitted into the Union, and is thus in some small way affected by the United States government. So in a way that only Erwin Schrödinger—or perhaps a lesser but more thoroughly stoned physicist—could truly appreciate, marijuana use in Colorado is simultaneously legal and illegal.¹


This Amendment’s passage sets up a potentially lengthy and involved showdown between the federal government and a local governor less than thrilled to be backing the new law.² Furthermore, the amendment, having received more than 1.3 million votes of support, may fundamentally alter the age-old stereotype of marijuana users from shiftless, lazy, slacker potheads to motivated, politically involved activists who may or may not remember how they ended up in this voting booth, or why the ballot is watching them.

One place in Denver, Colorado, that sells pot.

In the twelve years since Colorado passed Amendment 20, which legalized the use of medicinal marijuana in the state, the federal government has done little to affect the drug’s expanding availability, which may have fed the public support for this year’s Amendment 64.

It remains to be seen whether the government lacks the manpower or funding to deal with the potential legal quagmire, or is simply not interested in doing so, but for the time being, Colorado is the place to be for the discerning smoking aficionado interested in breaking somewhat fewer laws than usual.

That one place in Boulder, Colorado, that doesn’t sell pot.

In a completely unrelated development, applications to the University of Colorado–Boulder have risen by 32,150% over the last six days. Experts attribute the increase to the popularity of skiing, and young people’s love of John Denver.

This photo of Boulder was taken at 4:20. We don’t know
what this means, though, because we’re pretty square.

NOTE
1. It’s probably too much to hope for, but if that humble sentence can someday at least momentarily boggle the mind of a reader who’s recently toked up, we’ll consider this entire blogging enterprise to be a success.
2. It might be ironic that Governor Hickenlooper has reservations about legalizing a drug that sometimes makes people do stupid shit, given that he made good money selling people beer—but we’ll leave that discussion for another day, or somebody else’s column.

Iowa Nice

Having spent a good deal of time in Iowa over the past thirty-seven years, we can attest that very many Iowans are indeed nice, and we’re not talking just about our extended family.¹

We’re about eight months behind the curve on this particular video, which made the rounds of the internet in January 2012. But we feel obligated to recirculate it for its noble and timeless message about breaking down stereotypes.

Note: this video may not be 100% safe for work if you work in the kind of place that has never, ever, not once, heard naughty language before.

You know, like Iowa.²



 



NOTES
1. That said, our extended family is indeed nice, and by God, the whole state is practically full of ’em.
2. Get it? We’re stereotyping! If calibrated correctly, your Irony Sensor should be pinging softly right now.

How to Fail at Marketing, Lesson 4

American athletic equipment and apparel retailer Dick’s¹ Sporting Goods—quite possibly the most single most successful non-pornographic enterprise ever to make use of the word “Dick”—isn’t actually failing, per se, with the bit of marketing phraseology that is the topic of today’s discussion.

On the contrary, it may actually attract business in this country, and if it convinces some portion of America to get off our giant fat collective ass and start working out, we’re all for it.²

However, we hope that Dick’s, having missed the boat on our earlier advice about marketing, will seriously consider changing this sales pitch if they decide to expand into, say, India:

Just a suggestion.




NOTES
1. Hello, random internet browser who’s never visited this site before. Welcome! We’re far too polite to ask you what Google search brought you here in the first place, because we all know that it had the word “dicks” in it. Perhaps this is what you're looking for. Thanks for stopping by, and please leave a catastrophically punctuated message in our comments section, along with a link to your drug and/or pr0n site!
2. We recently bought a pair of running shorts there, and have so far been disappointed with their inability to make running anything less than the Worst Activity in the World.

Popular Misconceptions about St. Patrick’s Day

 

  

MYTH: Somebody else out there has a shirt that reads “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” so you probably shouldn’t wear yours.

FACT: We’ve never heard this joke before. Come here and give us a kiss.

MYTH: Actual Irish—that is, people found in Ireland and were born there—don’t habitually wear shirts that read “Kiss me, I’m Irish.”

FACT: Believe it or not, they wear them all the time. Of course, being in Ireland, they already know they’re Irish, so they don’t bother with that part of the phrasing. Also, because certain regions of the world express certain sentiments in slightly different ways, their shirts read simply “Fuck you.”

MYTH: Wearing lots of green will make you seem more authentically Irish.

FACT: Wearing lots of green actually makes you authentically Irish. In fact, any sort of association with green qualifies you for citizenship.

The most famous Irishmen of the twentieth century.

 

MYTH: If you don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, you will get pinched.

FACT: We refused to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day throughout our high school career, and claimed that the reason for our stance was that we had actual Irish heritage and didn’t need to bother.¹ In truth, this was secretly an ingenious ploy to get pinched by the girl we liked at the time.² It didn’t work. Never—not once—did we get pinched. It’s okay, though, because she’s dead now.³

MYTH: The Irish are a belligerent, violent people.

FACT: Why don’t you say that to my face, you rotten son of a bitch.

Fortunately, stereotypes of violent Irish are
nowhere to be found in today’s sensitive culture. 

 

MYTH: Didn’t you just love Braveheart?

FACT: Most of the characters in Braveheart were Scots, who come from Scotland—which is a totally different country than Ireland. Really! they have a flag and everything. In fact, the only Irish people you’ll find in the film are one unkempt eccentric and several thousand humorous, belligerent, and easily dispatched extras. The bad guys were English, as all true bad guys are, and of course the hero, William Gibson Wallace, is equal parts American, Australian, and crazy.

It could be worse. I’m only playing a crazy person.

MYTH: Some Irish, and even some Americans of Irish descent, might find it a bit disappointing or even insulting that Americans “honor” the Irish culture by getting blind shitfaced and vomiting on things they’re too drunk to identify.

FACT: The Irish are so constantly, uniformly paralytic drunk that they don’t realize they’re being stereotyped.

MYTH: Drinking green beer will make you more Irish.

FACT: Drinking green beer will make you a fucking idiot.

NOTES

1. We are absolutely 100% half-Irish, if you don’t count the technicality of having been born in the United States of America, just like both our parents, all of our grandparents, and most of our great-grandparents.

2. This is true.

3. Technically she’s not dead; a shocking time-travel accident caused her to kill her own grandfather, so it’s more accurate to say that she simply never existed.