Sunny side of the day!

In a word. “Perfect!”

You might be wondering what a delightful road trip, three Goodwill stores, an Indian food buffet, a live music fest, a world class dispensary and the second to last weekend of the season at Lakeside Amusement Park have in common with cannabis?

Nothing, really,

But then again, maybe a lot.

For starters it felt like cannabis was all around us yesterday, not in our face but in a warm friendly kind of way. It could have been, too, that we were celebrating community family life out and about in town and that was the order of the day, From my experience the kind bud just doesn’t surface when the kids are in and around and under foot, never a bad thing, I think. But more than anything, I feel that Cannabis has arrived in this state, has shown itself to be a positive social lubricant and because of of it's ubiquity is pretty much accepted here in Colorado as a good, not an evil. My overall impression? It just doesn't seems to be a big thing here, not in the way the reefer madness crowd would like for us to think.

Now, this isn’t to say that I didn’t see mention of it over the course of the day. Commercially it's a big thing here.  Mota leaves were up there for all to see on signage for rec shops and dispensaries all along the way from Greeley to Denver. Local papers were loaded with ads, too. Westword and the Boulder Weekly had plenty of advertisements for cannabis products in the back pages of their rags. With the enticing billboards and all the ad space filled up you just have to figure that marijuana is booming here along the Front Range. But even with the big splashy print ads and all the rest of the wonderment around us I never really felt the presence of marijuana, not in the negative scary way that the drug warriors warned us about..

Indeed, with all that mota floating around out there you would think that doobies would be dangling from everybody’s lips, but, thankfully, that’s just not the case. Folk are paying attention to local ordinance and to state laws because I believe most folks like this privilege of being able to smoke pot freely in their homes. Except for a sniff or two at the amusement park last night (and hey, we got there at late twilight and the park, with it’s neon stoked visuals, practically begged for a high!) there was no sign that folks were running amok with their heads full of cannabis smoke. It really was the other way around. It was a mellow time, a true meeting of the tribes and all through the night was a delight.

Now, I am a true believer that you don't need cannabis to be happy. I am a happy man generally speaking and my family would be happy to verify that if you asked them. Yes, I am sure that my perfect day yesterday was deeply colored by my love for my peeps. We had a perfect family outing, a true happy, happy, joy, joy kind of day. We shopped well, found cool things to do and eat, we got along all day long, money wasn’t tight, the weather was perfect and the venue for music very sweet and uplifting. The Sunnyside Music Fest was truly the unexpected highlight of the day. Free music, food and merchandise vendors around the perimeter of the park, lots of cold beer and tons and tons of great family vibes. I have to thank the Denver Post for the article on Friday that got us there on Saturday. We now have a favorite neighborhood and destination in the city, a launch pad for weekends and a target neighborhood to shoot for.

But getting back to cannabis. We were out and about all around the region…a campus business zone on game day, a live outdoor neighborhood music scene, an old school amusement park after dark…and nowhere did I experience the socially detrimental side of cannabis that the anti-drug warriors would like for us to fear. Alcohol was more visibly displayed (and socially accepted) as we made our way round town than pot. As for alcohol we were encouraged to buy and drink up at the music fest because the non-profit event was in part funded by our libation purchases (I was a good citizen and did my part). I love my beer, love my wine and have no issues with drink in general but what I want to say here is that mota, as an entity and as a socially acceptable drug in and to itself, was a player, a silent partner in all those events and not at all negative from what I could see.

So, knowing that it was swirling all around me I had to play a part in the grand social experiment, too. It was hard to be on the Northside and not pick up some mota for myself so I stopped by the Oasis Cannabis Superstore once again and bought a couple grams of flower. It was a fine visit, complete with great service and an overwhelming amount of pot to chose from. Now, don't take that less than energetic set of sentences as a sign that I wasn’t pleased with the experience because I was pleased greatly. I left the store in a complete state of awe. Rather, what I am seeing and loving about this great experiment here in Colorado is that cannabis is just doesn’t feel to me like an issue. It’s the norm now and that is beyond cool. Walking in and out of that pot shop was like stopping in at Wilbers in Fort Collins and walking out with an assorted case of wine, For me, buying pot, getting high here is the social equivalent of smiling, or being polite, or being libertarian, in the way that says you do your thing and I’ll do mine and we just leave each other to our own devices and thanks to that we’ll just all get along.

I feel that cannabis is allowing for that in a big way. Allowing for us to just all get along. It just seems to be and feels so normal that at times I think we are not even noticing it.

Again, I wasn’t tripping among the Travelers at the mall downtown or hanging with folks at the Mission who do have social issues or economic problems beyond drugs. I was with my peeps, amidst regular folks doing regular things. And, certainly, I went out and about with a touch of tincture under my tongue. I was happy in the kind of way kind that allow my gal to shop for clothes till the cows come home. With that slight bit of buzz I can groove on art and music and film and it all works out well in the end. And yes, the food did taste better that day, and yes, with a bit of mota cruising through my veins I could watch the world go by and let folks do their thing. With a touch of dope you can find joy in old neon light and take the zoom-zoom-zoom of carnival rides just a bit better than could ever with a belly full of beer. Life just seems to be better and buddy, there is nothing wrong with that.

With cannabis we all just seem to have better days. We are hard wired for that plant and with that plant we all find ways to get along better.

So, in the end, I just want to thank my peeps for their generosity of spirit, thank Sunnyside for the grand music time, thank Goodwill donators that allowed for us to have such a stupendous haul, thank the crew of that anonymous Indian food joint in Boulder for a delicious lunch spread and thank Lakeside Amusement Park for still being around after all these years.  But mostly I just wish to thank the citizens of Colorado for passing Amendment 64. Your great bravery at the polls has turned into a grand social experiment and from what I can tell it is working out beautifully!

Salud!

Lakeside Amusement Park!

A great article on Sunnyside!
http://www.denverpost.com/2014/12/23/sunnyside-neighborhood-in-nw-denver-thriving-amid-success-of-highland/