A change is a gonna be coming with regards to the way pot is perceived

I don’t use marijuana, largely because I find the thought of smoking anything to be repulsive and I’m not thrilled about the concept of substances that alter one’s perception of the world around us.

PRITZKER: Backs 'home grow'

I want my senses at full power, and not altered into a haze. It’s not something I’d find relaxing.

BUT I’M ALSO realistic enough to know that many of the laws that exist to criminalize the drug’s use come from an ideological mentality that thought marijuana was only used by certain types of people – and harassment of those individuals was what the laws really were all about.

So we’re bound to have partisan political fights in coming years as we try to reach some realization that a person has some sort of right to get themselves stoned into oblivion. If they’re that stupid, who are we to really stop them.

After all, we did away with Prohibition decades ago. Some of those who argue vehemently about wanting to crack down on drugs will also argue one’s right to get themselves intoxicated beyond belief.

Then again, getting drunk is “cool” and a sign that one is an adult. While getting “stoned” is for hippie freaks still trying to live the Haight Ashbury lifestyle – failing to realize that truly trendy people are ridiculing them. Or if we’re talking about the more bigoted amongst us, we get the old allusions to jazz musicians (who were nothing but Negro ‘hopheads’) being the only people who get stoned.

From the Hippie perceptions … 

ALL OF THESE thoughts popped into my mind when I learned of Gov. J.B. Pritzker saying he supports the concept of “home grow.” As in the right of people to grow marijuana plants within their own homes for their own personal use.

With some of the state legislators who have supported measures to permit medical use of marijuana now talking about changes in Illinois law to allow for one to have their own pot plants in the house.

… to those of age-old prejudices … 

We’d have to stop thinking of the person with special lamps and ventilation systems set up in their closets to allow for marijuana growth (in part because the dark conditions can be prime and because of the lack of attention) as being some sort of criminal.

Those ads for the marijuana grow lights would take on a less-sinister connotation. Although I’m sure the ideologues amongst us will forevermore view it as their life’s mission to keep such changes in perception from ever fully taking place.

… to the ludicrousness of certain Mexican cinema

AS FAR AS the legislative process in Illinois is concerned, officials are contemplating a measure that would let people have up to five marijuana plants in the home. Similar to how possession of a tiny amount on one’s person is now considered a minor offense worthy only of a small fine.

Some states that already permit “home grow” allow more, with Michigan law permitting people to have up to a dozen plants in their homes.

In short, nobody is talking about allowing someone to convert the entire basement into a dark, dank pot farm of sorts.

I use that particular image because of a personal, of sorts, experience. When one of my grandmothers died and the family ultimately sold off the house in which she lived at the end of her life, we got our shock a few years later when we saw the house on the television news.

IT TURNS OUT the new owners bought the home because they liked its big, huge basement already broken up into several rooms, and turned those rooms into a sophisticated operation for the growing of marijuana.

I wonder what my grandmother would have thought of the idea of a police raid at her one-time home. But then again, I seem to recall those new owners paid cash up front for the home. It’s no wonder. Business must have been good.

Will its gags become obsolete?

But for those people who want to retort to all of this that marijuana legalization or decriminalization of any sort is an encouragement to inherently criminal activity, I’d argue that it only takes on its criminal essence because we make it so. Making such changes in law might actually undermine the ability of criminals to make money off drugs. Taking away the financial incentive would go a long way toward reducing crime.

Then again, it would make the old Cheech and Chong film “Nice Dreams” seem obsolete – future generations might not get the gag of the scene where the namesake characters were growing marijuana in their swimming pool, with a pool cover meant to make it appear from the air that the pool was filmed with water.

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