Cannabis, In A Confused Cultural Space
Will the future continue to hold stigmatization as it did for alcohol?
Photo taken by the author
At some point, the wealthy and powerful decided they no longer wanted to buy from the guy on the corner, or when the state realized the value of cashing in on the drug trade, thus began an uncomfortable alliance. In New York, it’s legal for anyone above 21 to have three ounces of concentrated cannabis, ending decades of vexation on the left and bringing NYC into line with 22 other states that had done the same.
Yet, even with marijuana legalized, a cultural discrepancy remains.
Perhaps weed, like alcohol, is a modern certainty, and it has been proven that prohibition never works. When alcohol was banned in 1920, legislators and anti-alcohol activists cited “health concerns” as their primary justification for temperance. In reality, no research suggests that alcohol is a hazardous substance or that criminalizing it would improve overall health. Banning booze was a colossal failure.
(We have three unauthorized cannabis dispensaries within one block of our apartment building. One of which is featured above.)
What’s that smell?
Manhattan is a town teeming with life, and the air carries a distinctive smell of hot dogs cooking on a street cart. The savory scent of grilled onions and mustard wafts all around us, tempting passersby to stop for a bite.
But now, a new smell has gusted in on the winds of change, just as noticeable — a strange mix that seems to come from everywhere. That unique, fruity aroma seemingly infiltrates every street corner, grocery store, apartment building, and public park in New York.
The smell hits viscerally — Some interpret the scent of weed as people delighting in their newfound freedom, a sign that a sign toward acceptance of people’s mind-alteration preferences has prevailed.
But weed smell has taken up a central place in the range of signifiers certain people raise when describing city life in 2023. As marijuana continues to go mainstream, the undercurrent of a century-long push to smear its name leaves weed in a confused cultural space. Such as unhoused people, feces on the streets, and, well, weed smell. Many of these complaints — subtly or not-so-subtly — invoke racist beliefs about who smokes weed.
On the surface, legalizing weed ushered the drug into cultural normality.
Though pot smell may not be everyone’s favorite — proponents of inhalers say — this current New York is far more improved than the one it replaced, one which ended up empowering cops to stop, frisk, and arrest you for possessing an innocuous plant. Bringing use out into the open regularly imposes small costs. Still, the nuisance is not so acute that it demands such incessant complaining.
Will the future continue to hold stigmatization as it did for alcohol, or has the image of weed been irreversibly tainted?
These questions are emblematic of the tensions between prohibition and normalization, between hiding and publicizing, questions that will remain open until American culture decides how it views marijuana. Criminalizing alcohol didn’t bring about more overall health — it didn’t matter — prohibition was never about health or safety; it was about Puritan conservatism.
As heavy cultural baggage persists in weighing on the drug, some efforts attempt to free marijuana from the image of the washed-up dropout, from fear of crime and disgust. Not too long ago, drug deals took place in alleyways; now, buyers peruse shelves of hybrid, fruity pre-rolls at the window of dispensaries. How can we make sense of this discrepancy between legality on paper and legality in practice?
Weed, paired with shaming, is a cultural discrepancy requiring reconciliation and complaining about the spread of odor into public space — in Manhattan! — it is frankly absurd.
It can be inconsiderate or unwelcome, but that’s a different story. There’s no such thing as olfactory dignity in this town. And weed smoke is but one player in the odorous symphony.
If the smell of somebody’s joint bothers you, widen your nostrils and keep walking because you’re guaranteed to smell something worse. Like rotting garbage on summer days. And the smell of exhaust fumes from vehicles.
Final thoughts
There’s something uniquely anxiety-inducing in New York City, from the apocalyptic intensity of fat rats to the escalation of housing costs to the mugging and murdering, which seems to lend itself to pursuing a means of chilling out.
That curious feeling of disconnection from space and time. And gently pervading it all, a deep sense that everything will be just fine. And that whole social drama around weed smell — sniffing it, secreting it, getting busted for it — is becoming a thing of bygone days.