Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Smoking once a year isn’t hip

There are two things I dislike in this world more than anything. Those two things are hipsters and hippies. And as much as I hate to say it, because I really, really don’t like hipsters, I think they might be slightly better than hippies, only for the fact that they aren’t quite so annoying to look at.

Despite this, and resulting in much confusion on my part, I have mixed feelings towards the self-made holiday that occurs every year on April 20. That holiday is today, in case you forgot already.

If you have been on campus for more than one year, you’ll know this celebration. People skip class, go up on the Hill or Southwest beach, hang out in the sun if they’re lucky, listen to some music and relax. And some people smoke marijuana.

The celebration today has a lot of different themes and motives. For one, there is the idea that it should be, at least somewhat, a time to reflect on our country’s supposedly backwards view and laws regarding marijuana. A lot of celebrations in cities get speakers, politicians and organized festivals. And then, like the Cannabis Reform Coalition on campus, you sit on the ground and think about the laws, get all worked up about conspiracies in the past, talk about The Man and how The Man is bringing you down, and then do absolutely nothing to change anything at all in the slightest. But you’ll always be able to pat each other on the back for knowing the truth because you watched Reefer Madness.

There is, as demonstrated on the Hill, the idea that it is a day to relax and have fun. To hang out with your friends, enjoy yourselves in the new days of springtime, and just bask in the culture of the people who surround you. This can be an outlook shared by people who go out and don’t even smoke. But really, there wouldn’t be this nationwide day if it were not for that.

This, of course, is that it is a day where you get high. Marijuana in the morning, marijuana in the evening, marijuana at suppertime.

Though, the focus on a drug, isn’t just shared every 20th of April, but other times of the year.

“I don’t really smoke myself, but I guess I don’t care if other people do. It’s pretty much the same as St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo. It’s just another excuse for people to act like they have a reason to drink or smoke rather than just admitting they have an addiction problem,” said Zach Goodale, Class of 2011.

And he’s completely correct. There are two types of people who participate in 4/20. There are those who smoke a lot and are just using this made up holiday as a platform to do what they do most every other day; it is a way to justify and reason. If there is a day where a lot of people do something, whether it is smoking or drinking or whatever, it loses its negative connotations slightly.

Then there are those who don’t smoke but they will on 4/20.

The latter of the two types of people is undoubtedly worse. It is ironic for someone who has not smoked in his entire college experience to say the people who smoke one day a year, or somewhere near that count, are worse, especially since the other group is engaging is an effort to avoid a truth, but it is true.

Like those who decide it will be fun to get really drunk on St. Patrick’s Day because “that’s what people do,” it’s an embarrassment to see these people partake in the day of getting high because “that’s what people do.”

If 4/20 is going to be an unofficial holiday and reason for gathering, it should be, as my roommates said, the collection of people coming together to do something on one day that they do on other days. It isn’t even necessarily smoking marijuana, even though that’s what happens. It is about coming together over a shared mutual interest, having fun while doing it, and engaging yourself in the particular culture that revolves around it.

By virtue of growing up in a small town and then going to college in Western Massachusetts, the majority of my friends smoke even if I don’t. So I don’t believe my aversion to 4/20 is the fact that it revolves around marijuana.

The positive aspect of hanging out and enjoying yourself outside is moot because that can happen any day, and any political gain you think you’re getting is in your head – just like all the conspiracies about the politics of marijuana.

The only resulting attributes to the day are that it becomes a cause to justify everyday behavior and to come together to get high. And that is perfectly fine if you enjoy getting high during your week.

So like the days with drinking, today is just an excuse and avoidance of a problem. If that is what you desire, then that’s fine. But if you don’t share the culture, and are only going to smoke on a Tuesday afternoon because it is 4/20 and that’s what everyone else is doing, you are, in every aspect, a loser, and more of one than any alcoholic or pothead.

Ben Moriarty is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].

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  • S

    SamApr 28, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    I smoke a ton of weed, and if you weren’t shitting on it I’d say you were blazed when you wrote this, Ben. Your English is really hard to understand; it’s punctuated poorly, there’s no consistency in your “voice,” and there is no guidance in your argument: “Smoking once a year isn’t hip.”
    You say there are two participants in 4/20–stoners trying to justify their “addiction” and those looking for a taste of the culture–but there’s a third you forgot. The third participant is Ben Moriarty, the critic.
    Almost 100 grams of marijuana passed through my hands in April, ending up in my lungs or shared with my friends. I smoke weed on a daily basis because I like the way it makes my head feel when I wake up, I like the way it makes my body feel after the gym, I like the way it smells, and I like the way it tastes. I smoke weed for myself, not to make political statements, and if it didn’t cost so much I’d say my habits are never detrimental.
    If you looked around, you could find me on the lawn at Extravaganja. I showed up because I love marijuana–say you liked drinking coffee but the beans were illegal…wouldn’t you join other people who want that to change?
    But I wouldn’t call myself a stoner. It is specifically this stereotype that made me want to respond to your editorial. I actually hate the type publicity marijuana gets at the end of April. Of course I love smoking heavily at this time of year, but I look around and see a bunch of really uninformed people talking about something that isn’t even part of their lives, which is why I called you out as a critic. I don’t want to come off as argumentative. I encourage your discussion of marijuana, but do me a favor the next time you write about it:
    If you’re against America’s trend of marijuana decriminalization, decide why. Did your parents or government tell you it’s bad? Did you have a bad experience? Are you concerned about health or crime? After you’ve decided why, interview a marijuana advocate and hear what he or she wants to say. Next, if you can open your mind even a little bit, try to smoke just once–it’s not too hard to find. Write your article after all that. I’d enjoy hearing from a marijuana opposer with a clear vision of its role in our culture, but your article was so weak I don’t even know if you like the stuff, hate it, or maybe you were just trying to meet a deadline.
    Stop writing about hippies and hipsters and stoners. I smoke weed a few times every day, but I’ll soon graduate with UMass’ most demanding undergraduate degree, I pay my bills on time, I exercise, I wear clean clothes, and I don’t eat junk food. Stop comparing alcohol and weed. They aren’t similar. Alcohol impairs general nervous system activity and does permanent damage to your body. Marijuana binds to specific receptors in the brain, and makes you feel nice. It isn’t toxic.

    While the rest of you chatter about what you think about weed, I’ll be over here smoking a blunt while I roll the next one up. Come and partake once you get over yourself and realize that you don’t actually know anything about the stuff.

    Reply
  • Z

    Zack CApr 21, 2010 at 5:43 pm

    “Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one’s ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one’s own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion.” “Cultural relativism is the view that individual beliefs and values systems are culturally relative. That is, no one ethnic group has the right to say that their particular system of beliefs and values, their worldview, is in any way superior to anyone else’s system of beliefs and values.” The 4/20 stoners, or stoners in general aren’t any better or any worse than any other group on this campus, just different. Maybe not you’re cup of tea, but so what? Ease up fascists.

    Reply
  • K

    Ken BurnsApr 21, 2010 at 8:25 am

    It’s not the use of the drug which is so bad, but rather that idiotic culture surrounding it. Being a middle class white kid, listening to reggae and tokin’ up is a pretty silly ideal to cherish- and that’s essentially what it is: an ideal. In this huge campus, 4/20 stoner is just another group, like the bros, the Betty Boop-English majors, the chigga’s, or whatever. I respect people’s personal choices, but this all-too purported belief in a modern hippie culture is just another lie.

    Reply
  • H

    Heather McCormackApr 20, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    Woah, man, someone pass Ben a bong. He’s straight heady trippin on some foggy facts and ignorant generalizations that are so under the influence of braindead pot propaganda they should be illegal, man!

    But I digress. The CRC must have been so busy sitting on the ground, wasting our time “blowing smoke” about the Man, that we forgot that marijuana prohibition was over. Oh wait, dude, it’s still happening! People are still getting arrested (847,864 in 2008, according to NORML) for possession, most of them still disproportionately low income people and people of color, and prohibition is continuing to contribute to the deaths of thousands at the hands of drug cartels along the Mexican-US border…buzzkill, bro!

    Don’t worry, dude, I’m not trying to harsh your mellow. After all, while you were so busy parroting tired stereotypes and self-deluded moralizations (you know, bro, some smokers and non-smokers don’t think that marijuana use is an “addiction problem” that needs to be “justified”), the Cannabis Reform Coalition was wasting time with their “pipe dreams” about decriminalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, so we could save the state an estimated 24.3 million dollars per year (source: Jeffery Miron, he’s a Harvard economist, dude) and reroute police and court resources to crimes that, y’know, actually matter?

    Oh, wait.

    And it would just be a hippy-headed delusion to talk about all the other initiatives the CRC has worked on, from the thousands of signatures collected over decades to support decriminalization, which inevitably gathered the interest of the Marijuana Policy Project—and inspired the funding to make the ballot initiative a reality—to the member we have running for state representative, the members who are elected to town meeting, the speakers we host to talk about the intersectionality of race, class, and the War On Drugs, and oh, yeah…a little 5000+ person prohibition protest-ival that we’ve been throwing, as a little-bitty RSO, for the past 19 years?

    Sorry, I’m not as good at being sarcastic when I’m stoned.

    My bad, bro, sorry to be such a downer. But, as long as marijuana prohibition is still the law of the land in this country—as long as my (or your, or anyone else’s) grandmother is denied access to the only medicine that helps her deal with cancer treatment, as long as a member of our group is denied custody of her grandchild because of merely admitting to having once smoked pot, as long people of color and low income people continue to be disproportionatley thrown in jail and denied housing, financial aid, and other civil rights because of marijuana prohibition, and as long as real, honest appeals to debate and discuss drug law reform is snickered at by almost every politician in elected office, we are going to take 4/20 as an opportunity to show our strength—in numbers, in political argument, in social solidarity (with or without a cloud of smoke to contain us).

    So, dude, if and when you choose to join us to make sure that the decades-long wasteful and reckless delusion known as the War On Drugs is officially “up in smoke”, then we’ll stop blowing it in your face.

    Until then, happy holidays.

    Reply
  • K

    KateApr 20, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    I HATE HIPPIES!!!!! But I love FERAL CHILDREN!

    Reply
  • J

    Julia FrankApr 20, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    As a former hardcore stoner, I must say that I believe smoking weed on a regular basis is more detrimental than chronic cigarette-smoking. Sure, lung cancer and emphysema are terrible but I think that depression, general & social anxiety and permanent memory damage take a much more severe toll on one’s life, especially at this age. I’m convinced that marijuana is to blame for several psychiatric disorders and long-standing lack of motivation in myself and in friends. I’m all for marijuana liberation laws or whatever, it’s just not my cup of tea.
    I can’t say I agree that people who smoke once a year are bigger losers than habitual pot-heads though. Clearly the two groups get high for different purposes, the former presumably want to have a good time while the latter are most likely attempting to escape reality for the same reasons that drive other addictions.
    To sum up: pot is harmful and 4/20 is stupid. Are your parents paying your tuition and fees for classes that you’re not going to just so you can sit on The Hill and get high, only to neglect the work you have for those missed classes? Time to grow up, kiddos. At least save the smoking for a Saturday.

    Reply
  • Z

    Zack CApr 20, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    I disagree with Ben Moriarty’s article, “Smoking once a year isn’t hip”. Specifically he says,”But if you don’t share the culture, and are only going to smoke on a Tuesday afternoon because it is 4/20 and that’s what everyone else is doing, you are, in every aspect, a loser, and more of one than any alcoholic or pothead.” I find this statement to be very disrespectful and offensive. So what if somebody wants to participate in the festivities of 4/20, or St. Patty’s Day, or Cinco de Mayo for that matter. It is about having a good time, whether you choose to partake in the consumption of marijuana or alcohol or not. I think Ben needs to show some tolerance and some respect for people’s personal decisions, because frankly it is none of his business. A person’s choice to get high once a year and enjoy a day with friends isn’t hurting anybody. Maybe Ben should stop the name calling, take a look in the mirror, and reflect on who the true loser is.

    Reply