In the event of legalization, it is unlikely that names will
make a great difference. As Lenny puts it, "A product called Horseshit will outsell Acapulco Gold if it gives you a better smoke." Nor is it clear that marijuana would be distributed by the tobacco companies at all; it might just as easily be the liquor companies—or a new entity, the marijuana company. In response to questions, tobacco company spokesmen point out that if marijuana were made legal, no gearing-up process would even be necessary, since prepackaged joints could be manufactured within a matter of months.Some smokers like to fantasize aloud about a "dope bar" or "smokeasy"; several such places have already come and gone in Manhattan, and perhaps elsewhere. This would be a place where the smoker could go to relax at the end of the day, request his favorite pipe and special blend, and turn on in a friendly atmosphere with fruit juice, ice water, and appropriate sweets at or near every table. There might even be headphones for listening to music, and perhaps pinball machines in a back room.
Beyond that, the possibilities are endless. If restaurants ever serve marijuana, will McDonald's provide the cheapest Mexican blend? Will fancy establishments brag of their fine marijuana cellars? Will somebody market a "dope of the month" service, through which consumers would be sent a different variety through the mails every four weeks, along with a descriptive brochure? Perhaps the future will bring about the production of marijuana with no THC at all, with the THC to be added later, in prefixed amounts. In this way, some plants could be grown only for their looks, taste, and smell, while other plants could be grown only for potency.
But even if marijuana is never legalized, many of today's smokers expect to be using it all of their lives. As one sixties smoker put it:
What's going
to happen to our generation when we're old? We'll all end up in self-help
communes. Together with a few good friends, we'll buy an old house in the
country, and move in. We'll get livein help, and we'll be there, in our
seventies and eighties, sitting around all day with the other old folks on
rocking chairs on a gigantic porch, talking and rocking and passing a few joints.
Unlike previous generations, though, ours won't stop growing or
thinking before we're forty. We'll continue developing, and eventually we'll
become really terrific old people. We'll have reached a formidable level of
sagacity, and we'll be revered, like in Chinese culture. We won't be kicked
out, that's for sure. I take some comfort in knowing that our fate will be
different from that of the generations who came before us. And that whatever we
now get out of smoking dope, we'll continue to get for many years to come.