It’s time to end the archaic stigmas around weed

That’s why for me it was strange to walk down the streets of Oakland or San Francisco and inhale the latest “craft cannabis” wafting through the air. I dislike the smell of it. And each time I was forced to breathe it, I found myself nervously looking around for the police and silently judging the people doing the smoking. Right out there in the open in front of children. And then, I would remember: “Oh, yeah. It’s legal here.”

I imagine this would happen to me in all of the 19 states — and D.C. — where recreational marijuana is legal for adults.But the fact that it is legal from place to place still isn’t enough to penetrate the negative feelings I’ve learned to associate with it.

That stigma came back to me last week when Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), who is in a race for the U.S. Senate, called on President Biden to decriminalize marijuana ahead of his visit to Pittsburgh, where he spoke to steelworkers on Labor Day. This was mostly politics on Fetterman’s part: He knows most Pennsylvanians support decriminalization — it is already approved for medical use in some cities — and making weed an issue allows Fetterman, who is trying to win Republican votes, to put himself at odds with Biden.

Biden came and went, and nothing changed, of course. My guess is that the president probably personally opposes decriminalization but keeps those views to himself because he knows most young voters think he is too old to be president again. Yet, the stakes behind Fetterman’s stunt are real, and I speak with some authority. I am a drug addict. I have been clean for almost 10 years. I never liked marijuana. My drugs of choice were cocaine, heroin and prescription drugs, and I, hypocritically, have found myself looking down on weed smokers. This just goes to show the lessons from childhood are slow to let go of us.

The year I was born, in 1970, marijuana was classified by the feds as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it was determined to have a high chance of leading to abuse and causing addiction. You know, like alcohol. The implications behind this decision are far too long to list here. But Black Americans have known for decades what one of them is: Classifying marijuana as a dangerous substance puts certain kinds of people in jail while not affecting the three-martini-lunch crowd. One drug was legal (and tax-subsidized) for one kind of citizen; a different drug was a disproportionate one-way ticket to jail for others.

This absurd double standard persists. I recently drove past a medical cannabis dispensary situated in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Pittsburgh. It sits on a street just a few blocks away from where my friends used to buy their weed from Black men who, if they’re not in jail now, have all done jail time for selling it. And, whenever I pass this weed joint, my irritation feels like an itch between my shoulder blades. One that I can’t quite reach.

We’re still fighting an ancient war that was lost decades ago. For years, marijuana was touted as a dreaded “gateway” drug to harder stuff. But the real gateway drug to serious addiction is probably sitting in a living room cabinet right now or on a kitchen shelf that you think your children can’t reach. The gateway drug is served openly at baseball games. The gateway drug is sold at grocers, bars, restaurants and state-run stores. It is alcohol. That’s how addicts typically begin their spiral. I’ve been to enough Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings to state this with confidence.

My time in California taught me that the people who smoke marijuana aren’t going nowhere in their lives. When I walked through a cloud of rancid weed smoke, I looked up to see just regular folks, professionals, teachers and parents.

I hope someone, someday soon, has the nerve to decriminalize marijuana on a nationwide basis. It’s long past time to do so. The laws are archaic and unfair. And, as for the smell, I figure I’ll get used to it.