The Inevitable 4/20 Post, Dept.

Remember when smoking marijuana was a furtive, shameful thing?  Like masturbation, only with less Kleenex.  No more, my brethren and sistren.  Exhibit A: today's Wall Street Journal features an article--"High Expectations: Marketers Hope for Buzz on 4/20"--that pretty much tells me that torching a fatty has become as mainstream as cheating on your taxes or Googling your ex-girlfriends.

When your sobsister was in the Wonder Years (ages one through 12, not the TV show), I remember talk of marijuana legalization in these here United States.  The Big Tobacco Companies were rumored to be retooling their assembly lines to produce endless files of joints soon! maybe next year!  That this entrepreneurial foray into the world of mass-produced entheogens did not take place then does not preclude its occurrence now or soon.  I think we may have turned a corner as a nation on pot smoking in much the way that we did on gay marriage or homosexuals in the military.  Sure, there's a flock of people against any or all of the preceding, but there's also more Main Street acceptance led by the cessation of media demonization (for the most part) and its inverse, media glamourization.

And as the cited article reveals, it's all about the Benjamins.  And as the wedding and catering industries were touted as beneficiaries of the advent of gay marriage, so will the eyedrop and snack food industries benefit from decriminalization/legalization of weed.  Porn drives technology advances, and entrepreneurialism liberalizes society.  Discuss.