This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.
Canada finally did it. Forty years after singer Peter Tosh’s immortal call to action, Canada’s about two weeks deep into the promised land of legal weed, and aside from a few hiccups—rogue dispensaries courting police raids, national cannabis shortages, and mass mail delivery delays—it’s been everything we’ve dreamed of.
On the ground, though, that’s not really the case. Now that weed is allowed, Canadians will never experience the illicit thrill of awkward, too-long conversations with their dealer, finding something—anything—to roll their few sad stems with, and puffing behind a lonely clump of trees nicknamed something along the lines of “Amsterdam.” With legalization, Canadians lose all of that, and potentially lose everything that made weed cool. (If it ever was.)
To find out if that’s true, we took to the campuses to ask students about their experience post-legalization.
VICE: Do you think weed’s a bit lame now that it’s legal?
Noah: It’s not lame because it’s legal; it’s never been lame. It’s kind of lame how it’s regulated I would say at this point because of the fact that even though it is “legal,” a lot of actual ways to smoke weed are very not legal still, and aren’t going to be legal for a long time. So that’s the only thing that’s lame about it I would say, but weed itself isn’t lame.
You’re not going to miss going to your friendly neighborhood dealer?
I still am going to go to a dealer, it’s too convenient for buying in large sample sizes, and I don’t think it’s legitimate that the government is ever going to be able to compete in that price range. At the same time, it is funny that every time I had smoked weed before legalization, it was something I wasn’t supposed to be doing… and now it’s like… it’s lost some of its charm. It’s not lame, but it has lost some charm.
Is it going to be a bit of a different feeling now that Trudeau has given you the OK?
It’s not going to be a different feeling, but it is like… it just doesn’t have that badass feel, you know what I mean? Whereas when I was in high school and I was one of the only kids that was smoking weed, now it’s like, “Oh, all the grandmas can go and smoke weed.”
So high schoolers smoking weed, they’re going to be in the same camp as their moms and dads.
I’m glad for high schoolers smoking weed, they still get to experience that novelty, whereas for me… I’m old [laughs].
What was your legalization day like?
I was really busy on legalization day, but the day before we went to this celebration thing that was supposed to be until midnight, and it was this free dabs and dab rigs show. I didn’t even stay until legalization, but when we left, we went home, and by 11:50 we were like, “Oh my God, we need to roll a joint. We can’t not be on the street smoking.” So we went outside, but it was disappointing because, you know, there weren’t even any fireworks or anything like that.
Do you think Canada’s going to get it’s own Half-Baked now?
Oh yea, I think weed and film could get even more relevant as far as it actually being legal to use and whatnot. I’m sure that changes a lot of things people using it on tv shows. It’s definitely going to hit the mainstream.
One of the main barriers, even for people our age, is that they think it’s bad because it was illegal, or they think it’s bad because of what they’ve heard. But now this gives people the ability to look into it more, and I think that’s going to be huge for these people that didn’t smoke because they thought it was bad or wrong. The people that were like, “Oh no I can’t smoke if it’s not good.”
Do you think stoner culture is going to be dead in Canada now?
Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s going to die. I think stoner culture is completely a product of the effects of marijuana, it’s very legitimate that you smoke weed and you get the munchies, and you want to watch unintelligent comedy that’s easy to enjoy, I guess. So as far as stoner culture dying in Canada, there’s no way. More people smoke it, more people enjoy the humor and basically start eating half-baked Ben & Jerry’s and watching old Cheech & Chong movies.
But they’re not going to be badass anymore.
No, they won’t be badass. They’ll never get that feeling that I got when I was smoking weed for the first time.
And that’s a valuable thing?
Uh, yeah [laughs]. I think it’s a valuable thing. I had some different experiences just because it was illegal, and it’s kind of good stories at least. That’s valuable to me.
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