Weed Was Better When It Was Illegal: A Nostalgic Rant
Justin has a confession. He misses his dealer.
Not the parking lot dime bag days. Not the sketchy meet in a dark alley stuff. The dealer you could actually visit. The one who had a personality, a living room full of lizard cages, and a black shiny Python coiled on the floor that Justin spent ten full minutes admiring as a carpet.
This week on Thoughts Off The Stem it’s a full nostalgic rant about what the dealer era was really like — the characters, the camaraderie, the completely unpredictable experiences — and what got lost when weed legalization turned the whole thing into an iPhone store.
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The Python Carpet
There was a dealer named Gary. Gary lived in a basement apartment, he had lizard cages lining every wall of his living room. Gary also had a coiled black Python in the center of his living room floor that was so big and so shiny, when Justin walked in and sat down on the couch, he spent the next ten minutes genuinely admiring what he believed to be a very cool carpet.
He was even planning to ask Gary where he got it.
Then the carpet blinked. Then the carpet raised its head — above the chicken wire fence that was apparently supposed to contain it — and Justin was gone. Out of the apartment. Up the stairs. Outside on the street for 35 minutes while his buddies stayed inside smoking a joint and talking about him.
That was the weird world of weed dealers. And Justin kind of misses it.
The Dealer Who Withheld The Weed
Then there was the dealer around 25 to 30 who had a rule — you had to hang out for at least half an hour before you could leave. In the beginning this was fine. Bust a couple poppers, play video games for three hours, go home. Good times.
Then he got married. And suddenly showing up to buy a gram meant building a tree house first. Helping fix a pond. Gardening for the first hour before anything fun could happen. Helping him move when he moved. Building an entire deck.
Weed is not a gateway drug. Weed is — as Justin puts it — a socially maniacal herb. It makes you want to be friendly to everybody. It lets you get sucked in through empathy to help people out. And if your dealer has the best weed in town you will build whatever he needs built.
What Legal Cannabis Got Wrong
Walking into a dispensary now is like walking into an Apple Store. Forty employees. Forty options. Someone immediately asking what they can help you with. Justin just wants a bag of weed and there’s no good way to say that while standing under fluorescent lighting next to a glass display case.
The experience is gone. The characters are gone. The camaraderie is gone. And the Cannabis Council of Canada just disbanded — leaving the industry without a lobbying voice in government at a time when it probably needs one.
Justin’s theory — and it makes more sense the more you think about it — is that the government should have just licensed the dealers that were already dealing. Keep the garage, basement and backyard shed. Just inspect it for compliance and let the culture stay intact.
Because right now the industry is missing something. Less corporate glow. More mom and pop, or spending time with your favourite hippie. More of what made getting weed an experience rather than a transaction.
Listen Now
Weed Was Better When It Was Illegal: A Nostalgic Rant is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all major platforms.
New episodes of Thoughts Off The Stem drop every Friday at 4:20 PM.
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