I found Max Montrose walking around Civic Center Park in Denver on Tuesday with a bushy dope plant growing out of his backpack.
“I’ve got a license for it in my pocket,” he said. “I’ve got a permit to be here.”
He was among throngs and throngs of stoners pushing for legalization at 4/20 demonstrations in several cities, including Tucson, Ariz. and Santa Cruz, Calif. Already medical marijuana is legal in 14 states, and if Colorado is any guide, it’s a front for complete legalization.
Recent loosening of marijuana laws have marked a good run for the dopesters. But the pace appears to be slowing down with two recent polls revealing that a majority of Americans oppose legalization.
Montrose is host of Medicinal Marijuana TV , a sociology major, and a bit of a sociology project himself.
“I educate people about rules, regulations, history of marijuana, anything you want to know,” he said. “I know anything from prohibition to horticulture … ”
He said he grows weed legally for just a handful of exclusive customers.
“A couple dispensaries are kind of fighting to grab me as a grower,” he said. “But I’m really not trying to do anything huge.”
Marijuana innovations never cease. Why wait for the munchies when you can have Hemp I Scream right from the start? Or is that just the part of the weed they use to make rope?
I walked from booth to booth, squeezing through hundreds of people brazenly smoking pot, as clusters of Denver police watched with apparent amusement.
I started learning all kinds of things. Did you know you can even listen to dope on the radio?
When I go looking for Bud, it’s usually Budweiser, not this.
I’m pretty sure Lance Armstrong didn’t come up with this bracelet.
Daddy Fat Stacks? Is that where you go for relief from your chemotherapy?
A retail recession? Not here, dude.
I suddenly needed two quarters.
Yeah, that ought to fix it.
I wish I had more to report.
This one dude – who I may write more about later – recognized me in the crowd and started pontificating about his business plan. He said he was a commercial real estate broker. But with the market in shambles, said he he’s now trying to raise a pool of venture capital so he can roll up the highly fragmented medical marijuana business.
This sounded like a great business story for me to cover, but suddenly, I was like, dude, slow down, I can’t get this all down, wait. How are you gonna … what are … why … ? And then I realized I’d been wandering around for 45 minutes through wafting clouds of dope smoke.
Suddenly, I was no longer sure that old bit about getting a contact high was a myth. And I feared my suit was begining to reak. I suddenly had to leave. Everybody was just starting to freak me out. The smoke kept getting thicker. And the only way out was to walk through it again.
I know what you are thinking, but the fact is, I didn’t even like dope when I was a teenager. This was just research. I was just doing my job. All in a day’s work. Really.
