So, yesterday was 4/20, a holiday known to many people under the age of 35 as National Smoke-out Day. I don’t think anyone really knows who invented it, and if they did, they’ve probably forgotten by now, including the inventors. So if you didn’t know that bit of knowledge before and want to celebrate now, curl up with a good bowl and smoke this book. Err…I mean…
Writers Shirley Halperin and Steve Bloom are the authors of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life, a pot encyclopedia of sorts that breaks down every marijuana reference you know, use, haven’t heard of, or never understood. The great thing about it is that it’s not one of those books where you HAVE to be a pothead to enjoy it, whereas most pot novels are for you to peruse while high, for they’d be pretty crappy reads otherwise. However, I read Pot Culture completely sober and not only thoroughly enjoyed it, but felt like I was actually learning something, which is a lot more than I can say about a LOT of cheeba manuals.
By the way, I most certainly am not encouraging the consumption of illegal goods, nor is GIANT. I’m just saying, this book is awesome, and what you do with it is of your own accord.
At any rate, I sat down with co-author Shirley Halperin to discuss the book, the pot fad, and that big ‘ol legalization issue. She’s fun and insightful, kind of like the book. And no, she wasn’t high. Check out the interview below.
GIANT: Where did you get the inspiration for Pot Culture – other than from pot…
SHIRLEY: My first internship was at High Times while I was still in college, and I thought it would be really fun to do a book that was about the person and not the plant. There’s a ton of pot books that you can sit and drool over and look at pictures of buds, but what interested me more was the culture and how stoners seem to have these common reference points that have lived through the ages.
Is working at High Times as fabulous as everyone thinks it might be?
The subject matter, just by virtue, makes it fun. We really pushed the celebrity angle – we got people who were famous or semi-famous to go on the record and talk about [pot] and be photographed with it, and that was something [Steve] and I were really very involved with making happen. So, yeah.
Were you worried about negative feedback from the ultra-conservatives?
I started working on the book about two years ago, but [now] just seemed like the time had come. After Harold and Kumar and came out, the ten-year anniversary of Dazed and Confused had passed, and Weeds came on TV, it seemed like everything kind of came together. The audience was getting a little less squeamish about the subject.
What about young people’s fascination over pot?
I don’t think it’s that huge of a fascination. I actually think we have a Meth epidemic that is even more popular than pot, which is just frightening. I think all the holidays and 4/20s are really fun. It’s like the universal bond that stoners have, and it’s kind of nonsensical in a way, but there is just something about stoners that makes them come together. But not in a bad way.
What’s your take on the legalization issue in America? Many also argue that a pot tax would ruin things if it was legal anyway.
As far as taxing, if they taxed pot and decriminalized it, they’d probably be able to pay for the war! We would have so much money we wouldn’t know what to do with it. So I actually think taxing would be a great thing. I live in California, where medical marijuana is okay. There are people who are sick and this helps them, so why would the government turn away medicine from people who are legitimately ill? That’s not to say people don’t take advantage of it, but illegal marijuana makes criminals out of people who are sick, which is not right. We have a much more pervasive drug problem in America, and it is not marijuana.
