Pre420

Upcoming High Pride celebrations. 

 



Here's a view of downtown Northampton from behind the gates of Smith College.

Sunday is April 20th, or 420, or as it's also sometimes called, Bicycle Day, because that is the day Dr. Albert Hoffman, the inventor of LSD, enjoyed the first moments of psychedelic consciousness. When he first got off on the acid, he rode his bicycle home stoned out of his mind, making the act of riding a bike the first psychedelic experience.

Anyway, I saw from multi-colored messages scrawled on the sidewalk around Smith that the college is having a High Pride celebration on the campus quadrangle Sunday afternoon. 

Of course tomorrow is the annual Extravaganja, put on by the UMass Cannabis Club, on the town common in Amherst. I, however, will not be attending any High Pride events. 

I support the legalization of marijuana. It seems stupid to me that such deadly drugs as cigarettes and alcohol are perfectly legal while ganja, the most gentle and harmless of the naturally occurring mind altering substances, is illegal. I live in a halfway house full of drug addicts, and frankly none of us would have ended up here if we had only been pot smokers.  

Normal folks - "Earthlings" as we druggies call them - can smoke marijuana safely and pleasurably and the law should let them do it. I would express my solidarity with the legalization movement by attending the High Pride celebrations but frankly I'm too new in sobriety to risk it. I think I could go and refrain from smoking, but at this point it's better for me to play it safe. I have to remember how close I came to dying last fall, and how I can't be sure I'll be lucky enough to survive again if I relapse.

So all you Earthlings, go to the High Pride events and raise hell! In spirit I will be in solidarity with your noble cause. On 420 itself I will write my long promised review of the videos Captain Skypilot sent me.