420 Life Aka The Funky Trend

In a world where you can buy strawberry flavoured vapour to feed your nicotine habit and alcohol-free ‘beer’ to fool your liver, it should come as no surprise that you can now get your hands on products designed to enhance the consumption of cannabis. Head over to MerryJane or Tealer for a look.
It appears that the ‘war on drugs’ has a bit of a hurdle to overcome if it wishes to further oppress lovers of the leaf, for when you have prominent figures like Snoop Dogg advertising and selling his own brand of pot paraphernalia, you have to assume that the weed community is not backing down any time soon.

And why should they? If death as a result of alcohol abuse is actually normal in this day and age, why can’t stoners have their fair share of substance-induced suicide? Oh, that’s right… Marijuana doesn’t directly kill, does it? At least that’s what decades of consumption proves.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from a fan of the stuff. I hate the smell, and the thought of buying a bag of leaves off a stranger in some dark, dingy alleyway creeps me out. But at the same time, I’m a firm believer in the cliché ‘to each their own.’

If the world accepts pipes, flavoured tobacco and e-cigarettes why can’t it embrace bongs, Kush boxes and weed grinders? Yes, weed is undoubtedly the cause of some anti-social behaviour, but are we going to pretend that alcohol isn’t infinitely more responsible for such unrest? Shall we forget that a face-full of cigarette smoke is just as uncomfortable for non-smokers as a cloud of uninvited marijuana vapour?

If people can legally allow alcohol and cigarettes to rule their lives and take control of their wallets, why can’t they do the same with weed?
Sadly, as long as our governments struggle to come up with ways to regulate and tax marijuana to their own benefit –although the victory in some states in the US is a small step forward for the cannabis community– enthusiasts will have to live cloak and dagger as far as their favourite pastime is concerned.

For the time being, Snoop Dogg’s new website Merry Jane is a place where you can lose yourself in a bit of weed culture without enduring the judgmental justice of sober folk. If you’re looking to give your weed habit some style, you should shop around on his website, or even head over to Tealer and invest in a t-shirt or a grinder (their t-shirt depicting a stoned Bart Simpson is particularly rad).

Whether you’re for drugs or against them, this bold market for weed merchandise needs to be recognised as a small yet encouraging victory for the cannabis community. After all, it feels just as normal as the promotion of under-priced crates of alcohol.
That being said, there is a long road ahead to convince the folks at the top that an oak-aged nightcap is more harmful to our health than the average spliff. So for those of you in the weed community, sit tight. For those of you who disagree, get used to it!