Have you ever met that paralytic reefer man?

Saw the Simpsons movie last night. There was one bit where I almost died of laughter and I kept a fairly steady stream of chortles all the way through. Still, it was about the same as watching a good episode, except with a plot and visual effects that let it be long without being painful. People who like the Simpsons will like the movie - it's not like the South Park movie, that I think would appeal to millions who wouldn't have time for the show. Although I suspect that's more because the South Park movie was way, way better than the show, and not because it's better than the Simpsons movie.

It was good to be stoned in the cinema again, especially in front of a comedy since I don't usually like comedies and since our effort to see A Night at the Opera on Saturday backfired miserably. Frankly it's just plain nice to be stoned, even though it has a poor effect on my imaginative faculties. Obviously the reefer is nice here. We're right next to Netherlands and we're within the Schengen area - lord love Europe. Even the hash is good. Also, I believe both personal cultivation and possession is legal and I think that conspires to create a quality market.

That, combined with reading an entry from Baywatch getting upset about recreational drug marketing, pulled me into a line of thinking that bothers me from time to time. And that's that not-really-free markets have a distorting and dangerous effect on drugs. Their point becomes to get as fucked up as possible as fast as possible with as small a volume of the drug as possible.

Coca leaves become cocaine become crack. Dirty chunks of opium become candy. MDMA gets mixed up with all sorts of silly shit, 'hopefully' with little brown flecks in it. A yummy delightful sess becomes wheelchair weed. . . . and suddenly everybody is much more boring in the best case and much worse off in the worst case. I don't know how much that sort of concentration generally has to do with an addict needing to step up his dosage and how much it has to do with market restraints putting an emphasis on portability. But as reefer isn't addictive in the normal sense, only a market-conditioned idiot or someone in DIRE need of self-medication could think he needs to drop fun weed in favour of paralytic weed. So at least in reefer's case, I'm voting for portability, although I'm sure marijuana has more than its fair share of market-conditioned idiot fans, as well as those in dire need of self-medication.

I realized that to my sadness in Toronto, the day I realized I didn't know where to buy a nice gentle sess that would make me want to fuck and giggle anymore. What I was smoking there made me want to take a nap. At first I blamed age, but then when I went to Vancouver, where everybody and his mum represents an open market for all intents and purposes, or up north, which is too big to have rules, there was the nice fun sess again. It was probably in Toronto too, but the nasty weed was delivered right to my door, or to Lady's.

It made me realize paralysis isn't what I signed on for. I want things to be funny, and I don't want to medicate my mental problems into oblivion. I have a health plan that would let me do that for free in consultation with a professional. Anyways. Whine whine whine. I live in Europe now so my life is okay, and if I go back to Canada I'll move to the west coast, so my substance problems are over.