Read While Stoned

The national dialogue on pot has gotten a little less dopey in recent years, and with the proliferation of medical marijuana in some states, the knee-jerk say-no sentiment is shifting back to greater openness. Into this mood steps a trio of insouciant books, Weed: 420 Things You Didn't Know About Cannabis, The Quotable Stoner and The Danktionary: An A-Z Guide to Stoner Slang (all of them published by Adams Media).

Meant to be informative as well as funny, these books manage to laugh with potheads even as they laugh at them—and at the folks who think marijuana should be prosecuted in the War on Drugs. The editors don't spare tokers from a few cruel facts. Yes, too much pot is bad for the brain cells. As Weed puts it, “Tommy Chong (to say nothing of Ozzy Ossbourne) would seem to be the walking advertisement for this hazard.” And contrary to the burnout lore of long ago, “grass gunks up your lungs.” On the other hand, it contains fewer carcinogens than tobacco and even the dopiest pothead doesn't chain smoke. The Dutch have the right idea, Weed insists. Instead of making war on pot, they levy a sales tax and generate revenue. Maybe someone should suggest this to the Tea Party, whose members probably have no idea that tea is among the many slang words for cannabis.

While The Quotable Stoner inadvertently supports the suspicion that stoners aren't quotable, The Danktionary's many entries remind us that reefer easily gives rise to humor. The “intellectual stoner” is defined as having “mastered one aspect of human interaction: if one says anything quickly and with authority, it is universally believed to be true.” This raises the question: are most members of Congress, not to mention the majority of the Wisconsin Legislature, stoned out of their minds?