Marc Dion: Get High For Fall River

If you love Fall River, twist one up. Pack a bowl. Inhale.

Used to be, if you smoked weed all day and all night, you were a stoner, a burnout, a fuzzy-minded, Dorito-gobbling zero.

Not anymore. In Fall River, right now, smoking weed is the moral equivalent of joining the police force. It’s as civic minded as voting, and, as an added bonus, it makes you giggle. Do they let you smoke weed IN the voting booth? They damn well ought to, so that you could commit two patriotic acts at the same time.

There are lots of normal, non civic-minded reasons to catch an herbal buzz in Fall River. The mayor’s under indictment. The people running in the recall election do not inspire. You make $16 an hour.

Those are all good reasons to get the glass pipe out and smoke some of the newly legalized cannabis. Those were all good reasons when it was illegal, too.

But wait, there’s a difference.

If you were a waitress in, say, 1994, and the job was hard, and the customers were mean, and the boss was a lizard, and the tips were lousy, it made plenty of sense to slip out to your car on a break and take a couple hits. Calmed you right down.

Ah, but in those days, you were a slacker. Even if you smoked at home with the doors locked, you were a criminal. Still, even if you were, the federal government was not likely to indict you 13 times, since the feds tend not to bother people for the small stuff.

But, the fact remained that smoking or eating the stuff in brownies was illegal, kind of slacker-ish, maybe even a little juvenile.

Well, we fixed that situation.

Massachusetts legalized weed, and Fall River is diving in like a hippie jumping into a big pile of bud.

I have no right to complain. I don’t smoke weed, but I do drink beer, and it’s bad manners to insult other people’s drug of choice. Even if it’s a much harder drug than weed, insulting the people who use it is “stigmatizing,” and stigmatizing anybody is just plain wrong in 2019 America.

But that was yesterday. The stigma is now gone from weed, and the world is a smokier, happier place. Fall River, having negotiated a small percentage of the weed business for its very own, is now encouraging pot stores to bloom on every corner.

And you, you former criminal, you used-to-be stoner, you can help the city get everything it ever wanted just by smoking up.

Get high in the morning, the city doesn’t have to use purple trash bags. Weed will pay for trash pick up. Get high in a toilet stall at work on your 10:30 break, and the city gets 200 new cops. Weed will pay for the new officers. If you can possibly smoke more than you’re smoking now, Fall River may finally redevelop its downtown.

If you’re a city employee, and you get caught smoking weed in your city-issued truck, you no longer have to plead for mercy.

“Hey,” you can say. “Not only do I work for the city, but I smoke weed while I’m doing it, so I contribute to the city in TWO ways at the same time!”

Ask our elected leaders, and those running for office. You may be getting dry mouth from smoking weed, but these folks are drooling at the thought of all the spending cash they’ll get from weed sales.

The best thing is, when you used to give money to your weed dealer, he just spent it on himself, but the city will only spend the weed money on sensible, worthwhile projects. When has the city ever made a bad deal or a bad investment?

Stay smoky, my friends. Do it for Fall River.