HAPPY 4/20

Why is 4/20 the official stoner holiday? Do stoners actually need holidays? In any case, we're told the origin story rests with some weed-happy kids in the '70s who used to meet after school at (you guessed it) 4:20 to get high and, presumably, discuss their algebra homework with greater insight.

Some of us vividly remember an era when procuring what we then called "pot" involved meeting some dude in a parking lot and exchanging, as discreetly as possible, a wad of bills for a reeking baggie of god-knows-what sketchy bud, the provenance and tasting notes of which were not under discussion.

In any case, here we are in the era of dispensaries that will deliver cannabis products to your home. The range of offerings now sold over the counter will be explained to you by a kindly budtender, who can describe the terpenes and somatic effects of each strain with the gusto of a sommelier. Cannabis is a lifestyle, a culture, a massive industry.

Two years into the pandemic, we won't lie: Weed's been a real balm for our anxiety, boredom and discontent. It's also been a salve, a CBD rub, a golden healing liquid, a vape, a gummy and, of course, a flower that we grind up, set on fire and suck into our lungs.

Whether you partake or not, we wish you some form of relief from life's slings and arrows. After all, it's... shit, we forgot what we were talking about.

Now if you'll excuse us, we need to get back to Side 3 of Tales From Topographic Oceans.