This Retirement Plan Really Does Blow Smoke

When I saw that no one was going to smoke dope at my high school reunion party (the subject of my last post), I realized something very profound.  My classmates are in the life stage between “smoking recreational marijuana and smoking medical marijuana”.

And there will be mass quantities of medical marijuana in our future.  Because “medical” marijuana exists, the baby boomer generation will want to smoke it.  And baby boomers are very accustomed to getting what we want because we are so big, you cannot stop us.  We are like the Godzilla of generations.  

Now everyone knows that “medical” marijuana is a joke.  It has no medicinal value at all.  But when people smoke it, they get so high that they forget that they are sick at all.  You really have to hand it to the hippies in California though.  They found a way to smoke dope legally and get the government to pay for it.  The government even rolls the joints for them.  This proves that dope-smoking hippies are smarter than our government, but you probably knew that already.

But when enough aging baby boomers retire and start getting more ailments, they are going to demand medical marijuana.  And I say we give it to them.  Medical marijuana is already legal in 15 states and the baby boomers will demand it made legal in all 50.

I don’t think that medical marijuana for old people is a new concept.  How many times have you seen photos of men in the Arab world smoking hashish from a hookah?  These guys are always old (they have gained respect and access to the hookah), have very long beards (if you take time to shave in the morning, someone might beat you to the hookah) and are sitting on the floor (you don’t want to fall out of a chair when you pass out from the hashish).

So I think a whole new medical plan should be developed for old people who want to smoke medical marijuana.  I would call it Medicare Part Do-B.  This sure beats the hell out of Obamacare. Actually it is the opposite of that plan since it was the developers of Obamacare who were the ones smoking dope.

Of course enrollment in the new Part Do-B would be entirely voluntary.  But I think it would be very popular.  If your doctor says he could prescribe the newest prescription drug which might help your condition but it has side effects of explosive diarrhea, enflamed hemorrhoids, swollen testicles, and an insatiable desire to listen to Neil Diamond songs or you could just smoke weed, many people are going to choose the weed.

I know that I am advocating legalized pot for old people, but the arguments against total legalization don’t apply here.  Senior citizens are not going to move on to harder drugs.  They are not going to become criminals to support their habit.  They are not going to ruin their lives, nor will they become dealers.  All participants in Medicare Part Do-B will have to surrender their driver’s licenses to get their dope.

And old people take plenty of expensive drugs now.  In the last years of her life, my mother took a long list of prescription drugs for a variety of conditions.  Her doctors and nurses actually expected me know every medicine she was taking and what is was for.  The list was so long that when I was asked if my mother was taking a specific drug, I would answer “probably” which always really ticked them off.

So you could replace all these drugs with weed.  Sure some people would die sooner, but they would sure as hell die happy.  And if you have spent any time visiting someone in a nursing home, you know that dying happy is probably underrated.  You would have to invent a hookah device with extensive safety features or nursing homes across the country would go up in flames. 

On the positive side, the cost savings could save Medicare.  Medical marijuana would become a big cash crop that would create thousands of jobs which would help the unemployment problem.  Finally, you could heavily tax it and plow the money into the social security fund and help resolve that problem as well.

The biggest issue left is the stigma associated with the term “medical marijuana”.  So we need a new, medically oriented, name.  I would use Weedburnzadox.  You know a prescription medicine is good if it has a “Z” or an “X “in the name and this one has both. 

Of course there will be commercials extolling the great benefits of this “new” drug that features a unique incendiary delivery system that enables it to enter your blood stream quickly through the lungs to provide fast relief.  Common side effects include anxiety attacks, cotton mouth and the munchies.

Ask your doctor (or your friend Cheech) if Weedburnzadox is right for you.

No, No, No, No, We Don’t Smoke It No More

Recently I organized a 35-year reunion party for my high school class.  We were meeting at the outdoor pavilion of a local restaurant and I was very nervous before the event.  Not because it was a class reunion and we had not gotten together in 15 years.  No, I was nervous because our class had a bunch of wild party animals that were known for their outrageous behavior.  Our unofficial class slogan was “Party Hard! – Then Party Some More”.  The teachers and principals all had big smiles as they waved goodbye to us at graduation.  They were not happy for us for attaining a diploma.  They were smiling because the school was still standing and that they all still had jobs.  They were thinking: Get the hell out of here!

I was very concerned that during the festivities a group of guys would gather at the edge of the grounds and light up some joints.  I thought about how I would handle that situation and what I might tell the officer who came to arrest us all.  I imagined what my mug shot would look like in the morning paper with the caption: “Organizer of the biggest pot party in Akron in years”.

But my fears were totally unfounded.  The class had changed much in the last 15 years.  We were mellow.  Naturally mellow.  No need for any pot smoking to mellow out now.  I think if anyone would have lit a doobie, they would have been ready for a nap.

But nobody toked, few people even smoked.  No one even came close to even drinking too much.  In a strange way it was disappointing.  Time had done what the “authorities” had tried so hard to do, but failed.  It had turned us into, gulp, responsible citizens.

I did find out that my friend Mark was currently using some heavy drugs.  Yes, he had recently had a heart attack and he was taking daily hits of Lipitor and Plavix.   How ironic. Mark used to buy his stash behind the Walgreens, now he just casually strolls through the front door and places his order at the counter.

The discussions among classmates were different also.  Instead of comparing our sexual exploits, we compared our colonoscopy experiences (it was a probing conversation).  Instead of boasting about how many beers we could drink, bragging rights went to the people with the most grandkids.  My classmate Rob was bummed out about this one.  “Did you know that Karen has eight grandkids?  I don’t have any!”  He was really upset about this so I told him that for guys this was probably overrated.  Do you really want to be changing that many diapers again? I asked him.  No, so go have a beer.

I thought the evening might liven up when the deejay starting playing tunes and some hot chicks (from a 10-year reunion that was taking place inside the restaurant) that were dressed to kill, strutted to the outside dance floor.  You see the other activity that our class was known for was mooning.   If there had been moon rankings back then, our class would have been nationally ranked in 1976.  We had some of the best mooners in the land.  Remember, this was before camera phones and You Tube so you could shoot the moon without any evidence.   The hot, young, women presented a tempting target.

So I waited awhile but there was no moon.  I went over to Alex who was the top mooner in the class and pointed out the opportunity that presented itself.  “I don’t know Don”, he said.  “I’ve been having some serious gastric-intestinal issues lately.  I don’t really think that dropping my pants and squatting out here would be a wise thing to do.”  I told him that I agreed and quickly moved on to talk to somebody else.

But the music and young chicks did get things hopping.  When those ladies started gyrating I quickly sought out Mark and asked him for a hit of his Plavix because I felt a possible heart attack coming on.  Just then my friend Tony decided to try to dance up one of the 10-year reunion babes on the dance floor.  He tried to move like Travolta (I told him he should have moved like Jagger).  This scared the chick so bad that she bolted for the door.  I have never seen a non-hooker run that fast in 5-inch heels!

The highpoint of the evening came when we slipped the deejay a twenty to start playing 70’s tunes. (Stick it class of 2001, we got more money than you!  We got 401-Ks!  And they even had money in them until a few years ago).  So the class of ‘76 started discoing down with abandon.  I realized then that we should have had a chiropractor on site.  

Things were going well until he played “Shake Your Booty” by K.C. and the Sunshine Band.  The ladies started to shake their respective booties like it was 1976 again.  News Flash:  It isn’t 1976 no more and some booties should never be shaken.   While that scene would have given the guys a “rise in the Levi’s” during high school days, I swear it caused a slight rise in the seismograph reading that night.  I was glad we were outside so that there was no structural damage to the building.  And at this point all the younger chicks left the dance floor in a hurry, which was a good thing.  One inadvertent hip shot could have caused them serious injury.

So we did survive this reunion.  Final tally:  No hits, No moons, No earthquakes.  Not a bad night. 

A lady that I know just came from Columbia,
She smiled because I did not understand.
Then she held out some marijuana, ha ha!
She said it was the best in all the land.

And I said,
"No, no, no, no, I don't smoke it no more,
I'm tired of waking up on the floor.
No, thank you, please, it only makes me sneeze,
And then it makes it hard to find the door."