Oh To Be A Pot Reporter: Would That Be Your Dream Job?
Posted: Thursday, October 22, 2009
by Asher Ricard
Westword, an alternative newspaper in Denver is currently seeking to fill a new position. The pay is not great but the amount of marijuana you come in contact with each day could be mind numbing, no pun attended.
The newspaper is seeking a writer for its weekly review of Colorado's booming medical marijuana dispensaries. The only stipulation is that the writer must have a medical ailment allowing them to enter a dispensary and use marijuana.
"Keep in mind this isn't about assessing the quality of the medicine on site; it's about evaluating the quality of the establishment," says the Westword job posting. "After all, we can't have our reviewer be stoned all the time."
Fourteen states currently have legalized marijuana. Maybe it is time that the other markets follow suits and allow writers to report on this new growing industry. The dispensaries in Denver sell over a dozen different types of marijuana that can cost as much as $130 an ounce.
If it was ever opened up to those without medical ailments, I think the list of college interns applying would be a mile long. Although the Denver paper has already gotten well over 100 applicants.
The fourteen states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes are Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
The legalization is opening up a whole new economic industries. Maybe marijuana is our solution to the recession. More jobs and money flowing in much like tobacco was in its day. . . .maybe not, but it is fun to think about!
This Article has been viewed 152 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)A controversial subject, I'm glad you DAREd to have tackled it. There was a time when I had a HIGH opinion of pot. Of course, it was when I was getting high. A funny thing happened on the way to adulthood, my opinion of the benefits of marijuana diminished, and I learned how precious it is to be straight. Most of the people I know who continue to smoke cannabis after all these years, and that is a lot of years, seem to show it in various forms
I'll tell you the story: There I was, in this guy's house, hoping to score a bag of herb. He was yelling at his wife, yelling at his daughter, yelling at his dog. Nobody was talking about anything I wanted to talk about. I thought to myself, "You mean I'm going to be jonesing from this guy until I'm 70? No way! If I can't grow my own, I'm quitting right now." And I did, and I never looked back. No cravings, no desire to get high again, nothing. That was quite a few years ago. Now I have a diminished opinion about smokers, I'm sorry to say.
About the law, though, I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, I do believe pot should be legal, because it's not a moral crime, but merely a bad habit. On the other, even if it were legal, I could care less, because I don't smoke it. I don't think legalizing pot would have some crisis impact on the numbers of its consumers. The reason is, where pot is illegal, people smoke anyway, and they always have. I don't buy into arguments that compare pot to other crimes, like, "Well, does that mean murder should be legal? Because people do that and it's a crime." Such reasoning is smoke and mirrors. Hey, you can make a lot of puns when writing about pot. Too bad they're all cliche by now.
I am completely against high school aged kids using pot. It definitely stunts their emotional development, in my opinion. They would tell you know, but not for objective reasons. and yet, I don't believe in slapping a high schooler with jail time, or any kind of record because they smoked a leaf. That's absurd, and does more harm than the pot itself..I also think bumper stickers that say things like, "Do sports, not drugs" are nit-witted. If you like sports, then do sports. If not, then do something else, but do something. Nor do I think it is a wise social policy to put drug education into the hands of law enforcement, re: DARE. If the day comes when we have all outgrown pot, it will not be because of one-sided institutional propaganda.Oh well, back to the best high, reading and thinking.- G
Outlaw alcohol, legalize pot!! As a Buddhist, I don't use either,(but I wasn't always a Buddhist!!)
Good article Asher Metta..........e
I have spinal cord injury and the only medication that helps is still illegal here: pot;sadly I live in NYC a city medieval compared to others in that ANY, even small amounts of pot, can have evil narcotics cops lock you up and there are no prescriptions legal here.If they taxed pot the government would have a financial rebound as it is ubiquitous.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.