Whoa, dude, are you high? Or did D.C. City Council really vote in favor of legalizing medical marijuana yesterday? I wonder: Does the new law cover writer’s block?
Adam Eidinger, for one, thinks it’s all a bad trip. The former Green Party candidate for Shadow Senator Representative and co-founder of Capitol Hemp says city lawmakers really need to chill out. “They’re rushing it through!” Eidinger told attendees last night at the hemp shop’s two-year anniversary party at the Rock & Roll Hotel on H Street NE. If the Washington Post supports the bill, Eidinger says, “you just know there’s something wrong with it.”
Coinciding with “National Weed Day,” the hemp event and City Council vote also came on the same day that actor Kal Penn, star of the Harold & Kumar stoner-flick franchise, was reportedly robbed at gunpoint in the District. Harsh!
Somewhere amid the fog of last night’s party, a guy I never met graciously passed me a small round object with a wink and a nod. What am I supposed to do with it? I asked him. Eat it?
“It’s a button, dude,” he says.
Oh.
Turns out, the guy’s just promoting the evening’s performers, reggae duo Nappy Riddem.
Upstairs, in the VIP area, a bartender hips me to the hemp crowd’s big issue with the new legislation, the set limit on personal possession—just two ounces per month! That’s simply not enough for some people, she says.
An array of fancy glass bongs displayed along the bar were being auctioned off throughout the evening. The bidding was up to $436 for one pipe in particular.
“I can’t smoke out of these anymore,” one guy tells me. “Tastes like wood.” He prefers the more watery flavors of a vaporizer, he says. The bartender concurs.
Our conversation quickly turned to the new legislation, which vapor guy also has issues with, although he says, if it passes, he hopes to get in on the product’s distribution.
He goes on to tell me about some mythical stoner mecca in West Virginia. “If you like disc golf, it’s the place to be,” he says.
He even gives me directions: “Go to Berkeley Springs, take a right at 7-11 and drive 30 miles…”
The scenery can’t be beat. “It’s the darkest place in the United States,” he says. “You see every star in the sky.”