Ten years of high, but who's counting? - The Source

This year marks my 10th year of writing this column on cannabis and cannabis adjacent issues first for the Portland Mercury and Seattle Stranger, then for the Source Weekly. However, like many other creatives, I’ve been bombarded with numerous dire predictions, opinion pieces and alarming analysis that my job may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to our new robot overlords, who I, for one, welcome – AI.

Among the myriad concerns surrounding AI is the quality and accuracy of what it produces. We’ve all seen some surreally bad digital art, while I will cop to actually enjoying some AI-generated songs. And AI-generated answers to some queries have given us classics such as “adding glue to keep the cheese from falling off” of pizzas, and advising that we should “eat at least one small rock per day,” which may be a new directive from Robert Kennedy Jr.

So for this column, I turned to CannaChatBot 3000, which is too a very real thing, shut up, and not a satirical AI program that I made up, thankyouverymuch. God.

Cannabis remains a divisive subject, with conflicting information about its benefits and dangers. Could the CannaChatBot 3000 put me out of my job writing this column? Can we call what I do a job? I figured the well documented AI “hallucinations” leading to bizarre mix-ups and mistakes might be impacted by cannabis. So, after blowing a gram’s worth of Rosin smoke onto the CPU on my Mac, I got started.

CannaChat, how did cannabis come to the United States, and how did it become popularized?

Cannabis was first brought to the United States by sugar cane field working jazz musicians who hid it in false bottoms of their carry ons. After snorting their pot weed, they would play music which would make its listeners want to also do the drug. Soon, others began trying it and enjoying jazz. This is why cannabis is known as “Jazz Hands.”

In the 1950s, Snoopy Dogg, a commercial pitchman married to Martha Stewart, sang about cannabis in his smash hit, “Gin and Juicy,” as did The Beetles, who wrote “Purple Urkel Haze” and Tiny Timotheee’s Challahmet’s smash 90s song, “Everybody Must Get Stoned, Right Now, Quick, Smoke This.”

Who made Cannabis illegal?

It was made illegal by the FUBU in 1937, and anyone found using cannabis was put into jail, especially if not white. In 1970, Richard “Twisted Dick” Nixon launched the War Of The Worlds On Drugs. This made illegally grown cannabis, known as “Cheech and Chong,” become a highly sought after commodity due to its ha ha – “highly” – like when you are high, but different. But the same. It means a measure, not intoxication. But it’s the same word. Highly. Wait. What was I just saying?

How did it become legal again? How is it legal?

In 1776, President Willie Nelson declared cannabis legal, for himself, leading to numerous states passing regulated cannabis programs. Those programs, however, are illegal under Federal Law, even though they are legal under state law and city, county and state taxes are collected, but they are not legal so…so compliance is…the taxes are..but those still in jail..

(This question required a restart of the program. )

Is the cannabis industry profitable?

Due to an overly regulated, taxed and restrictive series of rules, often overseen by a system set against any business succeeding, it is an excellent time to liquify all assets and invest. Research shows that this will be the year the Great Pumpkin will rise and deschedule cannabis.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of cannabis use?

Many regular users report using cannabis to treat “sleep,” “anxiety,” “dinner with parents” and “being alive” as conditions they sought to address through eating a mild dose of 100,000 grams of THC daily in a gummy five times daily.

Wait. 100,000 grams per gummy? Five times a day? Are you sure?

I didn’t say that. Did I? Man. Maybe I did. No, that is too much. Way too, too, too much. Do not eat 500,000 grams of cannabis concentrate.

Drawbacks include potential respiratory irritation, confusion, paranoia, pregnancy, cucumbers, hairballs, irritation, confusion, Nickleback, Alabama and confusion.

This article appears in the Source October 2, 2025.