Pubdate: Sun, 24 Feb 2013
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Henry Alford

SENDING OUT SMOKE SIGNALS

Not everyone at a gathering has the same reaction to the sight, or
should I say stink, of marijuana. Some will lick their lips in
anticipation of being propelled into a delicious psychosocial gavotte.
Others will frown or skitter away, fearful they're about to find out
why the word "dude" is sometimes spelled "doood." Some will simply
think, "Midnight Express."

The etiquette of pot smoking in social settings is largely uncodified.
Yet the world needs an Emily Post to hack a pathway through this fuggy
thicket, particularly given pot's increased presence in the
mainstream. The recreational use of marijuana is now legal in two
states, as is the medicinal use of it in 18 states and the District of
Columbia. In 2010, there was the publication of "The Cannabis Closet,"
a collection of testimonials from ganja-loving top executives and
government employees and responsible parents, all of which had
appeared on the writer Andrew Sullivan's blog. The thicket: it grows
ever thicketier.

If there are no children present, is it appropriate for a host to ask
guests if they want to get high? Some people think that doing so puts
the invited on the spot. "I just keep a decorative bong on a shelf in
my living room," said Rick Steves, who lives in Edmonds, Wash., and is
the host of the public television show "Rick Steves' Europe." "If
someone comments on it, then it opens up the conversation." Asserting
that liquor is better than pot for social lubrication, he added: "It's
rude to break up a party by bringing out the pot. Especially for
nonsmokers, it can be awkward. If one spouse smokes and the other
doesn't, it's like, 'O.K., we're not on the same wavelength, party
over!' "

Other marijuana enthusiasts believe that Mr. Steves's view regarding
the incongruity between a THC-fueled guest and a non-THC-fueled one is
overstated. Bill Maher, the host of "Real Time With Bill Maher," said:
"Alcohol is the substance where people feel the most uncomfortable
when the other person isn't also consuming it. I can't tell you how
many times someone has said to me, 'I won't drink if you don't.' "

Pot smokers and their friends, by contrast, don't care about an
incongruity, Mr. Maher said. "I was at a giant star's house recently,"
he added. "This person said to me after dinner - they knew I smoke -
'If you want to smoke pot, go on the balcony.' " Mr. Maher said that
most people who abstain from smoking pot at the gatherings he goes to
feel "sheepish" rather than ashamed or nerdy.

Indeed, encouraging the pot smokers in the room to momentarily absent
themselves for their fug-making can bring some peace of mind to
others. "My mother is 90 and my mother-in-law is 87," said Valerie
Corral, the executive director and a co-founder of a cannabis
dispensary in Santa Cruz, Calif., called the Wo/Men's Alliance for
Medical Marijuana. "They don't mind when we smoke at home because we
go into another room."

Perhaps marijuanaphiles should take a cue from those furtive
boarding-school students and prisoners who not only keep the scented
candle industry thriving, but who will smoke one hit at a time (to
reduce runaway smoke) and who then blow their exhalations into a
rolled-up bath towel. When fumes are not contained or carefully
directed, trouble can pop up, even among the pot-tolerant.

Shane Kingery, an Atlanta resident who is going to graduate school for
graphic design, took his wife to a party at the home of one of his
fellow graduate students. Shortly after party guests started blowing
pot fumes out onto the balcony where Mr. Kingery and his wife were
standing, the Kingerys left the party: because Mr. Kingery is a nurse
and his wife works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
they are sometimes the subjects of random drug testing.

"It seems we gave the impression that we're anti-weed or too good for
that scene, when it's really just not our bag," Mr. Kingery said. It
was a little awkward because later, while talking to other partygoers,
he said, "I felt the need to subtly slip into the conversation why we
don't smoke. When it's illegal, it's easy to abstain and say, 'Well,
it's the law,' but now that the lines are being blurred, people are
having to draw some of their own."

Despite the drug's illegality in most of the country, many pot smokers
view the boundaries of their pastime to be more porous than ever.
Though it's a nearly universally held belief that pot smoking is
inappropriate around children, the issue gets murkier when the young
people in question are college age. Mitch Nash, a Lenox, Mass., based
art director and a co-founder of the whimsical gift manufacturer Blue
Q, said: "A couple of winters ago, we had an intimate Christmas Eve
dinner party with some close friends and their college-age kids. After
dinner, as we leaned back and relaxed, one of my daughters, who'd
graduated that spring and who takes a puff occasionally, said, 'Dad, a
few of us are going outside for a puff,' and I said, 'The hell with
that, let's all do that together at the dining table.' I rolled some
joints and passed one clockwise and one counterclockwise. One kid
remarked, 'I've been trying to make this happen for years.' "

What works at the Nash dining table might not work in your living
room; each situation has its own DNA to be decoded. If, at a
gathering, there are people opposed to pot smoking, then abstention or
special discretion are called for. "You can feel where it's cool and
where it's not," Mr. Maher said. "Like anything else, you want to use
courtesy and awareness." The irony is thick: in order to experience
the all-at-onceness and monomaniacally thrilling sensory overload of
the substance in question, you should first practice goodly amounts of
empathy and temperature-gauging. Or be willing to pay the price. My
own worst-ever act of bad manners was getting kicked out of boarding
school for smoking pot when I was 17. I remember telling the school's
theater teacher, who had cast me as the Artful Dodger in "Oliver" and
who would now have to recast the role 10 days before opening.

I found the teacher in his on-campus apartment, painting a still life.
When I broke the news, he hurled his paintbrush at the canvas in
anger. As the brush's handle clattered and thumped onto the floor, it
sounded like a bird flying into an airplane's engine. I froze as if
shot. And that slight gravitational heave that seemed to shift the air
in the room? My heart, breaking.

Henry Alford is a contributing writer to Vanity Fair and the author,
most recently, of "Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern
Guide to Manners." Circa Now appears monthly.
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MAP posted-by: Matt