Life before the current pandemic was life in the open.  Most people needed some form of social media interaction to enjoy any party or event.  With additional likes, the party seemed better and somehow your i-phone has made you the center of your private media empire.  Powered by today’s mobile devices, users have become the providers of content for those who need entertainment.  Social media is chock full of content provided for free for anyone.  In my eyes, this was the death of cool gatherings.  No longer was your gathering a private moment with those you want to spend time with, it was like the afterparty at the VMA’s, no soul!

Then Covid-19 hit and life changed instantly.  No longer were there public gatherings of “in” people, now we were a world on pause, stuck at home.  Slowly things adjusted and life found a way, just like weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk.  First - small gatherings, some public, featuring a who’s who wearing fashionable masks, staying socially distant.  Then, a forward-thinking entrepreneur decided to risk bringing back “Underground” sessions from 2019.  Events where individuals can come, see a wide variety of cannabis products, buy anything desired, smoke a bit, and leave with a happy feeling. 

These new events remind me of the Speakeasy culture of the 1920’s.  These events serve illegal libations, provide a location to enjoy them, plentiful weed and weed products are available for purchase, quality musical entertainment, and all illegally run by criminals by society’s standards.  There is a funny contrast between the rising Underground culture and the national movement to cannabis legalization.  I believe the world will have to come to a reckoning about cannabis use - just make it legal. 

After the failed American policy of prohibition against alcohol, citizens must come to grips that any form of prohibition creates a criminal underclass that will provide that prohibited item.  The idea of allowing each citizen to grow and ferment whatever they want for personal use would break the back of organized crime, as they profit in sin.  Illegal products would disappear, and enterprising criminals would find more fertile areas to exploit.  In fact, the more you try to discourage something, the more people will seek it out.  This includes the current limits on gatherings.  Groups of Americans take pleasure in not following the wear a mask in public advice and these individuals and groups are still spreading the virus.

Not “Smoke-easies,” the current underground seshs are run professionally and not one case of Covid has been reported being caught at one of these events.  Taking the weed culture back underground is not only a practical thing, it is a necessary change due to the current pandemic.  I trust my brothers and sisters in the cannabis community more than my fellow orthodox “Lost Tribe” members.  It seems that cannabis keeps you safer from Covid-19 than praying. So instead of holy wafers, try edibles, and that kosher wine can be replaced by a beautifully infused kosher product.   I invite the whole world to go “Underground” and leave the social media at home.