Cannabis is many things — medicine, recreational fun, a pastime, and for many, a culture.
There are intrinsic ways cannabis brings people together. It has been doing so for centuries. So, what happens when a global pandemic turns our lives upside down, leaves us stuck at home, and turns our once social toking traditions into solitary ones?
For some the past year meant smoking more, stuck at home with nothing to do. For others, it meant smoking less, with no friend to share it with.
A year after COVID forced us to change some of our favorite habits, we are all left reminiscing on the nostalgia of the culture we love and dreaming of the day we get to enjoy the little things again.
This is a homage to that day and those little things. A day (hopefully not too far in the future) when we can hang with our nearest and dearest and spend our days:
1. Packing a bowl and giving friends greens, watching their faces light up with the momentary honor of the first fresh hit.
2. Sitting in a circle with friends and passing a joint around, watching it grow smaller and smaller each time it once again finds your hands.
3. Breaking out the bud and the wrap and debating who is the master blunt roller among the group. This person is tasked with the job, only to have it playfully judged for better or worse once it’s lit and passed around.
4. Taking a late-night drive in your friend’s truck to the only gas station in town that’s open late to pick out a blunt wrap. Grape or vanilla?
5. Boasting about the new strain you have to your buddy as you pack the bowl, chatting about where you picked it up, how great it is, and how excited you are to share.
6. Debating with your friend if the two of you should pack a bowl, roll a joint, or break out the bong for your movie night.
7. Overestimating the size of dab you should give your friend proceeded by chuckling and apologizing as they hand the rig back to you.
8. Breaking out the strain you have while your two other friends break out theirs, and mixing them all together for a heady salad.
9. Figuring out who stole the lighter when the smoke sesh is done.
10. Getting so lost in conversation mid-bowl that you go to pack another bowl, find it only half-smoked, and crack up.
11. Having a reason to break out that one special piece again — you know the one.
12. Hopping in your friend’s car to take a quick trip to the dispensary, then winding up happily wasting an hour together checking out all the new strains and products.
13. Hopping in your friend’s car to meet their connect and spending an hour with them smoking nearly as much as you came to buy.
14. Searching your friend out at a crowded party to make sure they know about the joint that’s about to be going around outside.
15. Baking a batch of brownies together and then discovering, together, how much is too much.
16. Having a reason and the motivation to clean your glass more often than you have this past year. Don’t even try to deny it.
17. Taking a day hike with your group of friends and rolling something up at the pinnacle to enjoy together along with the view.
18. Taking a ride out into the woods with your friends to spend the day sharing a few joints amongst the trees or down by the riverside.
19. Rolling up to a three-day music festival together and setting up camp. Placing the chairs in a circle and the cooler in the middle inevitably creates the group’s rolling station.
20. Playing a local show with your band and enjoying some green together in the green room during your set break.
21. Getting stoned with your friends and create something together — art, music, poetry, or a strangely colored frog in a coloring book.
22. Sharing your vape pen outside with your friend before heading into happy hour at your favorite local restaurant for 2-for-1 appetizers.
23. Getting lost in philosophical or existential conversation while thoroughly stoned, then concluding the debate by agreeing pizza delivery sounds perfect.
Weed can make it together
Casual toker or not, you’ve likely participated in the act of sharing of cannabis with a friend. Sharing and cannabis go together like peanut butter and jelly, Cheech and Chong, and human beings and socialization.
A solitary toke is nice – even great! But the social aspect of sharing a joint or packing a pipe with a friend are cultural touchstones that have been a part of the ritual of cannabis since humans first decided to smoke it.
So here’s to that first toke you’ll enjoy with a friend in a post-pandemic world. We’re almost there. Keep going! And let us know: what little cannabis rituals, traditions, and habits do you miss sharing with friends?
Rae Lland is a freelance writer, journalist, and former editor for Weedist and The Leaf Online. With a focus on culture, music, health, and wellness, in addition to her work for Leafly, she has also been featured in numerous online cannabis publications as well as print editions of Cannabis Now Magazine. Follow her on Instagram @rae.lland
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