From the "what was this guy smoking?" department comes a brilliant letter in the Chronicle this morning about what people are...um...smoking. Entitled "Governor far too cozy with San Francisco drug culture", the letter from a Manhattanite charges that our own Brian Schweitzer is clearly on drugs--or at least promoting them madly--by traveling to Sodom. I mean, California.
Schweitzer isn’t even a little bit bashful about traveling to San Francisco (industry headquarters for pot, porn and perversion) for a fundraiser with cannabis culture icon Bill Maher.
How come nobody told me that San Francisco was the headquarters for pot, porn, and perversion? I was just there in November and my trip was lacking even the most rudimentary elements of these industries. Furthermore, I was not aware that merely visiting San Francisco could make one supportive of the drug culture. Add that devil-may-care trip to the City by the Bay to appearing on Bill Maher's show, well, it must mean that Schweitzer is ransacking the kitchen at the Governor's Mansion for cheetos and cold pizza while watching the Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz on double HDTVs.
What would this letter-writer prefer, exactly? The governor leaving Helena under the cloak of darkness to "visit relatives" in "Nebraska" so as to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of those Montanans who have ridiculous, uninformed opinions about the most populous American state?
And I guess maybe I'm the dumb one, as I didn't realize that Bill Maher was a central figure in drug culture. (No HBO!) Moreover, not being a regular reader of High Times or other marijuana-positive publications, I was not privy to the many awards heaped on Mr. Maher regarding his pro-drug stance. It strikes me that perhaps the letter writer has been spending a bit too much time on the Marijuana Policy Project website to learn all these facts about Schweitzer's new "best friend".
Regrettably, Mr. Manhattan has not spent enough time on said website to learn the cool slang for marijuana:
Interestingly, British psychiatrists estimate an additional 25,000 cases of schizophrenia caused by the smoking of skunk (marijuana).
Reefer madness, I tell you! Actually, madness is believing that visiting a single city can indicate support for smoking anything (I presume Mr. Manhattan is most concerned about pot and pole, but what do I know?), or that a single city could claim to be the world capital of three such diverse industries. I'm no native Californian, but my sources tell me that porn is in Southern California and pot is in the far north. And if perversion is an actual industry, I'd appreciate directions to that San Francisco world headquarters. I've got a small child to protect, you know.