Dear Stoner: I'm tired of going to concerts and having to stash pot in my underwear or shoes. How do you get herb into concerts? Do we even need to worry about that now in Colorado or Washington?
Doobie Brother
Dear DB: It's called sleight of hand. Magicians use it to pull off tricks, and you can use it like a stonerized Jedi mind trick. The key is to hide things where the $7.25-an-hour rent-a-cop won't look. For example, if you've got a few joints rolled up, try to palm them in your fingers as you hold out your hat or jacket with the same hand. If you do it right, they'll just look at the piece of clothing and tell you to raise your arms while they pat down your doobie-free pockets. Practice, and you can do it two-handed and get your stash jar and one-hitter in without a scratch.
As for worrying about getting caught? If you're over 21 and it's under an ounce, then at most you'll have security tell you to take it back to your car. Whatever you do, don't pull the "It's my medicine" line or try to claim that because it's legal, you should be able to carry it on you. Many music venues are private establishments, and private companies usually put on the concerts at venues that are public. That means they can set the rules however they want — and that frequently means no pot. Thankfully, this is Colorado, and most of the time nobody gives a damn anyway. That's why you'll see people who are smoking cigarettes in the bleachers at Red Rocks getting ousted while the guy next to them smoking a joint will be left alone.
Dear Stoner: What's your favorite term for cannabis?
Word Nerd
Dear Nerd: There are a lot of good ones out there, and while "hippie lettuce" is probably the one I use most, my favorite stoner slang word is "ganja." It rolls off the tongue as easily as a spliff (a Jamaican term, stemming from the 1930s). The origins of "ganja" most likely stem from India and the Hindi word "ganjha." But its modern usage came about in the West Indies, probably Jamaica, where Indians were brought to work after the end of slavery in the 1830s. While they brought little with them, they did manage to bring ganja seeds. Cannabis wasn't new to the Americas, but high-quality Indian herb was apparently so good that the term became synonymous with sticky icky icky.
