Author of 'MarijuanAmerica' gives talk at Boxcar Books

A thick, skunky cloud has hung over the war on drugs since it started.

And the future of an anti-marijuana America is hazy at best.
 
So says one Yale-educated journalist and author.

Alfred Ryan Nerz, author of the new book “MarijuanAmerica,” spoke Tuesday night at Boxcar Books about America’s weed culture.

He emphasized how the perception of the drug is changing and the experimental journey he took to explore America’s obsessions and reservations about it.

“I feel like America is in a kind of ‘cannabis closet,’” Nerz said. “I wanted to throw a coming-out party and share what I saw.”

What he saw was a different world, but not because he was high.

Nerz, with an admitted obsession with writing and a love for weed, wanted to write about the high life.

So he submerged himself in the marijuana market.

A self-proclaimed stoner since college whose parents were “irrationally supportive” of his “whimsical career moves,” Nerz investigated what it’s like to be surrounded by drug dealers.

“Pitbulls, weed and cash,” he said. “Everywhere, all day.”

He didn’t pretend he had braved it all unscathed.

“I was so scared, I wanted to quit,” he said. “I was always near an insanely illegal amount of drugs.”

Nerz recalled driving with a trunk full of weed on the interstate, under a tailgating state trooper’s scrutiny for miles.

He said he escaped at Exit 420.

The crowd, filling up the room at Boxcar Books, laughed.

But he said weed humor like that is based off a generalization that isn’t all true.

“It’s not all Pineapple Express,” he said. “I met a stock broker who just sits at his firm all day and gets stoned.”

Nerz said the broker allegedly has more than 200 bone tumors and, with a medical marijuana license, receives 300 pre-wrapped joints monthly from the government for the pain.

Nerz said the man never shared a hit of it.

Greed, he said, will be what drives the government to loosen the laws on marijuana.

“It’s not all going to be because of the liberals, people,” he said to the audience. “It’s just practical. There’s so, so much money to be made.”

He explained that decriminalizing drugs would save money in the jail system, and weed could probably ring up more money than cigarettes.

But Nerz acknowledged being able to pack a legal bowl with the blinds open will lose the excitement factor after a while.

He said corporate weed might leave smokers with a bad taste in their mouths.

“People don’t like the government having their hands in everything,” Nerz said. “They’ll miss the privacy, the anonymity of today’s business.”

Bess Fernandez, a volunteer at Boxcar Books, said she thought marijuana would become easier to abuse once it became legal.

“It’s like alcohol,” she said. “Once you can buy it so freely, it’s easy to get hooked.”

Nerz said he concluded his addictive behavior toward weed after he wrote his book.

Now, he said, he uses it for more specific occasions.

“I smoke if I want to chill out or take the edge off,” he said. “And that’s what it’s good for.”