Cannabis\u2019 journey toward legalization in the US is helpful in understanding the shift taking place around the 4\/20 holiday. Although legal marijuana in the US owes an unpayable debt to San Francisco\u2014to the struggles and the activists living in the city, those affected by AIDS and the counterculture warriors who laid the groundwork for the first legal cannabis in the nation\u2014the historic relationship between cannabis and the \u201cofficial\u201d San Francisco, the civic leaders and the electeds, is at best uneasy and erratic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a data point. Back in 2010, when California had the chance to be the first state in the country to legalize adult-use cannabis, it was San Francisco elected officials\u2014then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, then-District Attorney Kamala Harris and Senator Dianne Feinstein\u2014who led\u00a0the charge against legalization<\/a>. Voters listened,\u00a0and Prop. 19 lost that fall<\/a>\u00a0by seven percentage points.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another: Now, in 2022, in California\u2019s fifth year of adult-use legalization, with the local tourism economy in the toilet post-COVID-19 pandemic and civic leaders desperate for a boost, San Francisco City Hall and local business boosters have launched\u00a0a 4\/20-themed \u201ccannabis festival<\/a>.\u201d Official weed-themed scavenger hunts, historic walking tours and dispensary visits, all predicated on the hope that cannabis can help bail the ailing city out.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the city is in need, weed is there, a handier ATM than casinos or parking tickets, and 4\/20 is the shill. But how about the flip side? Every legal cannabis business says they desperately need tax relief to stay alive, to ensure legalization doesn\u2019t fail and box out the much more affordable illicit market. All that\u2019s up to someone else, say Newsom, Harris or Feinstein. So far, nobody\u2019s pledged to reciprocate.<\/p>\n This history is relevant because it illuminates something, about cannabis broadly, and 4\/20 in particular.\u00a0<\/p>\n After decades of shunning and scorn, weed\u2019s sudden embrace as a point of civic pride is part of the slow but unmistakable tectonic shift we\u2019ve witnessed in our lifetimes\u2014from when a nub of a burnt-out joint, a scale or more than two baggies was\u00a0casus belli<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0millions of people<\/a>\u00a0to become victims of the War on Drugs. Fast forward to present day, and there are almost enough billion-dollar cannabis companies to field a baseball team.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s progress and that\u2019s good. But something else is happening. 4\/20 itself, instead of a renegade act of mass defiance\u2014shamed in the media for being too messy\u2014is now an official permitted event, complete with vendors, on-site sales\u2026and rules. Officially at least, you can\u2019t bring your own stash into Golden Gate Park this year. You can smoke all you want, provided you buy from the right people who paid for the privilege.<\/p>\n The slow capture of the 4\/20 holiday begs a question: Just who\u2019s all of this for?\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Slow Capture of 4\/20<\/strong><\/h4>\n