Mother and daughter

Link
A woman in her forties and her daughter in her twenties were smoking marijuana together in their parked car “in advance of a Nickelback concert at Centennial Park in Sarnia [Ontario], part of the Bayfest festival.”
What a nice moment. An adult mother and daughter spending some nice quality time together, enjoying a concert. It should be a Hallmark moment. Until…

Police seized 14 marijuana cigarettes and arrested and charged the pair.

There’s something really sick in our society to allow these two to be arrested (or anyone else for that matter who simply wants to enjoy some good music in a time-honored way).
The Chatham Daily News misses the point entirely in their editorial Family Values Going Up in Smoke

Call us old-fashioned, but we find it deeply unsettling when parents take recreational drugs with their kids.

No, I’m not calling you old-fashioned. I’m calling you stupid.
This mother and daughter have more family values than most people, including the editorial writers at the Chatham Daily News. And what happens to family values when you promote a drug war that rips apart families, jails parents, fills family members and steals children away?
Or is family values just for the father and son in beer commercials?
And I just want to add another point to this. There’s a reason the police go to concerts in search of drug busts. They know that people like to use marijuana when listening to music. But they don’t talk about why.
Marijuana isn’t necessary to enjoying good music. Neither is good speakers. You can listen to music through crappy little speakers and have a wonderful experience. However…
I know someone who is a genius with sound reproduction and speakers. He once invited me to his home and had me sit in “the chair.” He had built all of his speakers himself and had the exact perfect spot in this large room for the very best sound. And I admit, I had never heard sound like that before. It was breathtaking.
Marijuana affects many people listening to music in a similar way. Time shifts, and subtle effects of the music come through with a power as though a dormant tuning fork had been activated inside you. Why do you think the history of jazz is tied to marijuana?
But of course, this is just another aspect of marijuana that the government would prefer not to articulate — it doesn’t fit their propaganda of marijuana alternately causing violent behavior or making you sit for hours on Pete’s couch.
“Don’t use marijuana — it’ll make music sound like you’re listening to the best speaker system on earth and it’ll make Hostess Ding-Dongs taste like a 5-star French restaurant’s Creme BrulÚe.” Hard to sell a drug war that way.
[Tanya at Blame the Drug War reacts to this story as well.]