Best Way To Make A Weed Reference

If you go back and read the articles that I have written while at the Advocate—which I can say with a measure of certainty nobody has done—you may find that I make plenty of overt, as well as tongue-in-cheek references to marijuana culture.

Maybe you think living in a state that has become an epicenter for the proliferation of the cannabis lifestyle would lead to such a sprinkling of metaphorical wordplay. It goes back further than that—all the way back to a doctor’s visit I had nearly 20 years ago.

In late 1992, the grunge scene was picking up steam and hip-hop was branching off in all different directions. The indomitable rap group N.W.A. had splintered under the direction of Eazy-E, leading rapper and producer Dr. Dre to forge his own solo career. Late that year, he released his first effort The Chronic, which would change the production, style, and aesthetic of gangster rap into a phenomenon that would sweep a new generation of Americans into haze-filled rapture.

We had heard some of the hooks before by Parliament and others, but the way Dre put his album together and made it flow so damn funky that it felt more like a soundtrack to life than an artist hoping to impress critics. Add in one of the greatest debuts of all time with the introduction of a young prodigy named Snoop Dogg, sprinkle it with a little G-funk from Nate Dogg and Warren G, and stir in the spitfire delivery of Dat Nigga Daz, and what you get is an empathic answer to the question of whether rap music could ever go truly mainstream.

The Chronic has done more to introduce weed culture in to popular America than any Sinaloan cartel ever has. Now I must finish, for all this looking at the computer screen has made my eyes turn red. See?