NYT’s Self-Portrait of an Aging Doper

The cutline for the recent New York Times opinion piece on “How I Buy Weed” caught my eye: “Most of us customers are in late middle age. Soon we’ll be in knee braces, panting up the stairs to our dealer’s apartment.”   

Several years ago, a student in my Elder Law course proposed to write his paper on “medical marijuana for seniors.”  I was skeptical, and pushed him fairly hard on the law and science.  (I admit I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a bit of a hobby topic for him, bridging all of  his upper division paper courses — I didn’t want this paper to be the latest in a series on “Anti-trust implications of marijuana sales,” “First Amendment implications of marijuana use,” “U.C.C. implications for marijuana sales,” etc.)  But my concern was met fairly and the well-written and researched final paper earned an appropriately high grade.  Some time later, I received a request for a job reference for him as our graduate, from an organization in a western state that was advocating medical marijuana.  He got the job. It was the easiest reference I have ever written — and, by the way, the state in question now has legalized medical-use marijuana.

So it was with bemusement that I read the New York Times article — and the colorful comments posted in response.  Sometimes it is surprisingly easy to find “elder law” related items for this Blog!