I’m technically a smoker.  However, I detest cigarettes.  A few times a day I excuse myself, step outside and take a couple hits off my bat. Just one inhale, sometimes two out of a small pipe that resembles a cigarette.  A wafting smell of something that’s not tobacco and I step back inside.  Usually this is 25 feet away from an entrance or on mostly private property but sometimes I’m just walking down the street.  No one notices or cares.  Just another smoker on the street.  When I pull out a blown glass pipe in the same situation, the entire tone changes.  Stares, whispers, attention.

The paraphernalia carries a connotation – you know, the doing drugs kind.  I transform from a smoker into a junkie.  Okay, not quite as extreme as that but what if I change the venue to a public park?  The movement for medical marijuana has foundations in children’s medicine while smoking pot next to a playground is illegal?  Marijuana is supposed to be available to anyone 21+ and yet holistic medicinal applications are forgotten in the gleeful rush of recreational use.

I understand the desire to protect children from scenes of unfettered drug use and debauchery but that’s not the situation we’re talking about.  The difference is in the user, not the substance.  I choose to smoke because that’s what works for me.  All I ask is the freedom to inhale with the same impunity as cigarette smokers.  That’s what I already do with my stealth method.  I’d rather be able to use a pipe because it’s easier on my throat.  That shouldn’t be too much for the general public to swallow.