LOGAN SQUARE — In the wake of today’s Illinois House decision to legalize recreational marijuana, a quick survey of friends’ social media reactions revealed that somehow your “stoner metal friend” Keith Reed has remained more measured and thoughtful in his comments than anyone, despite his extensive library of shirts depicting fanciful weed-themed characters like “Marijuanauts” and the “Smoke Covenant”.
Carefully avoiding the jubilant crowds sporting buckskin vests and ironic tattoos celebrating at CBD capital Young American down the street, Reed reflected on the legislation. “I’m glad it passed, I guess, but let’s not forget that a truly transformative drug policy also involves amnesty for incarcerated people.”
Advertisement:
Reed reached his van, painted luridly with a grim-looking wizard and several robed figures, all wreathed in green smoke. He continued, “Look, I’m not saying taking taking a heavy rip doesn’t make a heavy riff rule, but we also should consider how the sudden legalization of a controlled substance is going to fall prey to moneyed interests who are going to move quickly to capitalize on what will undoubtedly be a massive market for Illinois.” He paused, leaning against the carefully calligraphed phrase Proceeds the Weedian Nazareth. “Just like they say in Sleep’s seminal album ‘Dopesmoker’: ‘Grow-Room is church temple of the new stoner breed.’ Sleep was trying to highlight that the act of marijuana cultivation and consumption was an act of freedom and modern mysticism that’s going to be lost or tainted by the commodification that will follow this decision and practically erase a past of racially-tinged oppression and counter-culture rebellion.”
In the social media frenzy following the decision, Reed continued to maintain a surprisingly even keel, avoiding both a petition to change Chicago’s area code to 420 and several frankly childish party invites from friends sporting ACLU profile picture frames and #justiceforall twitter bios. Among other birdbrained reactions, your EDM friend Zack — whom you could have sworn was straightedge — tweeted that he was excited to “smoke that dank in front of a cop” during EDM artist RÜFÜS DU SOL’s Lollapalooza set this year.
Reed apologized as he excused himself from the interview. “I’d love to keep talking; it’s important to me to use my position of privilege to speak out about this kind of thing wherever I can, but I have a lot of work to do on my “Weed Priest” costume for the next Sleep show. I have to make it look convincingly like I exclusively breathe weed smoke — there’s a brass tank and a lot of copper pipe…” Reed trailed off. “You know, it’s funny, I don’t really even smoke that much anymore. Good luck with your piece.” At press time, Reed was lightly intoning “drop out of life with bong in hand” while enrolling in a local DSA chapter.
