For some decades now, classical music organizations have been wondering how to attract more young listeners to their concerts, and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra has now hit on an idea inspired by the recent changes in their state’s laws: You can smoke pot there! A series of fund-raising concerts entitled “Classical Cannabis: The High Note Series” will allow concertgoers to smoke marijuana. You will have to buy a $75 subscription, be at least 21 years old, and bring your own weed, but starting next month, you’ll be able to get high while listening to the orchestra at a small Denver gallery and at the outdoor amphitheater Red Rocks. Oh, to own a share of the concession-stand revenue at those places! Here in Fort Worth, we have Concerts in the Garden. In Denver, they’ll have concerts on the grass.
Seriously, though, what should the CSO play at these concerts? What classical music would go best with marijuana? I thought about Bruckner’s symphonies, or Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Angel of Light” Symphony, or some of Alfred Schnittke’s wilder stuff, but then, I’m no weed smoker. Maybe some of our readers with a knowledge of the classical repertoire and a taste for the chronic can offer suggestions.
Philip Glass. Bach.
Well this isn’t Colorado and hopefully won’t be any time soon. I personally feel that legalising marijuana for recreational use is a huge mistake and that it is going to backfire on both of the states that have done it. I still believe that marijuana is a “gateway” drug that leads people to try even more potent illegal substances and legalising marijuana sends the wrong message out to the general population of any state that it is okay to get obliterated on intoxicating substances in public and that insobriety is the way to go. It isn’t. As if there wasn’t already enough of a serious problem with drunken driving and illegal drug use nationwide, now recreational pot is legal in two states that will have to contend with a bunch of stoned out people in public making idiots out of themselves and being a general public nuisance. Why not just go ahead and legalise cocaine, heroin, LSD, PCP, methamphetamine and the rest of the medicine chest full of illegal substances as well? Let’s just all pretend we are Led Zeppelin roadies and it is 1973 again, huh? That’s real positive! Everybody just stay wasted all of the time on whatever they want and who cares? This is not a positive thing and does not contribute to a healthy, productive society. I rest my case, your honor.
We all want a healthy and productive society. The best way to deal with drugs and that includes alcohol is to take the money out of it. Alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes should be treated the same way. They should be legal but should not be advertised or promoted in any way. Hard core drugs such as narcotics should be made available by the government to addicts. Addicts should be able to chose between free treatment for their addiction or free drugs. If we followed these simple steps there would be no one pushing drugs any more because there would be no money to be made. There would be no drug crime and our jails would virtually empty. Of course this will never happen because all the people that make billions from the drug industry will defend their turf.
People also make tons from the prison industry.
Hope the audience is spending the night or taking public transpo home. Driving while intoxicated is illegal.