Marijuana usage has been a part of my consciousness ever since I was about fifteen. That was, after all, the peak of the hippie countercultural movement of the late 60s. For one reason or another, in my family, the impact fell very little on me or my oldest sister Kathy (we are only three years apart), but fell very heavily on my middle sister, Barbara. All of her friends were heavily into drugs where none of mine or Kathy’s seemed to be. Even in college from 1971-1976, while the smell of ganga was never far in the air, it just wasn’t part of the regular activity we had going on around us. Even my roommate Dave, who grew weed under special grow lamps, never really smoked it when he was with us, to my recollection. It’s funny, because in most ways I think of my path through youthful life as pretty mainstream American, and yet one of the basic tenets of my era, smoking dope, was just not very prevalent or present at all.
According to recent surveys, adults aged 55 and older (10%) are less likely to report using marijuana than are middle-aged (18%) and young (19%) adults based on Gallup’s 2023-2024 data. 31% of adults ages 70 and older support marijuana legalization for medical and recreational purposes, compared with far fewer of their younger brethren. And yet, usage rates are quite low among the oldest age groups. The most recent comprehensive data shows that marijuana use generally decreases significantly with age. While 15% of Americans report they smoke marijuana overall, the usage rate drops to around 10% for those 55 and older, and would be expected to be even lower for those 70 and above. This seems to suggest that my cohort thinks benignly of weed, but mostly doesn’t partake. That’s kinda where I am on the whole topic.
Yesterday when we landed at Denver airport, we were about 15 minutes late. I rushed into the first men’s room I saw as the combination of Bumex diuretic, Diamox anti-altitude meds and general flight delay had left me with an overripe bladder. The huge rest room was like Grand Central Station, with lines for all porcelain. To add to the toilet two-step, the place reeked of marijuana. The thought came to me that I was in Mile High City and already getting a mild secondary high.
That might not seem to be such a big deal, but we had a bit of a coordination vortex underway for our family reunion. Daughter Carolyn and her brood were flying in from San Diego via Salt Lake City, where Kim and I had flown direct. Son Roger & Valene flew in from Philly, and son Tom was driving to the airport to pick them up while I went to rent a Hertz minivan. The midsummer, midweek Denver airport was jammed with passengers and is far larger than I recall. As amazing as it seems, we all convened at the exact same spot within minutes of one another and our minivan and Tom’s crossover were about 5 minutes apart on the toad to Denver. They say that weed can sharpen your senses. In some ways. Marijuana’s effects on the senses are complex and vary depending on the dose, individual, and which senses we’re talking about. The research shows mixed results. Taste and smell often seem more intense or vivid to users, which is why marijuana is associated with increased appetite (“munchies”). Hearing may seem more acute, with users reporting music sounds richer or more detailed. Touch sensations can feel heightened or more pleasurable. But vision is generally negatively affected – marijuana can reduce visual acuity, impair depth perception, and slow visual processing. Time perception becomes distorted, with users often experiencing time as moving more slowly. These effects all occur because marijuana’s active compound, THC, binds to cannabinoid receptors throughout the brain, including areas that process sensory information. However, what feels like “sharpened” senses is often more about altered perception and increased attention to sensory input rather than actual improvement in sensory function. The subjective experience of enhanced senses doesn’t necessarily mean better sensory performance on objective tests. Also, these effects are temporary and wear off as the drug is metabolized. So that bathroom mild high may have made my arrival experience feel more vivid or interesting, but it all worked out perfectly.
Within an hour, those of us checking into a hotel were done with that task and we joined those staying with Tom & Jenna at their house in the oh-so-hip Highland area of Denver. We were a merry band of a dozen who chattered like we were all high on something, even if it was only family conviviality and good times by then. We headed off to Gaetano’s, a local Italian restaurant that had a decidedly Godfatherly reputation and ambiance with its red leather bankettes and it propensity for burrata and veal dishes. We had a wonderful and animated family dinner, replete with exaggerated stories and inside jokes and teases, as families do. We toasted our gathering and forthcoming weekend together with our traditional Casa Moonstruck salutation of “Alla Famiglia!” as though Danny Aiello, Nicholas Cage, Cher, Olympia Dukakis, the Capomaggio’s and Vincent Gardenia were all with us at the table.
After dinner we opted for a stop at a local hot spot on a summer’s eve, Little Man Ice Cream, with its prominent faux aluminum milk can shape and its block-long line of customers. For those of us who know Ithaca well (six of the nine adults went to Cornell and two others grew up nearby in Dryden…and the last one, Kim, has done her time there), this is the Purity Ice Cream of Denver. It was just the right end to a nice Mile High start to our weekend.
The secondary buzz had long since worn off by the time we returned to crash at our hotel, but it had definitely been replaced by the mild high that one feels when one’s family, especially when one is its patriarch, is gathered for one of those rare moments of familial embrace. These gatherings are always tough to plan and even tougher to orchestrate. These gatherings bring forth months of friendly banter and mild back-biting, but once they arrive, we wonder what all the jostling and grousing was about. Kim and I often say, we only have so many Christmases left. We should also start to say that we only have so many summer family gatherings left as well. Tomorrow we go up another mile in altitude and hopefully regain that mild high we started with tonight.