A few months ago, I devoted this space to some of the positive feedback I have gotten since Mr. Smith was born back in September. It was kind of my you-like-me-you-really-like-me moment, if you will. It was pretty one-sided, all about the love.
Now that a few more months have passed, and I am getting into a Mr. Smith groove, I wanted to take a look at some criticisms. There are a couple of reasons behind the introspection.
I am still trying to sort out what this column is and what it should be. I want to get your advice, so I urge you to let me know what you think I should be writing. Some of you apparently think I am an ignorant asshole, and that I shouldn’t be writing. Maybe. But I actually do care what you think … if it’s reasoned. If you want to attack, I will repeat from my first column: Fuck you. I don’t have time for haters.
Issue 1: The pseudonym
J.M. Smith is not my real name, and I’ve taken some heat for using a pseudonym, mostly from people using pseudonyms.
I am using the fake name because it allows honesty with less fear of retribution. Lest you think pseudonyms detract from our mutual Internet experience, check a recent analysis by DISQUS, a company that created the comment format used by CNN, Time and Fox News, among others. The company looked at almost 500 million comments from 60 million users and found that pseudonym users’ comments are “liked” and replied to more often than those of anonymous or named users. Pseudonym users’ comments are also less likely to be flagged as spam or removed.
So my pseudonym is not a block to the truth or hindering our interaction in any way. Said Mr. Smith 😉
(Editor’s note: I wanted the writer of this column to use a pseudonym because at some point, one of the jobs of the columnist will be to review dispensaries—and we don’t want the columnist to get special treatment when he shows his Arizona medical marijuana card. Thus … anonymity.)
Issue 2: WTF are we smoking?
What I should call marijuana keeps coming up. I have called it pot, dope, marijuana, cannabis, weed and a few other things. Some of you don’t like calling it pot or weed, but don’t mind marijuana. Others don’t like marijuana and want me to use cannabis. Some of you don’t care at all.
Personally, I have begun to shift from using my preferred “weed” in daily life. I still call it that, but with the advent of the legitimate medical paradigm, that word isn’t rolling off my tongue the way it used to. I now sometimes call it “meds” or “MJ,” but I don’t see MMJ as medicine in the traditional American sense. It is much less controlled than traditional medicines, as it should be. I see MMJ as an herbal remedy. Maybe we should settle on calling it herb. Dunno.
Issue 3: Seriously?
The what-should-we-call-it discussion is linked to a deeper concern that my tone isn’t serious enough. Yes, I talk about MMJ in the way I have for most of my life—the way most of you have and probably do at home. But when I write that way, some folks think I am leaning too far away from the medical world. Cannabis (see how I did that, using a new name and all? I can learn, dammit!) still has a lingering aura of recreation. That will probably never change, and I don’t intend to ignore it. A lot of my terminology comes from the recreational paradigm—as do all of the MMJ strains you are smoking and eating and dribbling on your salad.
In the end …
I’m not really sure where the Mr. Smith column will lead me—professionally (yes, I am a professional, I promise), intellectually or emotionally—or where it will lead the guy who is my pseudonym. In any event, I plan to keep doing what I have been doing: looking around for interesting MMJ tidbits and weaving them into tales that you can enjoy, learn from and maybe offer some feedback on.
Whether you use your real name is entirely up to you.
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2012.
weeeell, since you’re asking for feedback.
I still don’t know if it’s really a bad thing, but mostly I find your articles to be just a lot of cute shit. You drop a lot of F-bombs, and loosely bag on cunt brewer and nazi arpaio, but that’s not anything, that’s just standard and easy and faux-subversive. It’s not really provocative, it’s just more cute shit.
And as I said, I don’t know if this is a bad thing. The Tucson Weekly is no Village Voice, but the VV doesn’t even have someone on the weed-beat, so what does that make them? I think there’s a weed-beat writer for one of the Bay Area rags, but they review strains, and who knows, they’re probably out a job now.
So cute shit works. You’ll get uppity foothills stoners to respond, OUTRAGED at this or that that they read in one of your pieces, but to me it’s just skating along the surface.
I think I’m looking for something harder hitting. I figure if you’re going to have this position you should use it to rile up some folks that have been able to openly float along without any consequence because people that smoke pot have been severely punished and suppressed for a long long time, and no, i’m not talking about border patrol agents taking your friend’s stash, either. I’m looking for someone that will deliver information that’s useful. Expose the real issues with weed legalization/illegalization. Someone that will take their position seriously and start hitting it hard.
But then again, I think about what that would be and conclude that I’m better off left alone. I have a card now that says I can smoke weed for relief from my pain. What the fuck do I care what anyone says about it?
… but you asked.
Thanks, Mr. Boy. I am at your mercy concerning your reaction to my columns, but I would ask what real issues you want me to cover. In my first few months, I have written, among other things, an honest, behind-the-curtain look at a local certification mill; an interview with a combat veteran disabled by his own government then denied legitimate medical treatment by the same government; a talk with a doctor who got national attention for her attempt to do a clinical trial treating PTSD with MMJ; a look at a local health center that uses an unusual business plan to connect MMJ patients with medication; and a discussion of the shame associated with marijuana use. Which other issues would you like me to cover? What information do you need? You didn’t say.
Mr. Smith,
Can you please address the cultivation card I now hold?
Will I be ale to retain that status after all these dispensaries open?
Why should I have to buy MMJ from a dispensary w/high prices? What I’m saying is, will the state renew Our Cultivation licence when it’s time to renew?
Will this be another fight, for a little old man like myself just to be put in Jail?
How many people will be disappointed if they can’t cultivate because the state decides not to renew?
By the way, I always look forward to your opinion.
Hi JM Smith, for the most part I look forward to reading your column. That said, I have been a little disappointed with its lack of scope and breath on occasion. One of the things that interests me and I would think would interest others in this area are the reports or news articles that come out fairly recently about the actual health benefits of the plant. Many Anti-cannabis people like to put down medical MJ saying it is a smoke screen to allow drug addicts to get their fix. To fight this ignorance maybe you could tell stories of local people and how the plant has helped them with their medical condition. The National Cancer Institute states on their website that not only does cannabis help patients with pain and appetite but it also has an Anti-Tumor effect. Also, the science of cannabis and its cannabinoids like CBD and THC ratios offered in products at the dispensaries would be great to know(not just that something is called some odd name like Kush). Just a suggestion. Thanks.
You and the Weekly editors are a great step in helping lawmakers understand that we want to grow cannabis along with our lemon grass, Mexican oregano, basil, mint, rosemary, fennel, sage……..For me it is not about medicine it is about wellness.
I like calling it an herb. I like all your articles except the last one. I do not accept Jan Brewer as a Governor no matter how anyone spins it.
Mr Smith
As far as feedback is concerned..I have only good things to say about your weekly spot in the local rag. I must say that in 15 or so years of living in this area, I normally have always just passed up on the red boxes w the Tucson Weekly. It wasn’t that I disliked the publication, it just did not blow smoke up my kilt. Since the arrival of MEDICAL MJ by pseudo you, I now find myself looking for the most current issues of TUCSON WEEKLY specifically to read your current account of what is happening with THE Arizona government’s feeble attempt to implement the nearly 2-year old law. The local dailies here and up North do little to tell us about the screw job that Brewer/Humble and other elected officials are giving us so they can have their own way and not the will of voters. You do a fine job of keeping us updated on most of the crap that goes on daily and I don’t sense your partisanship that might align you with the likes of Reefer Madness addicts like Snoop Dawg or Wiz Khalifa (mine and Eric Cantor’s heroes)instead you appear to identify with the average guy on the street who is anxiously awaiting a program that will get the MJ user a better break than he finds on the black market when trying to find medication that is not coming from pharmaceutical giants who control medicine in this country.Keep up the good work my friend. A lot of us read you every week!
MaxMan (a pseudonym of course).