Will rules around cannabis consumption, if they ever come, get in the way of people getting high at concerts?
The second annual GLD FSTVL on Boston City Hall Plaza this month was a triumph by multiple measures. There were outstanding performances by STL GLD, Dutch ReBelle, Ghostface Killah, and others, and for anyone like me who spent most of their life entrenched in the Boston rap scene, it was like a homecoming.
Through the camaraderie and peaceful revelry, however, many of us had a solid laugh about the alcohol accommodations for those who wished to imbibe. In short, anyone who wanted that kind of refreshment had to visit a beer garden located a football field away from the stage.
This is not a knock on organizers of that show in any way. They did what they had to do under the circumstances—free all-ages show, public property, etc. Rather, I’m using the example since the setup gave me some ideas about how Massachusetts shouldn’t do cannabis social consumption when the time comes.
Even though I planned on having a few alcoholic beverages at GLD FSTVL, the setup kept me sober. In order to drink, you had to enter and stay in a fenced-in corral. A veritable dead zone due to its long distance from the music and the party, the setup made those who did choose to drink look like inmates in a border camp for drunks.
Since I have very little faith in regulators to do cannabis social consumption correctly—whatever that means—I saw in the City Hall Plaza booze cage the future of public weed smoking at concerts. That is to say they’ll give us designated areas to smoke and vape in, thinking that will do the trick. But it won’t.
Thankfully, GLD FSTVL also provided a solid example of what social cannabis consumption should look like—without intentionally doing so. With no specific orders or instructions around how or where concertgoers could consume, people simply did what they always do—they lit up. And not only did the sky not fall, but the experience was all the better for it.
Some more sentimental people may be thinking: What about the children? I’m happy to report that none were harmed, and even happier to say that people getting high appeared to be incredibly responsible as usual, keeping a safe distance from young people in the early hours of the concert when a lot of families were around.
Almost every conversation I have had with people about the prospect of licensing and regulating cannabis consumption in the Bay State—especially if we are talking about outdoor concert venues—arrives at someone saying something to the tune of, Do we really need to make this stuff official? I light up at every show I go to with no problem. Don’t written rules threaten to ruin the good thing that we already have going?
Just take GLD FSTVL as an example—what if the fencing was for pot smokers instead of drinkers, and security told people that they couldn’t burn in the general crowd, close to the stage? In thinking about such a situation, it’s difficult to see state-sanctioned social consumption as more than an unnecessary burden and solution in search of new problems.
As for when we might actually see social consumption in Mass, that’s another story altogether. While there seemed to be some positive movement on that front in January, with Cannabis Control Commission members reporting back from their fact-finding in states that already have programs, that initiative seems to have fallen by the wayside amidst countless setbacks and ongoing agency tumult.
Considering how rules and regulations might get in the way of typical traditional consumption at concerts and festivals, that delay may not be the worst thing.
