Merry Christmas Snoop Dogg (4/20) 4.19.02

It's 4/20, y'all - I got love. At least that's what Snoop Dogg said about this day of the calendar. I'm not exactly sure why, but it has something to do with hydroponic grow lights. I guess Snoop is an amateur horticulturalist.
OK, that's not true. I know full well what Snoop meant when he referred to 420, it's pot smoker's Christmas. I cannot afford to be too naive in my line of work though naivete is supposed to be a sign of our purity and innocence, isn't it?
Light and dark. In life as in art, is how we see literally and figuratively.
How could I not know what 420 is? I went to college half my life after all, and if you aren't going to learn about all the bizarre pop culture/hipster/druggie/hip-hop references hanging out in a newsroom full of 18-22-year-olds, then not only are you NOT trying, you are walking around with blinders on.
The date, 4/20, is not significant on its own, but 420 is some kind of police code in certain regions of the country for marijuana possession.
Hence, high schoolers who engage in this behavior might say to one another, "excuse me, old bean, shall we meet after school to practice our various sporting interests at say, oh, I don't know, 4:20?" They then might snigger in glee that their inside joke went unnoticed.
Of course, 420 is also a kind of a joke among fans of many acts that promote and glorify marijuana the way the Three Stooges promoted pie-flinging and physical abuse.
Cypress Hill make no bones about their pot use and get almost as much comedy mileage out of such songs as "Hits from a Bong" as Cheech and Chong got from "Up in Smoke."
Of course, besides alcohol, pot and Whippits, drugs really aren't that funny and we should all take the subject quite seriously, shouldn't we?
I don't want to get all negative or anything 'cause Lord knows nobody likes it when I take things to the dark side, but occasionally we need people capable of walking in the dark and the light to give us an honest look at what's happening in our community so we can be informed and perhaps do something about "the way things are."
So here's an opininion from the dark side: I'm sick of living in a town where it's raining tweakers. Maybe I just notice these people more than others do, but I can't go anywhere without seeing tweakers. At the grocery store, driving down the street, watching a movie ... tweakers, tweakers, tweakers.
"Tweakers" are people whose drug of "choice" is meth. You can always, and I do mean ALWAYS, tell when somebody is tweakING. They act like they just drank a whole pot of coffee for the first time in their lives. They're anxious, they don't sleep, their eyes dart around, they can't sit still and they will not shut up. Most of the time they look like they haven't showered in weeks or don't know what a washcloth is.
They are twitchy, unpredictable and dangerous.
Remember the last time you were enjoying a skillet at Village Inn and some chick came in with messed up teeth and greasy hair? She kept chattering with anybody who would give her a minute, turning around in her booth to complain about how her boyfriend just left her in the parking lot then changed her order five times and kept trying to pass all this off as being sociable?
That was a tweaker. Took me some time to figure it out, but now I just don't give people the benefit of the doubt, if it looks like a tweaker, twitches like a tweaker and won't shut up like a tweaker, it's a tweaker and I move on.
Last time I said hating people because of their race was wrong because there are so many good reasons to hate others? Well, tweaking is an example of a good reason to hate others.
They do this drug that makes them unbearable in every conceiveable way, they get addicted, then they start stealing to support their habit and committing other various and sundry crimes associated with not being able to sit still after being awake for three days.
Give me some laid back, giggly potheads any day. Some unemployed college student high on weed trips into a restaurant, you can trust that. It's almost reassuring and comfortable like a Norman Rockwell painting these days.
That kid on weed just wants a Denver omelet, cheese fries, chicken fried steak, pie, ice cream and the biggest glass of chocolate milk you've ever seen. He isn't dangerous.
Tweakers, on the other hand. They add to the disquiet and danger in our community.
Drugs are common. Why? Basically, people will do anything to get high and yeah, I'm looking at you Mr. and Mrs. Bud Light Cigarette Smokin' Coffee Drinker. Legal they may be but caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are drugs so use that insight to figure out people who do drugs you disapprove of.
If the film "Traffic" showed us anything it is that as long as there is money to made supplying people with their particular fix, we will have a drug problem. Outlaw sugary snacks and you will create another industry for criminals to get rich on as they find new ways to sell stronger and more addictive forms of sugar.
You know there is something wrong with the world when you look back on a time when pot was about all you had to worry about as the good old days.
It's time to out-think the problem of drugs because it will keep on trucking, you can count on that.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.