*(although, legally, wine may be “served”.)

While you are right that wine enthusiasts do not reach for a glass of wine purely for the intoxication it provides, you are wrong that people smoke weed only for the high it provides. It is not Everclear, as you say. Here in China we would say that wine is not Chinese white liquor (白酒), which is complete filth that people drink purely for the drunk man it turns you into.

You are saying that marijuana is inhaled (or eaten) purely for the high it provides, a high that is the same whatever type of marijuana you use. This is wrong. While intensive marijuana cultivation and hybridization is a rather recent phenomenon in the world (wine has a much longer and storied past) its goals are not purely for strength and strength alone. Scent, texture, color, weight by volume, and taste are all aspects that can change due to the hybrid you are growing and how you cultivate it. You should also know that different hybrids and varieties of marijuana can provide varying types of highs. Some people say that different types of wine bring on different types of intoxication, but in my experience such differences pale in comparison to the differences in high one can receive by smoking various types of pot.

Earlier marijuana was always distilled into a stronger substance (i.e., hashish), but in America such practice is very uncommon. Now people want the herb itself, they want to see, smell and taste it so that they can differentiate it from other varieties. This is the same reason why all wine is not turned into cognac and port. While such appreciation of marijuana is a modern development it’s future is, I believe, going to follow along the same path that wine appreciation has followed. Also, the recent upswing in marijuana potency has, like wine, brought about a backlash as people want something less intense. More evidence that people are not smoking pot simply to get as high as possible as quickly as possible. People want to savor what they are ingesting, they want to be able to have it with friends and not go to sleep right away, the same can be said for wine and weed.

Have you ever sat down with a true marijuana enthusiast? To hear him or her wax poetic about a certain variety of marijuana is almost EXACTLY like listening to a wine critic. Marijuana is not one-note, it is not a simple thing; like wine marijuana (at least the good stuff) brings about a plethora of emotions and sensory delights. Some might say they that both wine critics and marijuana critics are as equally full of hot air, but in fact both have a point.

You are right that food writers and the like should look to wine as something more than just an intoxicating liquid. At the same time wine writers should not look down on marijuana. Last time I checked it was not wine grapes that were the largest agricultural product of America by monetary value. That record, sir, belongs to marijuana.

Once you look at the facts it is fairly obvious that marijuana (both the growing/hybridization of it and the consuming of it) is not a passing fad. The recent developments in medical marijuana legalization and decriminalization of the plant in certain areas point towards a future where it will not be illegal. One day we will look back at marijuana prohibition the way we look at the American prohibition of alcohol in the 20s and 30s. To the young people of America (and Europe), of which I include myself, the idea of wine and marijuana being products that can be both be appreciated at the same intellectual level is not an outlandish idea. Of course, once you inhale you cannot spit – so I guess wine has that going for it.

As an aside, would people care for wine if it contained no alcohol? My guess is no. I think we can all assume that the same could be said for marijuana that doesn’t get you high. This is why food writers talk about wine’s intoxicating value and not simply the taste and smell of a wine – in the end people do drink wine to get drunk and people smoke weed to get high. This doesn’t mean people don’t want to get the best tasting wine or the best tasting pot, it is just one of the many pleasures both provide.

“No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage.”

One of the key decisions leading up to Prohibition was whether it would apply to wine. Wine producers in California didn’t believe until Prohibition passed that wine would be lumped in with other intoxicants. Since then, the law has basically dealt with wine as if the only reason one would consume it was to get drunk.

So, yes, he missed one of the health stories of the decade while just about falling over it. My only question is this: just how much marijuana must he (and his editor) pair with their appetizers to come up with coffee and steak as a perfect, traditional pairing?

The teacher who equates them to his or her students is essentially branding both as “bad”, and, of course, in so doing, is also branding most parents as irresponsible. In that regard, the comments are both Prohibitionist and antagonistic. “Pot is illegal and thus bad for you, and wine is just like pot so it is bad for you and should be illegal” is their misguided, misanthropic message.

The same is true for Pollan and for the Gopnik–although for different reasons. Pollan, as suggested, has a pro-cannabis agenda. Gopnik is simply stupid and insulting. Serious wine drinkers, for the most part, enjoy wine for its ability to enhance a meal or setting. Gopnik’s reference to “to get drunk” is an intentionally pejorative choice of words that goes far beyond the relaxing benefits of any alcohol in moderate amounts, and also accuses that intoxication is the goal. People who write things like that make me wonder if they do not have their own personal demons and resulting axes to grind.

They do best in similar climates. They respond to intensive cultivation.
Quality calls for many skills and even talent from the grower/producer. The producer is most important to quality. There are many varieties providing a variety of experiences. They are both consumed as a sensory and sensual experience. They are consumed in similar settings for the primary purpose of relaxation.

However the effects are very different. Alcohol can reach a toxicity level that cannabis can not and does not reach. Tolerance to cannabis
allows for ingestion with little or no meaningful impairment.
I have know chronic users with impeccable driving records who performed their jobs well too. Fellow employees had no idea that coworker was using. As intake increases, alcohols effects are far more debilitating and impairing.

As far issues of legality, cannabis prohibition, if you learn the history, came about under pretty indefensible, and even fraudulent circumstances. I cringe whenever someone cites for the purposes of argument, “well one is legal and one isn’t”, as if that means anything.
Cannabis prohibition was and continues to be a disastrous failure.
The prohibition policy model, no matter how well intentioned, doesn’t work. I thought we figured that out already.

Was smokin’ the good stuff earlier, apparently.

You can’t go to a cannabis tasting and walk away unimpaired. Simply isn’t possible. You can go to a wine tasting and drive home safely, assuming you spit.

As for me, when I drink wine critically, I can assure you the absolute last thing I want to get is drunk. That’s why God made Russian River Damnation blonde Belgian Ale. To get me tipsy.