People of Red Hook—April 2026

People who know their history will tell you that April 20 is the birthday of a very bad man, who I will only describe as the Number One Nazi. But coincidentally, back in the early 1970s, some California kids designated 4:20 as their regular time to meet at a statue at their high school to search for an abandoned cannabis crop (which they never found); a report on their mission by High Times magazine resulted in 4/20 being celebrated not as a time of day, but as a date for annual bacchanalian gatherings of pot smokers. Today most Americans associate April 20 not with the birthday of the very bad man, but with the celebration of “National Weed Day.” So for the April issue of my column, I decided to ask the people of Red Hook how they felt about weed—which I referred to as cannabis, just to be more “high-falootin.” 

Jey-lyn Dailey (A “Team Lead” at Ignyte Cannabis Store):
I have people in my family who smoke, but I also have people who are against it. Some people in my grandmother’s generation are not too fond of it. They believe that it will hold you back, that it will make you lazy. I can see how it can be seen that way. You have to know what you’re smoking. If you smoke a good sativa (one of the two most popular strains) you can be awake and alert and be able to get through the day. When I first started to smoke, I smoked indica (the other most popular cannabis strain) because I associated it with that high feeling. But then I realized it was holding me back from doing things.

Well, people use indica to help them fall asleep.

With me, it wasn’t necessarily a sleep issue, it was about trying to focus during the day. I get distracted easily, and I thought indica would help my brain become less hyper. After I started working here I learned more about sativa. On sativa I was motivated to actually get up and do things rather than wanting to do things but being too tired to do them. On sativa you can actually work!

A lot of people on sativa just hang around and laugh. 

I’ve had times with sativa when I could not stop laughing. It can put you in a great mood. But when it comes to [using weed] there is definitely a learning curve. Everybody’s chemical balance is different. 

So, you can tell your grandmother and her friends that they should try sativa sometime! 

She has tried it. She didn’t like it and that’s fine. It’s not for everybody, but it is something that should be given a chance. There are people who come into work and smell like cigarettes, but nobody gives them a side eye. People get a 15-minute smoke break for their cigarette. Why can’t you get a 15-minute break to smoke some weed? It’s probably keeping me sane right now. 

Are you high now? 

I smoked about an hour ago. And you know what I did right after I smoked? You see this rake here? I took it and went outside, and I planted some seeds. 

It must be interesting, to work in a weed store.

I’ve been working here almost since they’ve opened up, in April of last year. I was out of a job, and I was walking around the neighborhood, and I was like, oh my gosh, they opened up this place. And I came inside, and there were great vibes in here, and I asked if they were hiring. 

Did you have to learn about the different strains and stuff like that? 

We are all in the process of learning as we go along. For my next step, I want to be more hands-on. I want to learn to grow. 

I was in Jamaica about a year ago, and I visited this cannabis farm, and I’ve never seen so many cannabis plants. Miles and miles of them! I was just astonished. 

I was actually kind of astonished, too, when I heard somebody from Jamaica say that it’s not actually legal out there. 

It’s not. But nobody pays any attention to that. When you walk around Jamaica, it’s everywhere. 

Marc (older white guy):
I started doing (cannabis) again right around the pandemic, and it was helpful. So now I make my own. I use this really good flower vaporizer. It’s made by a German company, Storz and Bickel.

What does it look like?

It’s just a little black, squarish device. It’s really well designed. They’re a little pricey, but they’re worth it. You put a small amount of ground (cannabis) flower in it and there’s a little sort of aluminum capsule that fits right into, I guess, the oven portion of the vaporizer. And it heats it up, and it produces this very clean vapor.

So you’re not smoking it.

No. There are no chemicals. 

What benefit do you get from it? 

I’m pretty much an indica kind of guy. 

So you use it to relax. 

Yeah. For relaxation at the end of the day.  

Obviously you have noticed the difference in quality between today’s stuff and what we used when we were younger, when we would roll the seeds …  

(He completes my sentence.) Off the album covers! Yeah, some of the stuff we used back then was so bad you could stuff dolls with it! 

Scott Pfaffman (Local artist, promoter of art and music events, and “slumlord”—as he jokingly puts it—of the Record Shop):
I’m recording you.

Even though I’m stoned, I can tell you’re recording me. 

Maybe because you’re stoned. So what are your thoughts about cannabis?

Well, when I was a kid, and we smoked pot, you could go to jail for 10 years. And now nothing happens if you do it. So smoking pot has changed. It used to be an act of rebellion, a countercultural act. You were making a heavier investment, getting high, because there could be heavy consequences. Of course, a disproportionate share of people (who suffered the consequences) were minorities, especially minority men. We’ve had this emancipation, but we’re still probably several generations from [the damage] being undone. It’s too little, too late. But at least it’s better here than in, like, Texas. It’s still illegal there.

Well, in Texas they still execute people.

Do they shoot them for smoking pot?

Let’s hope not. My sister lives in Texas but she wants to leave. One of my best friends lives in Texas, but he’s in Austin.

That’s not really part of Texas. Austin is a 4/20 town. 

You said you’re stoned now. So you had some weed today?

I smoke marijuana on a daily basis. 

How do you consume it? 

I roll my own marijuana cigarettes. 

Oh, okay. Old-school marijuana cigarettes. What kind of weed do you use?

I don’t know the name of it. It’s probably domestic. It’s was bought in quantity some time ago. 

How do you store it? Doesn’t it get stale? 

No, you throw a little bit of orange peel or a damp paper towel on it, and it keeps it from drying out. 

So for you, cannabis is a little bit like the way people take …

An antidepressant. 

That was what I was going to say. You use it like an antidepressant. 

But I’m hoping that it doesn’t have longterm effects on my mental health, or my cognitive abilities.

Well, you would kind of know, wouldn’t you? 

No, not when you’re my age. You begin to lose your cognitive skills. You and I might be around the same age. The thing about aging that I found is that, as you lose your cognitive capacity, you lose your ability to recognize the it. 

I don’t even want to think about that.

Jaymie Fluker, AKA Jay Fluke, AKA Fluke the Mighty (Competitive video gamer):
I think cannabis can help people who have medical issues, or who use it to cope with something they’re dealing with. I don’t agree with people who see it as a bad drug that makes you do crazy things.

It’s really drinking that makes people do crazy things.

Yes! That’s what drinking does. Cannabis can help you sleep, it can help you relax. It helps me play video games. 

That’s interesting, because a lot of people say, oh, I like to do my weed, but I can’t function that well on it. 

There are days when I can function without it. But there are times when, for instance, I’m entering a tournament, and my nerves are through the roof, and I’ll take one of my weed pens, like the one I have right here, and I puff away and be like, all right, cool. I’m ready to focus. 

Do you prefer sativa?

Mostly, yes, because I want to be up and about when I’m playing video games. I don’t want to do an indica, and be playing, and start to feel tired. 

Where do you complete? 

Anywhere. At home, online, offline. If there’s a local tournament going on, I’ll go and see what that’s about. 

Are you part of a community? 

Yes, but sometimes I go out of state to complete.

So you’re really serious about it. How long have you been playing competitively? 

About a year and a half now. But I’ve been playing video games since I was about six. 

What are your favorite games?  

Fighting games. Marvel versus Capcom 2 is the greatest fighting game of all time. 

And do you like to get to get high when you play that one? 

Oh, yes. 

Do you smoke? Do edibles? 

I do pens, I do trees …

Trees? 

The leaf of the plant. The flower. That’s a newer generation word. 

Oh! I’m going to start saying “trees.” Just to impress people. 

PR (Middle-aged white woman):
I think it can be good for people, like cancer patients, who use it for legitimate medicinal reasons. But I do worry that a lot of what’s being sold is far more potent than it has ever been in the past. And now that it’s legalized, it’s probably easier for kids to get their hands on it.  And the THC content is so much higher now, it can be really unsafe even for adults. And I think studies are starting to show that there are some negative effects from using too much. And for kids, especially, there’s the risk of inducing psychosis, of bringing on mental health issues that they don’t even have a family history of. 

Yes, times have changed from when people thought it was okay to give pot to a three-year-old.  

And now there are a lot of fake THC gummies and vapes and things like that. We don’t even know what’s in them. They could even contain fentanyl. 

Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Well, thank you so much for talking about an important aspect of the subject of cannabis. 

Eddie (Building maintenance worker):
Weed is good if you use it the right way. It makes you hungry. It makes you laugh. It makes you feel good. But it can affect your memory if you use too much of it. And depending on how you smoke it, you might have to worry about getting lung cancer. Some people smoke it out of a bong.  

How do you consume your weed?

I use paper.