By Francis X. Maier
One of my favorite, if cynical, figures from the history of the Reformation and the European wars of religion is Henri de Bourbon. Raised as a convinced Huguenot (Calvinist), he succeeded to the French throne as Henry IV. But in a predominantly Catholic nation he faced fierce resistance. So he did the pragmatic thing. He converted. His motives may have been questionable. But a phrase attributed to him—whether he actually said it is unclear—echoes through the centuries: Paris vaut bien une Messe; “Paris is well worth a Mass.” Put simply, he did what he needed to do to get what he wanted.
I mention this to illustrate a very different, and much more personal, story.
Cannabis and similar unauthorized treats arrived on the campus of the University of Notre Dame (at least in Dillon Hall, the dormitory of my sophomore year) toward the end of 1967. That’s why the next two years are a bit of a blur in my memory. But as a senior I met my lovely and very Catholic wife of the last 56 years.
She, sweetly but quite emphatically, laid out her non-negotiables for a mutually acceptable future, including what and who needed to change. I was no fool. For me it was an easy choice and, given the woman in question, a sincere one: another kind of life was well worth it, one I can write about here with gratitude instead of drying out in some drug-rehabilitation program.
For some of my comrades from that time, however, the story is much darker. They made a different choice. My closest friend—one of the few people of true genius-level I have known in my life—ended up addicted, with an intellectual career destroyed.
It started with cannabis. All of which is the backdrop to what follows.
My wife and I (and our children when they came along) have returned to Notre Dame and the Lake Michigan area every year for half a century. In summer, this stretch of the Midwest is pure magic. For us and for so many others, it is thick with memories. It is a rustic escape for exiles and vacationers from nearby Chicago. The air is clean, the cornfields seem endless, the lake is an inland ocean, a vast and majestic sea stretching to the horizon (“no salt, no sharks”: a local slogan), and U.S. Route 12 still connects two of our favorite beach communities, just a few miles apart: Long Beach, Indiana, and New Buffalo, Michigan.
Once upon a time that undivided, four-lane, 60-mph road passed a restaurant, an auto-repair shop, some open fields, an American Legion post and a couple of sleepy motels. Today those fossils share the highway with a shiny new breed of buildings.
The three miles or so between the Indiana/Michigan state line and the city limits of New Buffalo are now the region’s high-speed Stoner Alley, offering 20 distinct high-end cannabis outlets—from “BLOW” to the aptly named “Information Entropy”—in the form of niche capitalism formerly known as drug trafficking.
Some have on-site consumption lounges and sociability. Most are busy seven days a week. Many offer the first half-ounce of cannabis free to a first-time customer. New Buffalo, once a decaying poverty hole and now a high-end vacation spot, has nine more dispensaries within its municipal limits, earning it the affectionate nickname “Weed City, USA.”
The road along Stoner Alley does carry one official, serious reminder on a sign: according to Michigan law, seat belts are mandatory.
To state the obvious: in Michigan cannabis is fully legal, taxed and marketed. In Indiana it is fully illegal, and any THC above trace hemp levels is treated as a controlled substance under criminal law. First-offense possession is a Class B misdemeanor, with up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Penalties escalate from there.
Twenty-four states now treat cannabis as fully legal, and another sixteen allow it for medical use. This is the gift that keeps on giving from my own self-centered, endlessly self-indulgent boomer generation. As the Wall Street Journal noted earlier this week, “senior citizens are at a record high for getting high.”
It went on to report that:
Many senior marijuana smokers are loud and proud. Sandra Bomar, a 63-year-old San Antonio grandmother who calls herself “Stoner Granny” online, posts marijuana memes on Facebook for her like-minded community. A recent item shows a doctor in a white coat and the phrase: “In my professional opinion, you should smoke a fat joint.”
The cannabis industry is capitalizing on [these developments] with targeted brands like “Senior Moments.” A Cannabis Media Council campaign shows an elderly couple in suggestive lingerie, smiling beside the words: “Can cannabis help a senior in the bedroom? Good news, tiger!”
For the record, as a boomer myself, I do not endorse the above views. Seriously. More importantly, according to the Journal, quite a few other people don’t either. They are fed up with the stench and the behaviors associated with cannabis. And they are pushing back with personal confrontations, legal threats and calls to the police.
But, as with state lotteries, online gambling and “trillionaire” casinos, all those critics are swimming against the tide. In a culture steeped in materialist propaganda; a culture of comfort, distractions and noise; a culture in which tens of millions are on antidepressants, 20 percent of teenagers reported struggling with anxiety and 32 percent of young adults reported some form of mental illness as recently as 2024, “smoking a fat joint” can sound like a pretty good plan.
Stoner Alley is emblematic of our moment, of its confusions and addictions. Any old analgesic will do in a society bent on avoiding the higher things than itself.
In the end, what we want and what we are willing to do to get it define who we are. It is not a new story. See Deuteronomy 30, 15-19. Again and again, we simply want and choose the wrong things. Consequences follow. The point is this: we were made with love, for a purpose. And we are called to be better than this.
About the author
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.