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As cannabis beverages rise in popularity, they’re doing more than offering a new kind of buzz, they’re borrowing wine’s hard-earned narrative of culture, community and moderation. Karen MacNeil (pictured) argues it’s time for wine lovers to speak up before their story is rewritten.
“The next time you attend an upscale gathering, don’t be surprised if, alongside or instead of the Champagne, you’re offered something that fizzes like a premium seltzer but delivers an entirely different kind of buzz. Just remember that, unlike alcohol, where effects can be unpredictable, with these beverages, moderation and mindfulness are built right into the experience.”
That’s a quote from a recent article in Gigwise entitled, Celebrity-Endorsed Cannabis Drinks: The New Toast of High-End Gatherings.
Redefining moderation and mindfulness
Since when is wine less “predictable” than pot? And since when does cannabis own the concepts of moderation and mindfulness? Moderation has been wine’s message since the time of the ancient Greeks, who shunned inebriation and who valued moderate consumption of wine for its ability to inspire intellectual thought.
For cannabis producers to appropriate wine’s historic narrative is clever marketing, and it’s also extremely worrying. Cannabis has assumed a “moral high ground.” Indeed, the anti-alcohol forces have increasingly framed their argument in moral terms. Witness the World Health Organisation’s “Guidelines for Journalists”, which states that alcohol use leads to child abuse, divorce, vandalism, and violence, among other acts.
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The author of the Cannabis Drinks article, Emma Richardson, goes on to say, “Perhaps the most compelling reason for the champagne-to-cannabis switch is the complete absence of hangovers … This benefit particularly resonates with health-conscious consumers who still want social lubrication without the inflammation, dehydration, and brain fog that often follow alcohol consumption.”
This “morning after” argument is especially insidious. It promotes drinking cannabis beverages not for their attributes, but precisely because those beverages are not wine. Wine and other alcoholic beverages are then wrongly blamed for a variety of “wellness consequences.” Brain fog. Who could want that?
A silent shift in perception
I have nothing against cannabis. I do have something against manipulative arguments like Ms. Richardson’s, which slyly turn the tables on wine, positioning it as uncool, risky, and “un-mindful.”
For 8000 years, wine has been a communal beverage that brings people together. A beverage born of rural agricultural communities. I think of wine as the silent music of Nature.
Those of us who love wine have to tell the positive story about it. We need to speak louder and more insistently. Our silence is getting dangerous.
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“}]] As cannabis drinks rise in popularity, they’re doing more than offering a new kind of buzz, they’re borrowing wine’s hard-earned narrative of culture, community and moderation. Karen MacNeil argues it’s time for wine lovers to speak up before their story is rewritten. Read More
