Covert Action

I’m lucky enough to live somewhat close to Rocky Mountain National Park, so a week or so ago I went there, and I consumed marijuana on federal land.

Not to encourage or condone this, but just to state a fact. That’s what I did.

Consuming marijuana on federal land is illegal, of course, and always has been, but nonetheless, in the circles I’ve traveled in, has always been SOP.

I went to a quiet, less frequented corner of the park, and I brought my vape pen, although there were so few people there that I probably could have gotten away with smoking a big, stanky bowl. Winter is not the busy tourist season at Rocky, and I only saw six vehicles and two bicyclists (naughty bicyclists! riding on the trail!) for the entire mile or so I walked. Only one of those vehicles was a Park Service vehicle, and it was a fire crew vehicle, not law enforcement.

Had I been caught, I could have received a $1000 fine plus jail time.

But, I wasn’t caught, because I was covert. I went to a secluded area during the off-season, and I vaped.

I have camped, hiked, and skied on federal lands for almost as long as I have smoked weed, and I have always  gotten stoned while doing so. With the advent of legalization, it has become both easier and more dangerous, in a way, to accomplish this.

Back in the olden days, I would have taken the standard precautions: hiked off the trail a little ways, into the trees; listened for a minute to make sure I didn’t hear any voices in the vicinity; taken care of business quickly and been on my way.

Last week, all I did was walk down the closed, snow-covered road hitting the vape and, occasionally, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was around.

But, when something is illegal, it is almost non-existent for those straight-laced folks who do not partake. It’s like, “What are those people doing over there, honey? Certainly, they can’t be smoking marijuana! That’s illegal!”

People turn a blind eye to it. They don’t want to see it, so they don’t. They want to be able to deny any knowledge of any illegal goings on.

Once it’s legal, though, all of a sudden, it exists. People are aware of it. They know it’s around. They’re looking for it. They may not like that it’s legal, and they may be waiting for an opportunity to narc someone out. Who knows? But this increased awareness includes the po po.

I don’t think it was much of a coincidence that vape pens were perfected just in time for weed to be legal.

Living so close to a national park, I have had occasion to meet some park rangers. Some of them are very cool. Some of them smoke weed, themselves. Others are federal Robot Rangers who cling to The Law with an iron-clad death grip. And even if they are not Law Enforcement Rangers (LE’s), someone who is is just a phone call away.

And they are starting to catch on to the vape pen thing, too, slowly. I know of one such Robot Ranger who will call in anyone who goes through her line at the entrance gate with an e-cig, because she knows that vape pens exist, but she can’t tell the difference between a vape pen and an e-cig, which is getting harder and harder to do anyway as the technology evolves.

A national park is probably one of the easier places to get busted smoking weed, if you’re not careful. Especially in a campground. National parks are more heavily staffed than other federal areas. There’s typically an entrance fee, multiple visitor’s centers, rangers everywhere. This also goes for national monuments and recreation areas.

National forests are a different thing entirely. Whole different department, actually. National parks are under the Department of the Interior, and national forests are the Department of Agriculture, if that makes any sense. It’s much easier to get away with smoking on Forest Service land than Park Service land, except maybe when the Forest Service land you’re on is a ski area.

I remember smoking joints on the chair lift, puffing bowls on the decks of on-mountain restaurants – things that really were not very covert at all. I have not been skiing in years, but I’ve heard that it’s not nearly as easy to get away with these things today. Of course the person you are most likely to get busted by would be a ski patroller, who is not a cop, so again, it’s luck of the draw. Get a cool ski patroller, maybe he’ll let you go with a warning. Get an uncool ski patroller, well, then you’re gonna have a bad time.

Yet again, though, this is another situation where a vape pen makes things so much easier!

And camping? Are you kidding me? I used to smoke bowls in my tent and exhale into my pillow. I used to wait until I had a fire going before I smoked so that I cold blow it out into the campfire smoke, thus disguising it. Now, with a vape pen, I might still go into the tent if I’m in a campground that’s crowded, but there is so little aroma associated with it that it is much less likely that other campers will be like “Honey, what’s that funny smell?”

But, do not be lulled into a false sense of security in a campground. Other campers will narc you out if they know what you are doing and disapprove. Especially in a national park campground where there are rangers all over the place. Forest Service campgrounds are much less frequently patrolled.

So, again, I cannot recommend that anyone try to smoke on federal land in Colorado. All I can say is that I do. And, if you should choose to do so on your own with no provocation from me whatsoever, please, be covert. Don’t just do it out in the open thinking “Oh, well, it’s Colorado! It’s legal, right?” It is still as illegal as it ever was if you are on federal land.

Of course, I do envision a situation where maybe someone might not want to be covert about it. Maybe, someone, or maybe a whole big group of people, might want to join together in protesting the ridiculous federal prohibition of marijuana by staging a mass “smoke-in” on federal land? I could see it happening. Maybe. Just thinking out loud.