Welcome to Weed Week. That's a whole week of VICE celebrating and exploring marijuana culture even more than we do already, in the lead up to 4/20.Why?Because weed is at a strange junction. In Australia, its medicinal benefits seem to have graduated from wishful thinking on the fringes, to a peer-reviewed consensus in the middle. Five years ago it would have been impossible for a politician like Malcolm Turnbull to urge doctors to get around local weed shortages by buying from overseas, but now that's exactly what's happening.Simultaneously, the drug has reached an all-time crescendo of social acceptability. Music, movies, and general meme culture is batting for weed in a way that's never been seen before. It's a kind of grassroots PR drive, curated by people who just like to get high, and it's working. For a lot of younger demographics these days, admitting you smoke is a total non-event. It's like admitting you drink beer.Yet it's still an illegal drug. Politicians are increasingly embracing it, large swathes of the public are using it, but nationally we're making 75,000 arrests a year (at last count in 2014–15) while NSW has the most anti-weed laws in the country. There are sniffer dogs patrolling sports events, music festivals, and even train stations.So marijuana is in a twilight phase of social and legal change, and we're taking stock. Think of Weed Week as a series of vignettes, presenting a range of issues associated with stoner culture. From the black market, to mental health, to weed as a fledgling industry. We're not saying the drug is an unambiguous force for good; only that it's a force. And as Australia heads towards legalising recreational marijuana (it'll happen someday), we feel it's important to pause and look at where we're at.Right now, in the year 2017, this is how Australia is dealing with marijuana.
