A Southern Transplant

Had another one of those 'smack-in-the-face DUH you're not at home anymore' moments yesterday. 

We were discussing marijuana in lab (as part of a discussion of the Class 1, Class 2, etc. drugs), and I asked, "So do you guys have anywhere out here here that has legal medical marijuana?"
Response: "Ummmmm.... no."
"Oh, it's pretty common back home."

Ultimate response: "Oh no hunni, you're in The South, now."

So I went home and did some research on medical marijuana, thinking I had maybe overestimated it's prevalence. Here's what I found:

• 13 states currently have legalized medical marijuana.  4 of these border Arizona.  Yep, that's right: in 4 out of the 5 states that border Arizona, pot = legal.  We also have Mexico as a border, but that's a whole new drug ballpark, so we won't go there.  The 1 state exception is Utah, and all of the Mormons there would never let that pass.  (Note: I have absolutely nothing against Mormons, and please don't read the previous statement to indicate that.  I simply mean that Utah has a much more cohesive religious community than many other states, a constituency which doesn't usually favor such types of legislation.)
• Although Arizona currently does not allow for the legal dispensing of marijuana, a doctor in Arizona could prescribe it for patients without any recourse (act has since been amended and this privilege revoked), and a current proposition to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes will likely be on the 2010 ballot.
• Nowhere within a GOOD distance of NC has legalized marijuana.  I believe the closest is Michigan (or maybe Rhode Island...I'm bad at estimating distances.  Either way, not what you'd call closely associated neighbors.)
• Currently, the only state in the Union that has marijuana "dispensaries" (think of them as marijuana pharmacies, if you will) is California, AZ's next door "big brother".  The new AZ legislation proposed for 2010 mimics this system and would establish dispensaries in Arizona. 

Anyhow, I concluded that I was NOT some crazy radical who thought pot was all around me - life here and there are just VERY different.

(Another humorous case in point:  Most people out here have never even *heard* of a javelina.  I had to explain the size, differences between them and domesticated hogs, when/where you see them, etc.  It was so funny to me.  I followed that with the fact that, yes, we do occasionally see scorpions in the house, and yes, tumbleweeds are real things, not just some prop out of an old Jesse James movie.  Sometimes I feel like I'm from a different planet.)

I moved here because it seemed like just the type of place that could give me just the type of life I think I want; I can build my future family here.  I still believe that, but it's just such an intangible concept right now because I don't feel like I fit in.  I feel like an outsider, mostly because I am.  I try to remember back to just before Thanksgiving of my freshman year of college (which is difficult to do, by the way), how I felt in Tucson.  Though the difference wasn't quite as uncomfortable because I was in the same region, I definitely didn't feel like a Tucsonan.  That didn't come until somewhere around the end of sophomore year, I think.  Remembering back, though, to how very Tucsonan I felt after I graduated, my hopes are that such a transformation and adaptation will take place here.  I don't see any reason they shouldn't, but you just never know.

Off to take a hot bath now - another difference of my new home: we never had 50 degrees with cold wind and rain for days straight.  Brrrr~!