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Smoke Break with Klaus

from ‘Munkey Biz Issue 20’STONE FRUIT + FRESH CANNABIS S…BY WARREN BOBROW

Morristown, NJ is a nice mid-sized town located about an hour drive west/northwest of New York City. I’m born and raised here, which offers the opportunity to share some of my hidden places to get high.

The list is a long one, as I’m not just born. I graduated from prep school, Morristown-Beard in 1980. You can do the math on that one. I’ll be covering a couple at a time. So, you can enjoy the visuals of my walking tour.

Cannabis has only just become quasilegal in Morristown, NJ. I’m still pretty careful about smoking weed in the street. This isn’t New York City where all you smell these days is the stickysweet taint of weed burning. Not that I don’t like it, far from that- smoking cannabis in Morristown, NJ is probably still not such a great idea.

No matter what the voters have said in New Jersey regarding cannabis legality. The long-standing stigmas against smoking cannabis in public still rules the roost here.

But all is not doom and gloom. I’m sharing with you my hidden “underbelly” of where I like to smoke weed where I probably won’t get arrested, nor frowned upon by strangers. I own a gnome. His name is Klaus. Klaus is my mid 19th-century drinking gnome. He used to follow me around the globe when I was a master-mixologist and rum judge in the on and off premise beverage trade. Klaus traveled with me everywhere and he became quite famous for his rum fueled antics, but all that came to a crashing halt during Tales of the Cocktail in 2018. The halt was my leaving the liquor industry, forever when I quit drinking distilled spirits.

It was at Tales that Klaus suggested that I enter the cannabis industry, both as a journalist and as an author of the book, Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics. This suggestion probably saved my life because I’ve dropped nearly sixty pounds since leaving the liquor industry. Sure, he’s a drinking gnome, however Klaus enjoys the weed business much more. Travel is in his little terracotta heart and he loves getting stoned with me.

Klaus is starting this local journey today with a little bit of foot travel around two favored places in Morristown, NJ. This is the place where George Washington rested for a very cold winter during the Revolutionary War.

The first place that I got high over the years, where it was so risky to get stoned there, getting arrested was a probability. The Green in Morristown. The fountain, pictured is a good place to start any respectable journey into getting High in Morristown, NJ. I paused for a one-hitter (Green BodhiTenzin Kush) and remembered that just around the corner on the Green stood the pre-Colonial courthouse, long gone, and the Hanging Tree, also long gone.

The energy in this place is pronounced as this was quite the historic town during the Revolution. I’m sure many unsavory characters throughout history met their end at the bottom of a rope in this spot. You can feel it in your bones if you pause long enough.

On the back side of the Green is the First Presbyterian Church and just behind this grand stone edifice is the historic Churchyard and their preColonial cemetery. Back when I was a teenager, this wasn’t a place where you wanted to walk around in at night. It still may have that stigma with vestiges of a recent homeless camp off set just off into the poison ivy laced underbrush.

But during the day it’s a pretty place with headstones dating back to the early part of the 1700’s. I like to pay homage to the long-departed by smoking cannabis in this cemetery. It’s a serene place to get lit up and reflect on the residents who once graced the town. Their names are often intriguing in the study of history. I’m convinced that very few Morristown residents even know that this place exists… Much less come here to get stoned. It’s part of the journey in this town. To find places that are just off the beaten path, excellent for catching a fire.

It’s my pleasure to share these places with you!