Do you mind if I call you Vinny, since that isn’t your name?

I want to apologize. I’ve been badmouthing you for over a year, telling everyone within earshot that we need to open legal stores to protect our children and communities from the likes of you: predatory street dealers who lurk in alleyways, preying on kids and pushing harder drugs.

Actually, I don’t think you’re like that at all. I have no reason to think you’re selling to eighth-graders, and you haven’t suggested I try a little fentanyl. Far from lurking in alleyways, you’ve been so good as to deliver to my door. And my fulminations in public certainly haven’t stopped me from turning back to your services. Maybe if you’d cut me off, I would have learned to take a more respectful tone. After all, we still have a ways to go before stores open in July 2018.

But what then? Will I be dazzled by the variety and fine quality of storebought weed? Maybe not: I’m an undiscerning cheapskate. Will you go out of business because your other customers have more money and better taste than me? Maybe, but at least the state legislature has your back: if they jack up the taxes on legal sales, the black market will still be the choice of cost-conscious consumers. You and I may be doing business for some time.

In my own defense, I sincerely think legal sales, on the whole, are better for the state, and I hope the stores will do well. Maybe you’ll find work in one. Maybe you’ll open your own store. Or maybe you’ll go into law or medicine, what do I know? However things end up in coming years, you’ve been the real deal. No hard feelings, I hope. In fact, give me a call, would you? Same amount as last time.

Andy Gaus is a Massachusetts-based cannabis advocate and a member of MassCann-NORML.