Dr. Dre is set to drop his first album in more than 15 years this Friday, just in time for the happy winners of New York’s pot lottery to download their brand spanking new waiting room soundtrack.
Five companies in the city were selected last week as being legally able to grow and dispense medical marijuana, with one vendor boasting executives who have worked at Goldman Sachs and PepsiCo. – because if there’s anyone more hungry to get their grubby little mitts on the next national cash cow capable of inspiring a full throttle, $75 junk-food binge, it’s the titans of Wall Street and their bestie mates, otherwise known as sugar fairies of the diabetes-inducing, carbonated kind.
For now, the New York 2014 statute caps the number of dispensaries at 20 and requires the pot to be sold in non-smokable forms, such as oils and tinctures that can be ingested and vaporized. ‘Great’, you think, after being hot boxed in your apartment by the frat guys next door, who insist on getting high from the moment they wake to hit up Xbox, till the moment they pass out from a Monday night session at Hair of the Dog, remaining vigilant in their respect for practicing ‘safety first’, by leaving their front door ajar so as to allow the entire floor to share in their Cheech & Chong affliction.
While vapor cigarettes have officially elevated douchebag hipster smokers and their puff the magic dragon presence on any New York street sidewalk, Manhattaners will now be forced to co-exist with the ‘hippie hipster’, an offensive subset of f@ckheads populating Union Square, whom you would much rather they smoked in the comfort of their parent’s basement, too paranoid to embrace sunlight.
These new hot spots are set to open in January,with a line longer than your local DMV, most likely next to a tidal wave of Dairy Queens and extra deep fried derivatives of Lucky Chicken and KFC.
Despite other U.S. states having since lifted the ban on the green goods to promote formerly family friendly parks and recreational grounds as hazy stoner hangouts, New York State has acted with a little more caution. The thinking is based on niggling concerns about the efficacy of the drug, and also the captain obvious risk that marijuana would be hustled for recreational uses.
Executives in the golden – or rather – green, winning ticket companies have insisted that pot farming takes more hard work than a greenhouse in your broom closet and a U.V. light in order to make cash succeed.
“Our company and our fellow vendors tout partnerships with hospitals and boast Wall Street business acumen. It’s 100 percent about patient care and health,” said one Wall Street veteran championing one project, who refused to be named.
‘Sure’, you think as you cool yourself with a makeshift fan made of sticks and leaves, squatting in a deserted house after the bank foreclosed on your home, that same bank, Goldmans, that encouraged you to take a third mortgage on your family home, having since lost your wife and custody of your two children as a result.
“Investment banks always have our best interest, and more importantly, our health, at heart,” said the victim of no bank duping, ever.
Regardless, cannabis fans everywhere have a reason to light up come Friday, when the co-founder of Beats by Dr. Dre – which, by the way, rakes in a cool $1.5 billion annually – will release his first album since 1999’s best all-night party album of all time, ‘2001’ via iTunes and Apple Music on Friday. No, not on rival rapper Jay Z’s hot mess streaming team-up with poster girl Madonna, Tidal.
Inspired by the upcoming film, ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ a biopic documenting the rise of his group, N.W.A., Dre lauds his new passion project, which features collaborations with artists including Kendrick Lamar, Jill Scott, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and papa-to-be Ice Cube, his ‘grand finale’, implying either death or the expectation that this latest drop bomb will be his meal ticket in perpetuity.
This aptly-timed release could provide New York’s marijuana vendors with a point-of-difference tag line, sure to be a money shot marketing campaign that money couldn’t buy.
“The doctor will see you now,” the receptionist greets you as you sit in the waiting room, already high off the electronic cigarette being puffed by the patient sitting next to you, eagerly awaiting the replenishment of their medication before going home to watch Time Warner’s Saturday afternoon rerun of Dazed and Confused.
Fans had been long-awaiting Dre’s follow-up to his 1999 album, slated to be released under the name, ‘Detox’, which the rap king himself recently deemed simply, ‘not very good.’
Now, more than ever, with the chance to get high in Manhattan officially a legal activity, is not the time to forget about Dre.
Insisting that his new album is ‘bananas, no really, it’s full of potassium in all its rich, gooey goodness!’, Dre is ‘Still D.R.E.’, but simply taking a couple of days from his multi-billion dollar headphone business to tell the next episode.
