I was thinking about this last week when Antonio M.-C., a digital citizenship teacher I know, joined a video call with camera on accidentally. He didn’t realize we could all see him for at least 17 seconds. He wasn’t doing anything scandalous; he was just sitting there, staring at a small, expensive-looking jar of gummies with the focused intensity of a diamond cutter. When he finally noticed the tiny green light of his webcam, he jumped, cleared his throat, and immediately launched into a defense.

This is the strange, sterile corner we’ve backed ourselves into. We live in an era of productivity Puritanism where every moment of downtime must be justified by a measurable health outcome. We no longer ‘go out for a drink’; we ‘engage in social lubrication for networking purposes.’ We don’t ‘take a nap’; we ‘optimize our recovery cycles.’ And most notably, the cannabis industry has followed suit, pivoting toward a language of clinical utility that feels more like a doctor’s office than a social circle. We’ve replaced the joy of the experience with the data of the effect.

The Performance of Self, Physicalized

I caught myself doing it too, recently. I bought a tincture for $37, and when my partner asked what it was for, I didn’t say ‘to feel good.’ I said it was for ‘cortisol management.’ I lied to the person I share a bed with because the truth-that I simply wanted to enjoy the evening-felt somehow irresponsible. Antonio M.-C. often talks to his students about the ‘performance of the self’ in digital spaces, but we’re seeing that performance bleed into our physical reality. We are performing health to avoid the stigma of pleasure.

If you look at the marketing materials for most modern dispensaries, you’d think they were selling surgical equipment. The colors are muted pastels; the fonts are serifed and serious. There’s a persistent narrative that you aren’t here to have a good time-you’re here to ‘solve’ yourself. You’re a problem to be fixed, a machine to be tuned. It’s a clever bit of linguistic aikido: by admitting a limitation (I’m stressed, I’m tired, I’m anxious), we find a benefit in the consumption. But what if we aren’t broken? What if we just want to sit on the porch and watch the sunset without a wearable device tracking our heart rate variability?

I’ve spent 27 hours this month just reading about the ‘therapeutic benefits’ of various strains, and I realized that I was looking for permission. I was looking for a white-coated authority figure to tell me it was okay to relax. We’ve created a culture where we need a ‘reason’ to use cannabis, or anything else that brings pleasure. This is why a professional and non-judgmental approach is so vital now.

Companies like Canna coast are operating in a space where they can bridge that gap-providing the quality and reliability that the ‘wellness’ crowd craves, while still respecting the fact that recreation is, in itself, a valid human need. You don’t always need a medical-sounding excuse to seek out a high-quality experience. Sometimes the ‘benefit’ is just the fact that you’re having a better time than you were ten minutes ago. We need to stop pretending that every gummy is a medicinal intervention and start admitting that we just want to feel a little more human.

The Performance in Practice

I remember a dinner party where someone pulled out a tin of mints. They were beautiful, silver-embossed, looking like something you’d find in a high-end boutique in Paris. ‘They’re for sleep,’ one person said. ‘I use them for creative focus,’ said another. I watched as they passed the tin around, everyone offering their clinical justification like they were at a support group meeting. Not one person said, ‘These make me feel great and I like the way they taste.’ It was a performance. We were all actors in a play called ‘The Responsible Adult.’

The industry has realized that if they sell cannabis as a way to work harder or sleep better so you can work harder tomorrow, they can tap into a much larger, wealthier, and more anxious demographic. It’s the ‘New Temperance,’ where pleasure is only allowed if it’s a tool for further utility. We are turning our hobbies into ‘side hustles’ and our relaxation into ‘recovery.’

I think about the 107 milligrams of various isolates I have sitting in my cabinet right now. I bought them for their ‘anti-inflammatory’ properties, but the truth is, I like the way they make the light look when it hits the trees in the backyard. I like how they make me forget about my email for an hour. Is that ‘wellness’? Maybe. But it’s also just fun. And ‘fun’ shouldn’t be a dirty word. We need to reclaim the right to have a good time without needing a data-backed justification.

The Double-Edged Sword

Ultimately, the pivot to wellness is a double-edged sword. It has brought cannabis into the mainstream, making it safer and more accessible for millions of people. It has provided relief for those in genuine pain. But it has also brought with it a heavy layer of pretension. It has invited the ‘productivity gurus’ into a space that was once a sanctuary from them. We are now being told how to ‘properly’ use a plant that humans have been using instinctively for thousands of years.

Antonio and I talked about this for a long time after he finally realized his camera was on. He admitted that he’s tired of the jargon. He’s tired of the $77 tinctures that promise to turn him into a ‘super-performer.’ He just wants to be a person who enjoys a gummy on a Tuesday. We all do. We should stop apologizing for it. We should stop framing our relaxation as a medical necessity and start acknowledging it as a fundamental part of being alive.