Why I Do Not Call the Cops on my Weed Smoking Neighbors

A guest to my apartment tonight asked the thought provoking question, "Does it always smell like pot in here?" My roommate quickly replied with a yes. I simply thought about it for an hour or so after trying to go to bed this evening (the night before two of my finals).

To Tommy, and perhaps most neutral observers, the air within my hallways appears to always smell like happy. Heck, it even permeates my own living room every so often (Tuesdays).

One night not too long ago, as I can best recall, I was having a social gathering of sorts when I stumbled out into said hallways. It was late and I was not in the best of mind, so I can't recall whether or not the stench of weed filled the air, but I do recall running into my across the hall neighbor in the twenty seconds or so I stepped outside my doorway. He looked at me, giggled a bit (the man was likely not in his best of mind either) and said "You know, I'd never call the cops on you guys, you know? I mean, you guys... I'd never call the cops on you guys."

I thanked him for his kindness and returned to my living room. I had told everyone in attendance (mostly visitors from back home) earlier that no cops would be called on our gathering because all of my neighbors constantly smoked weed. (i.e. If I am ever busted while living at 830 East Jefferson, I would loyally dial 911 every time I even think I smell weed until the day my lease expires. The resulting situation is an equilibrium where the police are never called for blatant underage drinking parties.)

With the guarantee of a toked up neighbor to "be cool," I began to wonder why I myself didn't call the cops to end the reeking of my hallway air (other than the corralary to the previously mentioned equilibrium whereby my calling the cops on pot smoking would result in my loss of ability to host underage drinking gatherings because my neighbors would want to take revenge.)

The answer, as I have just now concluded, is that to do so would be to exploit society's status quo for my own benefit. As an opponent of structural violence, institutionalized racism, and persistent poverty- to use society's set set of beliefs and systems for nothing but my own personal fulfillment would be to make myself a hypocrite.

You see, a pot stench in the air is an example of an externality. When one smokes, the potent smell of the act often penetrates a wide area -diffusing through walls and locked doors, even. Assuming he has no impolite or hypocritical neighbors to worry about potentially busting him, the smoker does not incur any costs from polluting the air around him and keeps all the benefits of getting high to himself, this is the definition of an externality.

An example of an externality would be Nemo shitting in the tank that Gill, Bloat, Peach, Gurgle, Bubbles, Jacques, and Deb must all swim. Nemo only wants too poo, and he can do so without having to pay anything to the other fish- even though they all suffer somewhat from his actions. So nobody else really benefits from Nemo taking a dump but Nemo, and he has no incentive (or means, really) to spread that benefit around.

Another, more relevant, example of an externality would be listening to loud music. I enjoy this. Greatly. I would say that I listen to music a minimum of two hours a day. A large portion of this is heard through the speakers in my living room (the very ones which often make my underage drinking gatherings so unsecretive.) I don't listen to music very loudly, but the noise always finds a way to seep into the hallways of my apartment building.

Going back to the pot example, you might wonder if maybe spreading the smell of weed might actually make the people not behind the bong better off. While some people dislike or even greatly dislike the smell of marajuiana smoke (example: Tommy), some people just happen to like or even love the smell of weed. So how can I say that smoking weed incurs an external cost to neighbors if those neighbors might actually love the smell that smoking produces (many of mine do)?

If that were true, than basic economics would dictate that my neighbors actually don't smoke weed often enough. I am sorry to report that that isn't really the case in reality. To see why, return to the music example:

You know when you're walking/in class/studying and someone nearby is listening to their iPod so loud that you can actually tell what song and maybe even the lyrics of that song they've got playing? I'm willing to bet that even if you liked the song they were listening to, you would rather listen to that music on your own iPod instead of second hand on someone elses. Maybe theres novelty in having unexpectedly similar musical tastes to a stranger, or maybe your day is slightly brightened by even getting a taste of your favorite song, but over the course of the long run (like say a 12 month lease) I'll bet you'd choose hearing your music yourself.

Similarly, any rational pot connoisseur would take smoking themselves silly six times a week over smelling someone else smoke themselves silly six times a week.

And so now that we've established that pot does indeed impose a cost on the people not smoking it (nonsmokers who dislike it obviously suffer, and smokers would rather be smoking themselves than always smelling from the sidelines) the question must be asked: Why don't I call the cops on my Weed Smoking neighbors and cut off the externality?

I'm sure my weed smoking neighbors (there are many) would not like this. People who smoke weed do not always pride themselves in the fact, but an indisputable fact is that no matter what their feelings on the matter- people who smoke must value the act somewhat. We could approximate this by what the average regular smoker pays per day for weed, but I will just say here that the average value my neighbors place on smoking is no more than $100 a day (that's over $35,000 a year). No one I live by would, in their right mind, pay over $100 a day for the right and means to smoke weed. There are simply too many other close enough substitutes for $100 a day payment to smoke to be appealing, plus don't forget that not all smokers take ecstatic pride in smoking- some pay (money and personal costs) just to quit.

Compare that to music. I have never heard of someone paying money to rehab themselves off of music. Music is just something people don't normally want to get rid of in their lives. Some people can't live without it, or damn close. I am one of those some people. In addition to listening to two hours of music a day, I normally have some song or another running through my head for a majority of each day. Counting also all the music I hear on TV, video games, and through the dude that sits in the middle of my econ class with a near subwoofer attached to his iPod, it would probably take a payment of at least $300 a day to entice me to eliminate music from my life. That's the about the price of a current gen gaming system- the feeling of purchasing a brand new Xbox360 for the first time would more than make up for not ever listening to any sort of music. For one day. That feeling, or its financial equivalent, would need to be paid out to me every day for me to live a satisfied life sans music. Three hundred bucks daily is about what pharmacists make and so you could say that I get as much enjoyment out of music as I would from regularly recieving a Walgreens paycheck.

Anyways, I'm certain that my right to listen to music loudly is worth more to me than smoking weed is to each of my neighbors individually. The only difference is that when it comes to coercive power (a.k.a. enacting the police), I have the upper hand because smoking weed is held in much more disdain than listening to music, especially in the eyes of the law. Perhaps this is why potheads don't always (though occasionally) love their lifestyle as much as Country musicians or pharmacists or someone with a more socially acceptable lifestyle love theirs. (Can you imagine Toby Keith checking into a facility to ween himself off of singing? Checking into drug rehab is more common for rock stars than music rehab.)

Point being, I have the ability to call the cops on my pot smoking neighbors, but they would never be able to equally retaliate against my music listening. I don't really have any moral angst against smoking weed, so to call the cops simply because my hallways smell bad would only be to rid an externality- to benefit me and me alone by prohibiting Nemo from pooping. I have the ability to call the cops because they look down on my neighbors' externality and yet not so much on my own. Because I have nothing against pot, to use the cops would be abuse of society's assumptions- the status quo. Therefore, I must be unbiased and ask myself- if I want to rid this apartment complex of the cost of pot smelling air, I must also want to rid it of unnecessary noise, but would it be worth it? The answer is an obvious no: Not only would I lose in this situation because music is worth more to me than pot is to my neighbors, but everyone would be much worse off because the benefits of smoking pot and listening to music far outweigh the pollution they cause to others' airspace.


Of course there is one case whereby listening to music and smoking pot would both be hated upon by the police, giving all tenants here at 830 East Jefferson equal political power (though, remember that because music is more valuable than pot, I wouldn't utilize the cops even if it weren't utilizing society's standards to my personal advantage). The exception is in the case where the music is for a social gathering involving underage drinking. Maybe my neighbor, in an externality based daze, had reached these very same conclusions and wanted only to enlighten me that night.