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Instant Satisfaction Meets Desperate Need to Relax in Mary Jane's

Travel
by Kate Sedgwick Jan 9, 2010
What do you get when you combine a backlash against a go go go world with consumer culture’s promise of instant satisfaction? Mary Jane’s Relaxing soda.

Dubbed the anti-energy drink by the L.A. Times, this is the answer to Tab as the un-cola 30 years later.

When describing the water they use, the company treats customers as if they are idiots with a college education (or maybe this is their attempt at humor), using three dollar words and flowery language to tell us exactly how carbonated the drink is and the nature of the water they use saying:

“We don’t do heavy ‘masking’ carbonation. Just enough for a light, natural fizz to open the taste buds. The carbonation is added to natural spring water, which is a ubiquitous chemical substance essential for human survival. It can be found as a liquid, solid, or gas. We chose the liquid form since it’s a little easier to consume.”

Maybe you already have to be high to get how “natural spring water” might be produced in a solid or gas – or perhaps you only need to be a California native, as you likely would have to be to buy that “natural spring water” is necessary for human survival. According to the LA Times, the Relaxing Soda is enjoying huge success in California for which Jerry Hirsch
credits the legal use of marijuana and the “cannabis-oriented marketing campaign.”

In addition to “lightly carbonated water”, the company website lists as ingredients all-natural cane sugar, passion flower extract, and kava extract. It is the kava extract that is credited with the relaxing effect of the soda. If you’re thinking of replacing another addiction with Mary Jane’s, be aware that “[c]hronic and heavy use of kava for a period of three months or more has occasionally been reported to cause a scaly, yellow skin rash and an eye irritation.” (Wikipedia)

Community Connection

Didn’t get your fix? Check out BraveNewTraveler‘s A Brief History of Weed or Community Member MARIEMMC’s blog Big Milly’s on Friday Night about her Ghana road trip.

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