Just a Quick Kvetch

I was buying a large jar of catnip (I can mention this now that the presents have been handed out) at K-Mart (where I go first before braving the insanity that is Wal-Mart) and was actually being checked out in a timely fashion (!!!) when the clerk asked me what catnip did to cats. "Oh, it gets them all excited and then they go all relaxed," I said, because I don't think anyone has successfully written a government grant to study this. I added, "My grandmother used to drink a cup of catnip tea when she wasn't feeling well."
The woman behind me said, "You know what catnip really is?"
And right there I was glad that I didn't add my grandmother used to meow after taking a sip to tease my mom.
"A phamacist told me," she announced smugly, "that catnip is the bad stuff left over from the marijuana. I used to let my son make tea with it, but I don't anymore. Not after hearing that." [As if there's a "bad" part to marijuana that's thrown away.]
I humphed. "No, it's not. Catnip is a plant from the mint family. I've grown it. It's nothing like marijuana."
"Well that's what the pharmacist told me."

I let that go. I'm still wondering how that information got garbled.
Did she make it up out of whole cloth?
Was the pharmacist pulling her leg thinking she'd be much to intelligent to really fall for that?
Was he suspecting that her son only called the stuff catnip because she'd found some substance in his room and gave it to said pharmacist to check it out?
Did the pharmacist actually mean "It's the equivalent of 'marijuana' for cats"?

For the rest of y'all, be assured that catnip is an herb from the mint family with the familiar square stem of the rest of the mints. You can buy it anywhere, including economically large jars of it at K-Mart. You can grow it in your yard without experiencing any awkward visits from Drug Enforcement (unlike those who grow the harmless and useful hemp plants that look like marijuana, have absolutely no drug effects, but are still illegal because of the resemblance).

Decades ago when the anti-drug programs were being foisted (and, I thought, wasted) on me, I wondered why I needed to know what uppers, downers, LSD, and marijuana looked like. Even as a teen I thought this would only make it easier to make a drug transaction (not falling for the oregano ... OR CATNIP in the baggie). I was a sanctimonious little horror for whom pressing her eyeballs until she saw colors was interesting enough. But now I see it would have been important so that when I became a mother and I chanced upon a ziploc of dried herb while nosing through my child's room I would not fall for the old, "It's just catnip to make tea!" And then, when that child wanted to know how I got so I could tell the difference, I could say, "When I was your age, they showed us what it looked like in special drug-identification classes." And I'd go mix me a margarita and put my feet up.

Yeah, lady, I was a child of the 60s! Don't try to tell me about catnip!

See if you can tell the difference!