Marijuana Not

Youth and Young Adult Highs

Although I no longer remember exactly where and when, the first time I tried marijuana was while I was still in high school. It was at the end of the 1960s and I was hanging out with a close friend on the West Side of Chicago where we lived. It was just an experiment, another rite of passage. We had to see what it was like. We were curious and it was interesting. Being persistent teenagers, of course we occasionally tried it again. We soon figured out that it might also be fun and a little fascinating.

I learned how to roll a joint and smoke it for maximum effect by inhaling and holding it in for a moment before exhaling, a method that seemed logical. When I was in college studying architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago, working part-time jobs, living in a dormitory or eventually in my own apartment, I would occasionally use a pipe because it seemed better and more cool, even if it wasn’t really. I also (very briefly) experienced using a bong owned by friends, which never really impressed me as a better way to smoke even though my friends and co-workers were convinced it was the best way; I secretly thought bongs required more work and were germy.

A few times, I was talked into receiving marijuana smoke through a “shotgun” (what we called it in those days) whereby your friend held a joint in his mouth and blew the smoke out back towards you for inhaling. I was open-minded and liberal but I also thought that shotguns were one of the gayest things my straight friends and I did together because it was the only time when their mouth and my mouth had to be close enough that it wouldn’t take much more for us to kiss.

Effects and Side Effects

In the 1970s, marijuana had many nicknames ("Mary Jane", "smoke", etc.). Some “brands” of marijuana — there were so many geographical sources, none of which could be verified and most of which were much more about street marketing rather than fact — seemed better smelling, more mellow, less harsh and more potent than other “brands”. But if there was any decent quality to it, marijuana almost always changed my perception of the world around me. Everything was noticeably different. Things were surreal but more enjoyable, relaxed, thoughtful and introspective, but the external world also seemed enhanced. Still, I remained in very reasonable control of myself and everything around me. I didn't take unnecessary chances or forget to be aware of things that could cause accidents. Of course, not everyone experienced my mellow highs and people were affected in their own way. 

But in me, marijuana often produced either pleasant or neutral side effects. During observations of myself and my friends, I began to name the results of smoking marijuana as I saw them. Put another way, there were the stages of marijuana, all of which depended on one's time, location and mental mood. There was "music" marijuana when songs were better than ever; "visual" marijuana, when the world looked more beautiful and sometimes I tried to capture it with my camera (but when it was all over I was just taking pictures of average scenes); "laughing/giggling" marijuana (when everything was funny); "horny" marijuana (when inhibitions were loosened in the minds of males who were usually horny anyway); and "hungry" marijuana (when one became ravenous for irrational food choices, especially sweets). Often all the stages would be experienced while smoking joints for an hour or two. 

Negative effects were possible but unlike some of my friends, I almost never encountered them: discomfort, lack of confidence and even paranoia. I thought those results were largely due to smoking cheap marijuana, but they were enough of a deterrent that some friends didn’t like marijuana and rarely smoked it.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana was hangover free. My body didn’t feel like it was still recovering (in a bad way) the next day, unless I had actually drank alcohol, too. Often my friends and I consumed marijuana without alcohol. They went relatively well together and made me feel each more intensely but they were also independent of each other in the sense that I didn’t actually require using them both at the same time.

Normalcy

Although there were always young adults who didn’t smoke, in my twenties, marijuana was a fairly normal, regular event in the lives of all my inner city male friends, whether black or Hispanic. It was a part of the lives of almost as many white friends and coworkers as well. It was never addictive for me in the sense that there were no physical cravings or withdrawal symptoms, but it was sort of psychologically addictive because it was willingly anticipated and financed. Like my friends and coworkers, I knew I wanted to smoke that evening or weekend, and I knew I had to buy it, so I planned it.

For much of my young adult life, I was also vigorously exercising by running in the morning, bicycle riding in the evening and swimming dozens of laps in a YMCA pool a few times a week. Marijuana didn't affect my desire to maintain my health and it never stopped me from doing anything else I wanted to do. Whether I smoked or not, it had nothing to do with why I left the university (because of financial stresses). It was unrelated to my seriously pursuing photography and becoming a student at Columbia College Chicago. It was irrelevant to my working at a corporation where I was promoted to staff photographer and audio-visual technician.

However, rather audaciously, for a class assignment I created a slide show with music that was about drugs, called "Inner City Blues" which contained blatant smoking of marijuana. I got an "A", whereupon I showed it to my boss and other executives. They didn't flinch or punish me and the black male coworker who was a star of the piece and who was seen smoking marijuana.

A Growing Presence

When I smoked, I was not always indoors. I stopped to smoke marijuana when I was outside bike riding or just walking in the city and listening to music though my headphones. I loved it when I was doing other things while high, as long as it was something that was already appealing and not very taxing. Less pleasant chores such as the laundry and grocery shopping became easier or more fun. I smoked with co-workers at lunch time and we would all go back to work, where I would get all my tasks done, although I felt as though I wanted to be back outside and not working especially in the summer months. On warm weekends, I smoked before and after I went to the beach. None of it was ultra-constant, but it occurred at some point during several kinds of activities. It was a casual but frequent indulgence. It didn't seem like a problem and I never had a close call or near accident from smoking. 

When I moved to New York City, marijuana continued to be a part of my life when I was not broke and could afford it. As time passed, I learned where to buy it in the Village and especially in Brooklyn where I lived. Nothing much changed in my late twenties and early thirties.

Intersection with Beer

But in my mid-thirties, marijuana was an almost regular part of my life even if it was not the only part. If anything, an increase in alcohol use, almost entirely beer, was far more damaging because I began to gain weight (see "Drinking Not"). The difference is that marijuana was a comparatively positive escape that worked well with most other things, whether it was watching TV or watching the sunset, relaxing after a workout, dancing at a club, etc.. Beer was me running away from any negative reality. I used beer to drowning away work and constant overtime as well as money and family stresses. I used beer to de-pressurize as fast as possible and dealt with recovery by sleeping it off. Repeat.

Indulgence

Indulgence in marijuana was a problem for me anyway, primarily in two ways. First, I slowly became more aware of the cost. I was living from paycheck to paycheck and marijuana was an expense but I hadn't taken a good look at it, in terms of how much money I spent on it. That changed as it slowly dawned on me that it was significant enough. I could afford to do anything I needed to do but I was not saving. My credit card bills were high and growing out of control very fast because of travel (planes, hotels, rental cars) to see family members and deal with messed up situations involving them.

Second, there was risk. I realized that despite years of no major problem acquiring or smoking marijuana, there was nevertheless a chance of an encounter with the police that could escalate. Black people usually went to neighborhood sources to obtain marijuana whereas my white co-workers usually had it delivered to them. Buying marijuana in a manner that could be observed by the police meant a possible legal matter that could, in its worst case, put my job in jeopardy even if almost everyone on the job also smoked; they were white and I wasn't. 

After the election of the first black mayor of New York (David Dinkins), the city elected a white, racist mayor (Rudy Guiliani) who wanted to use possession of small amounts of marijuana to deliberately criminalize and destroy the lives of every young black male in the city, most of who had done nothing else wrong but were designated as thugs. I was a middle class manager of a small but important department in an office, but my skin color still branded me as a thug in the eyes of that mayor, as opposed to my white co-workers who not only regularly smoked marijuana but also did other drugs (such as cocaine). They were thought to be merely innocent, harmless experimenters.

A Complete Halt

Combined with my increasing discontent with beer’s effect on my widening waistline resulting in a gain of 30 pounds more than my ideal weight, I kept finding myself thinking that I needed to stop things that were a part of my life but not positive.

Then one day in my early ’40s I made a decision to take drastic action. It was driven in part by alarm bells from my doctor who said that drinking too much beer was affecting my body in specific, medically measurable ways, and my worries that I could have a problem with the police just for having marijuana on me.

Awakened and unable to deny these issues anymore, I quit marijuana entirely. Less than a year later, I quit drinking beer and any other alcohol entirely.

The overwhelming benefit from ridding myself of alcohol was improvement in all aspects of my health. The significant benefits in releasing myself from marijuana were an increase in money available to me and no more worries about being harassed by the police.

I began a new episode in my life that lasted 20 years. Alcohol and marijuana was absent during that entire time. I had no philosophical problem with them but I became preoccupied with saving and being far healthier. I lost all the weight and then some, becoming at times so slim that I fell below my optimal weight. This worried my mother and some co-workers but I never felt better. I missed marijuana somewhat but it wasn’t worth the risks and the costs. I made the right decisions.

A Slow Return

When I finally began to tip toe back into alcohol, I found my body had lost all tolerance to large amounts of it and I had no desire to drink heavy quantities every day. Instead, occasionally I had a glass of wine at a company party, or eventually a beer. It was rare but I was not afraid of it anymore and I controlled it. I could drink again with going too far. My body and I were much wiser and my limited approach worked very well.

At the same time, I encountered marijuana more than once but I simply didn’t smoke it. A friend gave me some, which I saved for a special occasion that never came. It sat in my refrigerator for a few years before I threw it out. I was still preoccupied with work and focused on not doing anything that might cause a problem. But I did want to experience marijuana again in the future since it held good memories for me.

Revisit

Finally, after almost 30 years on my job, I retired. Once I left the world of work, I was free to do anything I wanted in the sense that I could no longer be fired for some infraction. I focused my efforts on photography, writing, creating web journals and communicating with others in the photo industry. I could live my life without too many fears. So, after a few years after I let small amounts of alcohol in my system, I became friends with someone who heard me talk more than once about the idea that I wanted to smoke marijuana at least for old times’ sake. A second friend heard me jokingly say the same thing. If it could be done where no one was at risk, I wanted to have the cannabis experience again. The second friend decided to bring a joint to me as a “surprise”. As a result, more than twenty years after I had quit marijuana, I smoked a small amount again.

It was no more than a quarter or a third of the joint that he supplied. I didn’t get extremely high. I didn’t get a chance to walk the streets and listen to music or look at the warm sky, trees and sunset the way I used to. But I broke the marijuana drought, however mildly. I had a not exciting but fair high, not strong but enough to remind me of the past.

In the following two years, I experimented with marijuana several more times. It was not a major expense at all because it was generally infrequent and what little I had gotten (from a neighbor) lasted a long while. Still, it was interesting. The feeling weren't the same. Today's marijuana is much stronger than the kind I used earlier in my life. At times, I became apprehensive after I smoked, likely due to the stronger strains. Plus, even in New York, it was still illegal.

Eventually, states began to legalize marijuana and stop persecuting black and Hispanic men (only) for using it, despite studies showing that whites used it at the same rates or even slightly higher rates. New York joined in legalizing it and allowing licensed stores to sell it. Marijuana is no longer a crime for anyone to possess and use reasonable amounts of it. There are sensible restrictions on where it can be smoked. 

Ironically, just as it was legalized, I became even less someone who would occasionally experiment with it. Weeks to many months passed without my touching it. There is the strong possibility that marijuana is once again out of my life, after my brief experimentations, because of the aforementioned high strength of the current versions. It isn't appealing to me and does not offer pleasant times like it did in the past.

Memories

I don’t feel guilty at all about my brief, renewed experiments with marijuana, which are over with. But it will always have good memories attached to it, certain thoughtful and often fascinating, special times. It has medicinal value for many people, and if it ever becomes effective medically for me or even just spiritually positive again, I would try it. But I predict that it will remain rare to nonexistent in my life. 

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