Marijuana – Illegal Friend, Legal Stranger

Marijuana – Illegal Friend, Legal Stranger

It was 2007. I was writing my second book and was on my maybe fourth joint, pardon if I switched the order of the two. So I’m in a market in Colombia with my side character and his little brother, and shots rain hails of gunfire and the kid, the brother, ain’t getting up. And instead of the older brother freaking out, I am. Full-blown panic attack. Heart pounding, can’t believe, why whole life passing before my live, who only took a little over thirty seconds, as I hadn’t had much of a life.

That was the day I quit smoking marijuana. I started when I was eighteen, and I remember the exact moment marijuana was going to be a fifteen-year ride-or-die. I walked into a cemetery with a joint that I got from a McDonald’s coworker, and I was legitimately, government-issued “high” by the time I got out.

As an artist, I’d like to say that marijuana didn’t make me more creative. It just made the world more beautiful. So I draw a doodle and I’m baked and I look at it an it’s just transcendent, what actually happened? But back then, on weed, you couldn’t convince me that it wasn’t making me more creative. If anything, it just made me want to do creative shit more.

So I quit. And it sucked. I was smoking a quarter-ounce of pot a day by myself. So basically I was high all day, every day. If I was coming down and I didn’t have more pot on hand, I was panicky. This isn’t about pot being addictive; this is about anything being addictive if you have an addictive mind. Did I say quitting sucked?

But I did quit, and years went by, and got to be where I no longer missed it. I found good coffees, rewired my pathways, actually did things to make the world beautiful. I read that no matter what happens to you, win the lotto, lose a leg, a year later, your happiness meter is about reset. So I can get the same happies I got before, just not on demand.

Well, things started changing. In the country, I mean. In 2007, pot was legal in no fifty states. Now, isn’t it like half? But in New York, it started with the medicinal. And I didn’t pay much attention to it when the first dispensary popped up. Not until the quarantine. During the quarantine I got my medical marijuana card and went to the dispensary. It was like a real business except for the need to do cash only, and the ATMs set in there specifically for that purpose.

I got mints. A little tin of mints with 5% THC and 5%CBD. You can look that up if you want. Basically 5% “Yay!” and 5% “Chill, bro.” And I took them home, and I swallowed my fear and downed one. And four hours later, jack squat.

Have you ever ended on a bad note? Because I ended pot in 2007 thinking I was gone’ die. So not catching anything off that mint was kind of a relief.

So on to chapter two of this saga: legalization. Full on recreational weed. And the first dispensary in the Capital District, Upstate Canna Co in Niskayuna.

First impression was really a first misconception. I had it in my mind that at 9 am, I was just going to go in and walk up to the counter and see fluffy green pillows of sweet dreams. I also figured, at nine a.m. that I’be be beating the crowd. Neither were true. The front lobby of Upstate Canna Co was clean, bare of product, bare of the smell of burning product, and held a wraparound black faux-leather couch (could be wrong about the faux, but I can’t imagine why it would’ve been real.) The whole couch was full of people getting to know each other, cheering, having a fun time, and as people got called into the inner sanctum, everyone hopped up and moved one seat over.

I learned from talk that there’s a massive farm in Montgomery County, and upon an informal poll, all decided that Albany, Troy, and Colonie should also have dispensaries. Then I got in.

The inner sanctum was exactly what I expected the outer sanctum to be; glass showcases with soft, crystally nuggest, jars and pouches of gummies, oils and tinctures. Purely for show, as once the salesperson helped guide you to the product you needed, it became more like an actual pharmacy, complete with a window.

My take? A jar of Sativa gummies, a pouch of hybrid gummies, and an eighth of an ounce of Blue Dream. And, handily enough, an accessories store just so happened to be five doors down, where I bought a one-hitter.

So I sit here, tap-tap-tap, and I should just vsay that the gummies were to help my mother with her headaches, but I hadn’t realized the pills she uses shouldn’t be mixed with anything. So that whole haul is for me.

Did I mention I quit in 2007? Did I mention why?

Unlike the mints at the medical dispensary, I know that puffing a hit of Blue Dream is going to get me high. It’s been sitting in its sealed pouch for days, and I’ve not ripped it open. Because I’m looking at it two ways. Either I end up with a massive panic attack, not cool, or I don’t, and the urge to smoke a quarter-ounce of week to my head a day will return, and also, not cool. So this rolling-green cannabis is going to sit over my head like the sword of Damocles. A soft, fluffy sword of Damocles.

I wish I could tell you that the moral of this story is “don’t do drugs,” but maybe it’s more “Go ahead and buy them, just don’t use them.” I think really, the message is that them being legal doesn’t change anything except where you go to get them.