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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: My high life
Rebecca Cripps The Guardian
Wednesday 14 Aug 2002 Everyone is so upbeat about cannabis these days. Guess what? It's not bad for you any more! People just can't stop being nice about this most friendly of substances, despite the fact that it's still illegal. It's now totally crass and uncool to speak out against pot. Reefer madness? Not likely, madam. You're no longer an enemy of society if you're partial to the occasional spliff. Hard drugs, crime and the craven headbutting of strangers have very little to do with puffing on a joint, you know. Pot relieves stress and brings on harmless giggling fits, it's not physically addictive and doesn't lead straight to a needle and the gutter. The general consensus is that it's time for a marijuana love-in. Which is bad news for me and all the other potheads out there struggling to give the stuff up. Now that the government is practically encouraging MPs to bring their bongs to work, there isn't a lot of sympathy for those of us who would rather not inhale. I won't be expecting much support for my abstinence during this purple-hazy phase in Britain's history. I can't count the number of times I've been faced with a look of amused incredulity and the words, "Marijuana Anonymous? You've got to be kidding!" So why go against the grain? Well, physical health comes quite near the top of my list. Pro-pot pieces in newspapers and magazines rarely mention that the majority of people in this country mix their reefer (which contains three times the tar of tobacco) with tobacco (which contains highly addictive nicotine), then smoke it without a filter and inhale for a lot longer than a cigarette. Then there's the inevitability of temporary insanity, the type of lapse that finds you boarding the Inverness express in a stoned rush when you were really aiming for Finchley - or wondering for the fifth time why the hell you went upstairs in the first place. And that's just the funny stuff. Mood swings, listlessness, paranoia, anxiety, emotional numbness, irregular sleep patterns and hyperactivity are some of the well-documented downsides of habitual use of the affectionately termed wacky baccy. I should know, I've experienced them all. I'm not saying that marijuana isn't a fantastic mood enhancer, the bringer of laughter, creative thought, absence of pain and a whole range of highly desirable states of mind. It truly is a wonderful drug, fully deserving of its worldwide adulation. But in the wrong hands, it can be a nightmare. You see, in its pure state it may not be addictive, but if your personality is (and if you happen to act out your compulsions on a bag of high-grade skunk) life just might not be the picnic you were hoping for. I vividly remember my first smoke - outside the "Legalise Marijuana" tent at an open-air concert in 1979. Topping the bill was reefer's greatest advocate, the much-lamented constantly stoned genius Bob Marley. Imagine the heady combination, aged 14, of illegal toking in public, along with the heroic Bob's vocal support of Jah's sacred "kaya" and the sight of thousands of crazy Camberwell carrots being licked into creation. It was more than enough to spark a lifelong love affair. Still, I didn't actually "learn" to get stoned until a few years later, when a friend took me aside and taught me how to inhale deep and long, then watched gleefully as my eyes shrank to the size of the buttons on Barbie's Technicolor poncho. I subsequently swooped through several reality frontiers and finally landed in a green and hilarious land of forgetfulness. It was definitely my kind of place. Paranoia was the flipside, those lost school-holiday afternoons slumped in someone's basement flat when teen self-consciousness hit its nadir and I was afraid even to say the word "yes" in case it came out sounding unusual. I became an expert nodder and smiler, so blown away by bush fever that the natural act of speaking or giving an opinion seemed impossible. Yet it wasn't until I started going out with a boyfriend who was a daily smoker that I finally eased into the habit myself. One night he asked me whether I thought our evening together would be better with a smoke and I gazed into his eyes and offered to buy a draw. That night I crossed the line into addiction. In the subsequent three years I spent with that boyfriend, we didn't pass a day without smoking ganja. Sex was better, movies were more colourful, backgammon was unbelievably fascinating and we never once had to worry about what to do to amuse ourselves of an evening. When he left me, I smoked like an out-of-control police drugs bonfire. I didn't want to feel; having a constant supply of pot meant that I didn't have to. And so it went from there. Nurofen for the emotions, Rise and Shine for the mind. I had my own benevolent psychiatrist's medicine bag. To all appearances, I was a well-balanced individual. I had friends, a full social life and a good job. What was more, I had no fear of being alone. Basically, that is because I never was alone. I had my little friend (my bag of weed or block of hash) to take me out of myself, distract me from any negative feelings and provide a wonderful night's sleep into the bargain. What more could one want from a 10 draw? I developed a strong tolerance to all kinds of marijuana and (the Oliver Reed of potheads) was proud of being able to smoke almost anyone under the table, which is where most occasional smokers soon found themselves after a couple of tokes of my blow. Occasionally, I'd run out of stash and travel miles to spend the evening with someone I didn't like, just to bum a smoke. Oh, all those hours forcing a grin at my dealer's dull jokes in the hope of a better deal! I'd stand someone up at the last minute in order to rush off to meet The Man. Or scrabble manically around on the floor looking for minute crumbs of hash. Yet I rarely questioned my habit. It didn't occur that my predilection for draw was getting in the way of my life. I may have admitted that I needed a smoke, that I couldn't survive a day without one, but the word "addict" just didn't come into it. This is not surprising and I don't blame myself - as far as I knew, marijuana wasn't addictive. Looking back, it's easy to see that when I couldn't feed my addiction due to lack of supply, I simply acted on it in different ways - compulsive eating, reading books all night and watching endless videos until that blessed dealer's phone call came. Then, a chance meeting with a recovering cannabis addict changed my entire perspective. "Are you sure you want to hear this?" he asked me, when I questioned him about why he had stopped. "Once you realise you're addicted, you'll never enjoy it as much." He was right, of course. From the minute I began to delve into the whys and wherefores, my denial went up in smoke and marijuana began to lose its appeal. I craved it just as badly, I just didn't get the same unadulterated pleasure out of it. Partly that was because I realised that it was no longer as much fun as I thought it was, as it had been back in the dizzy day, and partly because, as a daily smoker, all I was really doing was topping up. Getting the giggles or the munchies were distant memories. In fact, I had become seriously introspective and as thin as a one-paper joint, my sense of humour and appetite suppressed. The guilt I'd been sitting on for years began to surface. I finally admitted that I was spending too much time asleep. I didn't give up smoking though. I just hated myself for continuing. My first visit to MA was embarrassingly emotional. The tears rolled down as I listened to other people's stories of how marijuana had messed them up. So I wasn't a freak! Here, in front of me, were seven recovering cannabis addicts giving thanks that they weren't still fogging up their lives, missing planes, putting dealers before friends and driving 100 miles just to get their hands on a lump of prime Afghan. The recognition factor was huge. I felt like a missing octuplet, reunited with a group of siblings separated at birth. The meetings are confidential and run to the same format as AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous). Although the principles are the same, the stories you hear tend to be far less linked to blood, vomit, violence and degradation than at AA and NA. In fact, your average cannabis addict's lowest point usually turns out to be more Cheech and Chong than Trainspotting and some of the tales of woe I've heard would be side-splittingly funny if they weren't so painful. An ill-timed joint can lead to anything, from missing your dad's birthday party to being helicoptered down from a mountain top, a stoned, trembling wreck. OK, you may not find yourself getting beaten up by dealers on a regular basis, but life can still become scarily unmanageable. After my first trip to MA, I cut down on smoking and then, quite unexpectedly, stopped altogether. When I learned that my mother was dying, I knew through the fuzz in my brain that this was something I needed to be totally present for. It's funny - but it makes sense to me - that the most painful experience I've ever been through was the one I didn't want to escape from. A couple of weeks into sobriety, I began to realise that I'd spent the previous 10 - or was it 15? - years walking round like a sleepwalker. There, but not there; emotionally absent. How did I manage coherent thought, enveloped in those thick dope clouds for half of every day? It still amazes me. I wouldn't describe the withdrawals as being that mild either. Four months of sweaty, itchy insomnia, uncomfortably vivid dreams, constant cravings and anxiety seemed a pretty extreme price to pay for being good. Later, when I went back to smoking (as almost everyone apparently does, unless they follow through with a recovery programme) it really hit me just how strong a drug marijuana is. As the dense tendrils of fragrant fog curled through my brain for the first time in several months and my mindset began to alter radically, I almost had a panic attack. Within seconds I was paralysed on my sofa, once again soaring through unreality, back to being a speechless motionless teenager. Only this time I was aware of what I was doing and why. Bummer. These days I keep my smoking to weekends only - and never when I'm working. All right, occasionally I find that I'm still lying to myself, but I'm also following behind myself like a detective, pointing out every deceit with a disappointed sigh. I know what you're thinking, it's not really worth the hassle, is it? Surely I'd be better off just quitting. You obviously just don't understand how hard it is to give up marijuana, do you? And neither does anyone else outside of MA. If you were to ask me, I'd say that decriminalisation without education is a poisoned chalice. People need to understand more about the nature of addiction (and how marijuana can tap into that) before pot is given the thumbs up. Anyway, I'm planning another trip to MA next week. Honest. In the meantime, however, to reward myself for finishing this article - and also to get another perspective on what I've written - and... oh God, I'm sick of justifying myself. In short, I'm off to roll myself a three-skinned mix of tobacco and ganja, listen to One Drop and pretend I'm still at that Bob Marley concert. Except that I haven't got that stash any more, neither do I know the number of a local dealer. Oh, well. It was a nice thought.
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