i smoke weed now.
growing up in a place like dubai, i thought all drugs were drugs. when i left, and lived in other countries, didn't matter if they were class a or class d, if you did drugs i dismissed you.
i also hated the smell of sativa, so i'd either leave or make people leave when they were smoking around me.
i was not a social smoker; i tried it once in india, when i was nineteen -- a couple of drags in a circlesmoke -- and nothing really happened.
the second time, a bunch of us in a hostel hotbox'd a bathroom; four of them on an improvised waterbottle bong, and two of us passing a joint back and forth. he was smoking it, i was taking a couple of drags, like a 6'3 brown bambi.
opened the bathroom door, took two steps out of the haze, and did the most impressive deadfall you've ever seen. went from vertical to horizontal with no steps inbetween; if there hadn't been a bed there, i'd have broken my nose.
i bad tripped for hours. the thc had a peculiar effect on me; it numbed my body from the toes upwards; when the sensation reached my eyelids, hallucinated in a void. i remember an out of body experience, floating in nothingness, jagged lines neon pink and yellow light pulsing to good morning, israel playing too loudly in the background.
you know how paranoia is a side effect of the drug? i got that a millionfold. when my eyelids closed, i thought i was going to die. i'd fight it, with every ounce of me, but the drug was always stronger, and my eyes would close, and i'd be sucked away.
i didn't died, obviously, and i tried it a couple more times in university, but i'm not a social smoker; circlesmokes are as annoying as circlejerks. when the drug kicked in, i'd try to make it home. i'd throw on my discman and close my eyes and go away; i remember once, i became tupac, up there on stage, wondering where his mic went.
fast forward to being 30, and i'm a lot more tolerant; i still don't smoke, but i don't mind the smell so much, and i'm ok with people around me doing it-- my biggest fear was i thought it would cause people to react unpredictably; i stay away from heavy drinking for the same reason.
it's not so much that i have insomnia as i have terrible sleeping patterns; i'd play heroes of newerth 'till 5, and then wake up at 8:30 for work. this had been happening for three years, so around when i met my then girlfriend, i finally asked my doctor for melatonin.
ironically, the one drug that's otc almost everywhere in the world is banned in india (odd because so many prescription drugs are otc here). my doctor said "train station types abuse it". he told me to get some exercise. jerk.
so my girlfriend and all her friends smoked; since, by then, i realised that i was not going to die every time i took a drag of weed, i decided i'd take the last couple of drags no one wanted out of the ashtray and smoke it after i'd showered and gotten into bed.
out like a light.
from there, i graduated to smoking a couple of drags from my girlfriend's joint. i'd get proper stoned, life was lovely, sex stoned was so much better than sex sober.
i rolled my first joint on the first attempt. for a while after, each time i sat down to roll one, i was worried i wouldn't be able to reproduce the result. eventually, i realised i'm the best in the world at rolling joints.
and then, like a smartphone battery in inverse, my tolerance for thc went through the roof.
i don't really get stoned anymore; i wake up and light a joint, shower, dress, and leave. i smoke on the way to work, at work, on the way home from work, and after work. i smoke on the way to a bar, i smoke while i'm at the bar, and i smoke on the way home.
i'm really not a social smoker; i can handle, at the most, two people smoking with me. usually, it's just me and a girl, sometimes it'll be me and a couple of friends.
i smoke before meals and i smoke after meals and i smoke when i reddit and i smoke when i read and i smoke when i watch tv.
i don't really get stoned anymore; anyone familiar with pratchett's vimes knows the concept of knurd: we all have a certain amount of ethanol in our blood, but vimes doesn't; he needs to have a couple of shots just to be sober. it's like that, with me and thc.
weed wasn't a gateway drug for me; i still don't do other drugs, and i prefer it to hash; unfortunately, you get good hash in this country, but terrible weed. the concept of indo does not exist.
i haven't had to be around people sober for a while, but i still get told constantly that i should try smoking some weed, it might calm me down /:
i'm a lot more comfortable with it now. for the last 5 years, i've hidden it from friends and family; they all know i smoke, but it's taboo, so i don't shove it in their faces. from society, as well. it's not something i advertised. i'd go to extremely convoluted to lengths to smoke out of the public eye; the paranoia pales, but never really goes away.
people who smoke together and act like idiots and skip class and shirk responsibility and and talk about 420blaz3 on their social networking spaces (or in general) still annoy the fuck out of me, but now there's a strong layer of embarrassment, too, because now i'm associated with them.
but yeah.
i smoke weed now.