Category: The Cannabis Closet

A reader writes:

That Scenes From the Drug War post really freaked me out. I watched the video all the way through and was so bugged that I posted it to my Facebook page. Six hours later I came back and found two comments. One was from a buddy of mine who is an FBI agent doing anti-gang work in New York City. He urged me to join mpp.org and advocate for decriminalization. The second was from a lawyer friend of mine who wrote "it has happened before," and posted this link.  After reading a second story about a police raid over drugs that aren't found and involving pets murdered in front of family members, I started to get concerned. If there are other documented examples of this kind of behavior, they need to be compiled into a single place so we can get a handle on exactly what kind of society we are running here.

You see, I just started smoking marijuana about eight months ago and I recently had a drug dealer over to my apartment. Now I'm wondering whether there is a possibility that the police will break down my door, shoot my dog, and arrest me. I have seriously started to wonder whether I've been wrong for my entire life about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in society, at least when it comes to drugs. I come from a Christian home and I've always admired the police. But this is scary and it has me bewildered.

Eight months ago I probably would have been neutral to mildly supportive of the war on drugs. But in October of 2009 a neighbor of mine got me smoking weed with her and then we stayed up late on several occasions and talked while high. I am 35 and had only smoked on about two occasions prior to that, both times since I turned 30. This time I smoked with this friend on about 20 different occasions, figured out how to do it right, and we often spent several hours in deep conversation.

The experience caused me to dramatically re-evaluate my life and it resulted in the end of a depression that I've been in for several years. I've not been depressed for about three months solid, and it is one of the weirdest experiences of my life. I haven't been this enthusiastic in a decade. At first I chalked it up to making a job switch and doing some thinking. Shortly after I started smoking pot with my friend I got the name of her supplier, bought a bit of my own, and then read a couple books on marijuana including Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence. A couple of times the author mentioned that marijuana has been used to treat depression.

Then, a few weeks later I Googled "indica vs sativa" and happened upon a website that claimed sativa is used to treat depression. I still didn't think anything of it. A week later I asked my supplier for some sativa, assuming we'd been getting indica all along since it is more common. He told me that we had in fact been smoking a primarily sativa variety. Now I wonder if I have in fact unwittingly benefited from medical marijuana. Maybe my job change and my thinking had a good deal to do with the lifting of my depression, but I've changed jobs before and I've done a lot of thinking all my life. What did seem to correspond exactly with the lifting of my depression was a couple of months smoking weed and talking things over with a friend.

I guess it's about time for someone to kick down my door, shoot my dog in front of a child, terrorize my housemates, and arrest me – for the good of society.

A reader writes:

I'm a full-time working mother of two small children.  A couple nights a week, after the kids are in bed, I smoke a bowl, usually shared with my husband.  This is so much better then having a couple beers or a glass of wine.  I'm not hungover the next day and it's easier on the wallet.  I can fully relax at night, tune out a bit and I'm able to go to work the next day, no problems.  If it's a weekend I can fully interact with my children without ever having to say, "Shhh, mommy's got a headache." 

Fortunately for me, I live in a middle-class neighborhood and I'm white, so if the cops ever bust down my door they'll probably leave before arresting me because the paperwork's not worth it.  Maybe that's why the illegality of it doesn't bother me.

Granted, my office doesn't know; it's my private life.  But all our friends know – they either agree or keep their judgments to themselves.  Both my kids are incredibly happy children.  Maybe my kids are incredibly happy because their parents have learned to chill out without having to plop them down in front of the TV on Saturday and Sunday mornings so we can recover from drinking the night before. 

Conservatives in the country want less government, and then get all riled up when people are doing private things they disagree with?  I just don't get it.  How can they demand to have it both ways?  I understand which lobbyists are paying these politicians (God help Miller and Budweiser when pot becomes legal).

A reader writes:

I am a 39-year-old homeschooling mom and I smoke pot every night after my kids are asleep, in order to maintain my sanity. One of my kids has a language disorder and is mildly autistic. Teaching him requires a great deal of fortitude and patience and some days are extremely stressful. For me, nothing takes the edge off like pot does.

I choose to smoke pot instead of drinking alcohol as I suffer from clinical depression along with everyone else in my family. Alcohol is very, very bad for my mental state so I restrict myself to a glass of wine on special occasions. Pot, along with light therapy in the winter, has helped me to manage my condition without anti-depressants.

Only a select few people in my life know this about me and I do sometimes worry that someone might call social services if they found out. I don't know if it is very socially acceptable, even amongst people who otherwise don't much care otherwise, for a mom with small kids to be a smoker even though I never do it around them and I always go outside. I also never ever smoked while pregnant. Of all my female friends with kids, only one other smokes, that I know of. I wonder how many there are of us, hiding it in our houses because we're scared of what people are going to think.

As my father said when I came out to him as a pot smoker a few years ago: "Everyone needs a little something to get through it all." Then he asked for some of my stash. Wonders never cease.

A reader writes:

I know you closed this thread awhile ago but after reading your recent post I feel a need to share this with you.

My company is about to be bought out by another company. My current company did not drug test upon entrance. The new company is not only going to drug test but may do it without notice. In other words, once the sale is complete employees may simply receive an email or a phone call informing them they have 4 hours to go and take a piss test.

I smoke at night to help me sleep and shut down my brain. I get up 3 hours before work because I am prone to awaking with a full blown anxiety attack with all the trimmings and a puff or two instantly calms the sweats, nausea and shakes. By the time I eat breakfast, shower, etc, my head is clear and I can start the day. If I were to take a Zanax or Clonopin I would never make it to work (the stronger the attack, the harder and longer the meds hit me). Yesterday I spent most of the morning fighting the anxiety just to function.

The hypocrisy here is that I was just at a national company meeting where I saw people pounding away the booze until 1 and 2 in the morning and then walking into an 8 am meeting hung-over. But that was OK. I have had an assistant who was such a heavy evening drinker that he was still sweating alcohol out of his system the next day. But that was OK. However if I take a toke at night or at a party or with my boyfriend to celebrate our anniversary I can lose my job.

This is insane. I would like to know how the lawyers and female professionals and doctors and all the other "high-end" professionals you have featured get around their companies drug policies, because for the rest of us – lower-end professionals – it means giving up the one "vice" we enjoy and praying they don't pick my name for a month until I can work it our of my system, and even then…

Marie Claire profiles several of them:

"I hate the term pothead—it connotes that I'm high 24/7, which I'm not," Pelham says, wincing.

"I don't need it to get through my day. I just enjoy it when my day is over." Her nightly ritual costs only $50 a month, a pittance compared with the cost of her monthly gym membership or a Saturday night out with her fiancé, an investment banker, who occasionally smokes with her. At 5'4", slim and athletic—she ran three miles a day while in law school—Pelham insists that pot is the ideal antidote to a hairy workday: It never induces a post-happy-hour hangover and, unlike the Xanax a doctor once prescribed for her anxiety, never leaves her groggy or numb. "Look, every female attorney I know has some vice or another," Pelham shrugs, tucking her long brown hair behind her ears, her 3-carat cushion-cut engagement ring catching the light. "It's really not a big deal."

(For readers new to the Dish, the Cannabis Closet was one of our longest and most popular threads of discussion last year.)

One 17-year-old busts it wide open. Samizdat video of him smoking a joint after a presentation in favor of marijuana legalization after the jump:

A reader writes:

To add to the chorus, I'm a 20 y.o college student with a 3.4 GPA, a 1490 on my GRE (I even smoked the day before), plans to go to grad school, and a great starting job in my field. I'm not bragging, just saying that occasional pot use doesn't make someone a complete loser overnight.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing is that I'm finding that being open about my pot use is much more difficult that I thought. I had a chance today, and I blew it. To graduate I have to take a freshmen orientation class, and the topic today was stress relief. At the mention of this topic, half the class began snickering and saying things like, "Oh, I'll just listen to Bob Marley to relax." Even the professor got in on it. But no one, including me, came out and said, "Hey, I smoke pot to relax sometimes, how about you guys?", even though I know for a fact that several of my classmates partake. As soon as the topic of discussion changed, I regretted the missed opportunity.