Search Results for: "The Cannabis Closet"

A reader writes:

I was a freshman at University of Maryland College Park in the fall of 1996. Back then,  smoking pot then was stigmatized, but pretty common anyway. My roommate knew about my occasional habit (once or twice a month, tops) and did not approve. He knew I had a bowl in my part of our closet.

One morning, when returning from calc class, I found a campus officer in my room, being shown my bowl which had been removed from my closet by my roommate. He had called the police simply because he feared his future placement in the Israeli army was at jeopardy due to the bowl's presence in our room. This gave the police probable cause to search all of my belongings, finding a very small amount of 3 month old "shake" in the process.

A reader writes:

A reader writes:

I am a third-year law student at a top law school and I have never been around so much marijuana in my life, including my time as an undergraduate. The editor of the law review is going to become a prosecutor. He uses a vaporizer so that his neighbors cannot smell the smoke. He says that he enjoys a bowl every evening. The president of the Moot Court Honor Board keeps him supplied. The friend who I smoke with the most is the second-ranking student in our class. He achieved a perfect score on the LSAT, which put him in the 99.98 percentile of law-school bound students.

I am a responsible parent and a homeowner. I can write some of the most complex law review articles and I can syllogistically reason with the best of attorneys. Everyone knows I am formidable in class. However, when I smoke pot, all of my skills and talents evaporate for days at-a-stretch.

A reader writes:

Since I was a teenager I've struggled with bipolar disorder. In the worst craters of depression I've driven myself to starvation and self-mutilation. I've attempted suicide twice. Traditional therapy never worked because I never gave it a chance. I'm an arrogant and defensive son of a bitch, and self-indulgently preferred my private masochism over admitting I needed help. After one particularly bad incident that landed me in the ER, I was prescribed a standard for-profit mood stabilizer. After a few days I threw it away. Cannabis discovered me one evening my senior year of college.

A reader writes:

I'm in my mid twenties, and a PhD student at the Ivy League university located in the hippie town of Ithaca, New York. When I came to the United States a little over three years ago — I was born and raised in the Netherlands — I had never tried smoking weed, despite it being readily available. American friends of mine (fellow graduate students) introduced me to it and thought it was hilarious they were teaching the Dutch girl how to use a bong — the same Dutch girl who used to ask tourists looking for the nearest coffee shop, "Do you want a cup of coffee or a joint?"

It is weird not being able to talk to many people about weed, especially in a liberal town like Ithaca, for fear of risking my chances of ever getting American citizenship, or being send back to Pot Heaven Holland.

Another writes:

So about a year and a half ago, my cousin got married and invited the whole family – no mean feat, considering we're Irish-Catholic and thus have a ridiculous number of cousins. At the reception, I went outside to have a cigarette with another cousin. Suddenly, we were flanked by my little brother and nine of our other relations.

A reader writes:

After my college years, I gave up smoking pot for many reasons; I wanted to stay healthy during my pregnancies and subsequent breast feeding of 3 children, I had a husband in the medical profession who was paranoid about getting caught, I was teaching Sunday School, singing in the church choir, and most of our friends had given it up. We drank a whole lot of wine in those days.

Well. Now all the kids are off at college, I have a new husband who is a good deal more fun than the last, and my circle of friends has gotten younger and more adventurous. We keep a small box of the finest bud hidden behind the sweaters in the closet and have a smoke every now and then in the evenings. Life is even more hilarious, and if we don't overdo it, it ramps up our sex life in interesting ways. When the kids come home for spring break or Christmas, after we have said goodnight and retired for the evening, my husband and I hang our heads outside the bathroom window, take a toke, use mouthwash, spray Citrus Magic, and hope the kids don't notice.

Another writes:

My neighbor has occasional PEP (Parents Enjoying Pot) parties at her half-million dollar suburban home in a large Midwestern city. Always mid-morning, so these mothers have time to clear their heads in time to go grocery shopping and pick up their kids at school by 3:00pm. It's funny to see the long line of shiny SUVs parked in front of her house.

A reader writes:

As a kid, I discovered at a young-ish age that my parents smoked pot. They never did it in front of me, but curious child that I was, I snooped around and found out on my own. I was devastated because, as an 8-year-old kid, all the propaganda told me that pot was akin to murder ("I learned it by watching YOU!"). It was awful for me to find out that my parents were criminals!

As I got older into my teenage years, I got into the weed a bit too; but I still held this grudge against my parents. My mindset was that I was SUPPOSED to do it, I was a rebellious teenager. They should have grown out of it long ago.

Funny thing is, they weren't criminals. They were the most loving, caring, adoring parents I ever could have asked for. They sacrificed a lot to give me and my brother private educations through high school. He and I never could have asked for anything more. Now that I'm my own fully-functional adult with a great job, a wonderful boyfriend, and a hell of a lot of stability, I look back and wish that I didn't spend my childhood thinking these things about my parents. I'm old enough to know now that pot ? criminal loserdom. I hope that one day, the stigma is lifted so it can just be "something that grownups do" and kids will accept that as a fine answer.

Another writes:

I grew up in a house where my Dad smoked pot in front of me on an almost daily basis. When I was little I didn’t really think to question what he was smoking (he was a cigarette smoker too, and had the occasional cigar). One day when I was in sixth grade, he was going to work late and was going to drop me off at school. Before we left he called me over and explained to me that stuff he was smoking wasn’t always cigarettes, it was marijuana.

A reader writes:

I work as an attorney and have my own successful practice in San Francisco. I also do a bit of family law and have represented many educated, successful professional parents whose use of marijuana has often been used by the other party to the case as a means to have my clients ordered into some kind of rehab if they want to see their kids.

Once this almost happened in a case where the opposing counsel was someone with whom I had gotten high at a conference. I politely offered to her that I would admit in open court that I had gotten high with her unless she withdrew her request. She did, and probably had a hell of a time explaining that to her client.

Another writes:

I'm a prosecutor, which puts me on the front lines of this battle but also in a tough spot, so I'm not going to give out too many personal details for obvious reasons.

A reader writes:

In regards to the conversation you have been having about the laws regarding marijuana, I have something to say. I’m a soldier and a two time veteran of the Iraq war, now I’m currently a reservist. Once a month, after drill is done, I pack a bowl and go to town. To all those who say pot is an evil drug, put that in your pipe and… well, smoke it.

Another writes:

I'm a children's author.  Much of my professional time (and income) comes from visiting schools and giving presentations. 

A reader writes:

In the interest of dispelling some of the misconceptions about marijuana, let me first preface with my firm belief that it is by far the least harmful drug out there, much less so than  alcohol, and that I believe it should be legalized. That said, there is research to show that if chemical dependency on a drug is defined by withdrawal effects, then marijuana can indeed be chemically addictive.

Do you get the shakes like alcohol? No. Do you get severe nausea like heroin? No. Do you get violent outbursts like crystal meth or cocaine? No. When I decided to quit smoking pot and checked myself into an out-patient rehab program, it wasn't as someone whose life had completely spun out of control. There was no intervention by friends and family or some court-ordered mandate. As my therapist told me, I could have continued using pot the way I had been for the rest of my life. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that you only get to live once and that pot, when used every day, can inhibit one's ability to live life to its fullest. The problem was that I had grown so accustomed to being constantly stoned since my teenage years, that I'd failed to learn how to relate to my emotions and to develop many of the skills suited to successful adulthood.