Category: The Cannabis Closet

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.

A reader writes:

I am a stay at home Mom of a toddler, active in my synagogue and preschool. I also have suffered from secondary insomnia almost my entire life. Two or three nights a week I fall asleep, only to wake up 3 or 4 hours late. I am then unable to return to sleep for the rest of the night.

In my twenties, I had a cigar box full of marijuana that I left in a drawer by my bed. (I was never a recreational user, since smoking in the company of others made me feel paranoid.) If I woke up in the middle of the night, I would smoke a little, go back to sleep and wake up feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. But I stopped smoking when I met my now husband, since he didn’t approve. Now my insomnia has gotten much worse since the birth of my child, with all the attendant middle of the night awakenings. I have tried prescription sleep aids, they make it impossible to wake up if my daughter cries. The over-the-counter ones work, but they leave me drugged and hungover the next morning. Sedatives work, but it bothers me that they can be physically addictive.

Some bleary eyed mornings I find myself reminiscing about that cigar box I had by my bed so many years ago. I know if I had a prescription for the drug, my husband would not dissapprove.  I look around the playground at the other mommies and wonder which one might have a connection.

A reader writes:

Hooray for the "Dealing with Aspergers" stories! My husband has Aspergers and uses marijuana to deal with the symptoms of his neurological disorder.  The biggest struggle he faces each day is the overwhelming anxiety he experiences as a result of his many sensory processing problems.  He can see every flicker in fluorescent lighting, hear every electrical hum of an appliance, feel every fiber in his sweater. He also experiences a great deal of stress as he tries constantly to fit in and behave appropriately in social situations. He oftens says that he doesn't believe neuro-typical people can truly understand how hard it is to live in this society as a person with autism.

He has not tried pharmaceutical anti-anxiety medications because he is afraid of side-effects, but he finds marijuana easy to tolerate and the side-effects for him have been minimal. (The munchies? Not really a big deal.) My husband has not been held back by his marijuana use.  He has a successful career and is often referred to as a model employee that exceeds expectations.  He has friends in every state.  We have a great marriage and smart, wonderful kids. 

I sometimes worry – marijuana is illegal, afterall – but those moments are fleeting because he really does not smoke pot recreationally. In fact, we joke around that "he doesn't get high, he gets normal." 

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I think living in Manhattan has warped my view of how others view pot. I can get it anytime I want. They deliver the stuff here (granted, at a HUGE markup, but still). You can also smoke on the street with relative impunity. Often I will be walking around and have the sweet, musty smell of pot enter my nose. I always look around to see if I can identify the culprit, but I never can. Ironically, smoking weed in a crowded public place is probably the safest place to do it. In fact, wondering the streets of Manhattan or Brooklyn with a spliff in my hand is one of my favorite activities and I have almost zero worries about getting caught (being middle class and white doesn't hurt).

Another writes:

I am a late 20s casual user, college and law school graduate, working as an attorney, in a healthy relationship, stay fit, run a small business, etc. I live in Portland, Oregon, so pot use is pretty much accepted here. Once someone gets past the level of a casual acquaintance, it's usually okay to tell them about it, and more often than not they indulge, or have in the past.

Another:

A few years ago, some friends and I were passing a joint in an alley behind a bar in downtown Vancouver, BC, when we were suddenly caught by surprise by the police. The officers gave us a stern lecture, confiscated our pot and let us go.

Another:

I have, but I don't. Doesn't really agree with me. It doesn't bother me as long as the smell isn't imposed upon me; although I'd like it if the laws here were tweaked enough so that driving while smoking a joint was reason enough for a cop to pull you over and write you a ticket, which it doesn't seem to be in Vancouver. Impairment is impairment.

Another:

Ann Arbor has some of the laxest laws regarding marijuana in the country; 25 dollar first offense, then 50, then 100 for all subsequent offenses. An the city police don't even really try to enforce these laws. But because the annual Hash Bash is on campus and thus on state property, anyone exercising their right to civil disobedience can be fined thousands of dollars and face jail time.

This is fucked up. Excuse my language but this really does make me angry, especially after the story of Derek Copps. The fact that by moving over some invisible line I go from being a mellow kid just looking to relax to a criminal worth prosecuting is beyond ridiculous. I smoke weed. I enjoy smoking weed. It's one of God's plants. I smoke weed while attending college and still get very good grades. These laws need to be changed. They need to be changed now.

Another:

There are now marijuana dispensaries all over LA. Every day I pass on my way to the gym that has a big neon marijuana leaf in the window. Another just opened behind my apartment building. It faces La Brea Blvd, across the street from Pink’s Hot Dog stand where it’s clearly visible to the huge crowd standing in line 24/7. It’s the sheer normalcy of these shops that forces the issue.

Another:

I live in Boulder, CO and there is no closet here. People just assume that you smoke pot. And the police don't care about it unless you are a big time grower. Possession of an ounce or under is $15 fine, and they'll plead down to that if you have less than a quarter pound. We smoke joints openly in public, and the cops usually won't even ask us to put it out if the see us doing it. I've smoked pot with a cop. In public.

So here's my favorite story: I was contracting for a computer company based in Texas. After two months, my client came to me and said that the corporate headquarters were demanding that all contractors take a drug test. And he said: "But you can't pass a drug test, can you?" "Certainly not," I replied. And he came back with "Okay, I'll take care of it." He hired someone to take the test for me so I could continue to work there. But he screwed up. Turns out, I was pregnant. Which is pretty funny because I'm a man. But strangely, the corporate headquarters didn't notice that issue, and everything was fine.

Welcome to Boulder. I guess it is I that live on another planet. But it's a good one, trust me.

Another:

While attending a private college in northwestern Massachusetts, my classmates and I smoked frequently and, for the most part, freely. Don't know if the percentage of smokers is higher now than it was then, but the notion that the school or community law enforcement would pursue pot offenses on campus was unheard of. My biggest surprise was when my girlfriend and I were ejected from a campus concert (R.E.M. as a matter of fact) because we lit up a joint. We refused even to believe it, but the security guard said he was serious, and kicked us out. We later snuck back in. In our dorms we had massive bong-a-thons. Again, I don't know about the prevalence of pot-smoking in schools then versus now, but the relative laxity toward it in those days (ironically, the early Reagan years) is undeniable.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I used to be a conservative Republican like you.  I am now a conservative Democrat.  I think our government is overbearing in many instances. In the case of marijuana, it’s missing out on a large amount of tax revenue if the stuff were legalized and regulated like alcohol. Doing that would rid our prisons of many tokers and small time drug users, cut our prison and judicial costs significantly and increase our tax base. This would be especially true in California. Yet the insanity persists!

What really annoys me these days is at age 64 I think I have earned the right to smoke a joint once and a while without being exposed to the risks of our stupid drug laws. I ought to be able to go down to some local reputable dealer who pays taxes on the stuff and buy a joint once or twice a year, go back home and smoke it while I put a steak on the barbeque.  

Another writes:

I’m a 27-year-old programmer who lives in the Bible Belt. By the time I got my first professional job at a small company, I’d been smoking marijuana for a year. I took great pains to hide this from my coworkers and parents because of the social stigmas attached to marijuana. But I eventually found out that over a third of my coworkers got high on a regular basis. They came from different educational systems, different sociopolitical backgrounds; conservatives, liberals, college graduates, middle-aged professionals, CEOs, programmers, accountants, and secretaries. Even, I discovered, my parents.

Every job I’ve worked in since, I’ve found it to be the same. Even in places that test for drugs. It’s corporate America’s little secret – a great, silent number of professionals indulge in marijuana from time to time. We aren’t addicts. Most of us are responsible people.

Another:

I’m a Manhattan commercial lawyer in my mid-forties. Before my divorce, I lived in the suburbs, where I would get together weekly with two friends (a partner at one of the most highly respected “white shoe” law firms in the city and a C-level officer of a major corporation, both with young families) to toke covertly, rotating through our respective backyards. My pot-smoking friends in the city, like many Manhattanites, hail from all over the country. They include a physician, a professor, a 30-something personal chef, scrappy 50-something garment industry executives and scrappier traders. And a high school teacher.

While our lives are culturally distinct from those of “Real Americans,” we are, for the most part, productive, moral and responsible people (and you’d be surprised at how many supported George W. Bush and spout Fox News nonsense).

What all my pot-partners have in common is their fear, even though we all know that having a few buds in Manhattan will not result in a criminal record for any of us. The professional price of a mere arrest would be too great. Few buy their own and they won’t discuss their pot preference unless they know their interlocutor well. I buy my own and talk relatively freely about it, within reason.

My secret? I’m self-employed, and  know a top-notch criminal lawyer, who started out as a public defender, and who instructed me on police practice and who can get me out of any pot-related scrape. He doesn’t toke because of the symbolism – it’s against the law. But he keeps a few buds in his closet, which he’s saving for the day when pot becomes legal.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I always went back and forth about writing to you regarding my self-medication of Asperger’s Syndrome, but the reader posted earlier convinced me.  I, too, am diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome; people tell me I’m intense, committed, hard-nosed, highly principled (on a borderline-pathological level), honest/blunt to a fault, overly formal/polite, etc.

I was entirely against substance use – from caffeine to alcohol to illegal drugs – until a close friend of mine unexpectedly passed away when I was 21.  I had smoked periodically starting that year (maybe 5-10 times ever), but after he died, my use/abuse really took off. In short, I stopped giving a damn about what I put in my body.

At that time, I also became friends with a group of people that, had I not started smoking cannabis on a regular basis, I would have never been friends with.  I started going to parties (something I had never, ever done before), speaking out about issues that moved me, and just generally interacting with people in a manner I had never been comfortable with.  That is not to say that I’m a shy person; I have never been a shy individual, I’ve never hesitated to “tell it like it is” or to speak up if I feel wronged.  But something about cannabis made me socially “normal” (a word I don’t agree with; I support neurodiversity as a concept).

Cutting through the haze of daily cannabis use (and there is a haze; take it from someone who’s been smoking daily for 7+ years now) can be difficult. But for me at least, that haze is a moot point, and sometimes even a bonus.  Ask my girlfriend; about a year ago, I told her I was going to stop using cannabis.  After two weeks she was ready to kill me. She told me that our relationship was in jeopardy if I didn’t get back on the cannabis.  It sounds extreme, but she said it in one of those half-kidding/I’m-really-being-serious kind of ways.

When I’m not using cannabis regularly, I become an incredibly manic over-achiever who does not let petty obstacles like peers, social stigmas, or friends get in his way.  When I’m not on cannabis, it is nothing for me to end a years-long friendship because I perceive it as getting in the way of my achievement (and this has happened before; it took a lot of work to bring it back).  Not only that, but my “routines” (AS term) aren’t nearly as important to me if I’m regularly smoking.

Example: my morning routine is to wake up early, put on a pot of coffee, let the dog out, pour my cup of coffee, let the dog back in, stir in my cream, then sit on the couch and read or listen to my iPod until my coffee is done.  If I haven’t been smoking regularly, and my girlfriend comes down and lets out the dog BEFORE I put on the pot of coffee, that will completely ruin my day if not my entire week.  I’ll be irritable by the time I get to work, and liable to snap at the smallest provocation.

On the other hand, if I had smoked the night before, I will notice that my routine has been jockeyed, but it just won’t bother me that much. The same goes for my social connections; when I smoke, I reflect upon, and come to value a social connection, but it’s a cognitive process for me… It’s not something I do naturally, and it’s not something I’m inclined to do if I’m sober (my mind says, “THERES NO TIME, THERES NO TIME”)

I guess you could say my overal point is this: All people are different.  All people choose to use substances for reasons that you may not understand, or care to understand.  But one thing is consistent with every single person I have ever met in my entire life: Everyone has vices in which they indulge, whether it’s ducking outside of work to smoke a cigarette, ordering an appetizer and dessert with dinner, making your partner wear handcuffs to bed, laying around and playing video games, snorting coke in the bathroom at the bar or club, skipping religious service, blazing up after a hard day’s work, or having a nightcap… And everyone has reasons for doing these things.  And until they decide that those reasons are no longer worth doing whatever it is they’re doing, societal stigmas, oppressive laws, and shaming will only alienate people.