Stoner Stories, Tales of a Millennial stoner

Hello fellow citizens of the City of Grass,


Ive been a lurker on here for a while but never really bothered to post anything.


This changes today!


Being a fairly seasoned stoner, I feel like I can attempt to teach through my own close calls and life experiences. So I want to start a series of stories, detailing my wonderful history with the holy herb.


I will start this story where most stoner stories start, home alone in a friends attic.


The Beginning

Living in suburbia isnt all that bad, there is always something to do as a teen. You have friends, lots of open space and tons of free time. I was lucky, alot of my friends around the neighbourhood went to the same school as I did. The close proximity allowed our little group to accomplish alot. We organized street hockey tournaments, took over the neighbourhood pool and even formed a couple bands. And it was during the formation of one of these bands, that everything would change.


I was always a sub-par musician, I tried ( without success) to play a lot of instruments. The clarinet, trumpet, guitar, etc. Through some level of god like decision making, my friends deemed me a competent bass player. With another god tier decision , that I would later find out was heavily influenced by injecting all the pot, they decided that we would play Metallica. Like most teens, we were going through our rebellious phase. Not that we were particularly rebellious kids, or actually rebelled in anyway, but in an attempt to feel cool we all listened to copious amounts of metal.


I digress however, it was after one particularly long Friday night band practice that we would be surprised with the news that we had the house to ourselves. My friends parents were going out and would be gone for the next couple hours. Being an innocent young lad, I had heard of the devils lettuce but never had actually seen or smoked it. That would change tonight, as the drummer of our bootleg metal band produced a small one gram baggie of weed and a bubbler. The surprise was obvious on my face as the weed was ground and tightly packed into the bowl of the device.


“ Have you smoked before?” my friend asked me as the bubbler made its way around. Keeping the look of shock and awe on my face. I shook my head without breaking eye contact with ever encroaching bubbler prompting raucous laughs from my bandmates. I didn’t have long to think about this though, the bubbler rapidly made its way around to me and I found myself holding the alien device with lighter in hand.


Being a coach for many other new smokers, I can imagine what my face looked like now. A mixture of utter confusion, wonder and a twinge of fear of what could happen. I never received the weed was the devil conversation and I was lucky enough to realise D.A.R.E was complete bullshit. I had no qualms about trying cannabis for the first time, but I was still scared. Like someone who is about to get on a roller coaster for the first time. My heart was beating out of my chest and my hands were shaking with anticipation.


I was very quickly given a crash course in smoking a bubbler, pointed towards the business end and taught what not to do before I was greeted by cheers of “Hit it man”. Without more than a second thought and following the brief set of directions I received, I brought the apparatus to my lips and lit the plant matter inside. After what felt like a second or three, I inhaled what felt like the entire contents of the bowl and proceeded to cough up my lungs after quickly handing the bubbler back to my new stoner coach. I coughed for what felt like ages, agonizingly trying to gasp for air in a what I was now convinced was full of tear gas. Every gasp only brought on more coughing fits which prompted louder laughter from my friends. After what felt like an eternity, and a full bottle of water later, I finally came to rest on the couch but there was a problem. After all of that coughing, after all the nervousness, I felt nothing short of a sore throat. Maybe this weed thing wasn’t all that great, was this it? Is this all im going to feel? It has never been in my character to take something purely at face value, I had to investigate this fully. So in the spirit of due diligence I took the bubbler again as it came around but decided I would really rip the complete hell out of this bowl.


Well rip the bowl I did…..

Today, I can equate the feeling to CS gas and after getting tear gassed twice I am pretty aware of the feeling of its effect. Back then however, I could only equate the coughing fit I was going through as death. As I laid on the floor, drooling and unable to draw a breath, that’s what I thought was going to happen until I was finally able to grasp sweet sweet oxygen. This was different however, I could feel what felt like my eyes tightening and muscles in my body relaxing themselves slowly. The burning sensation in my lungs slowly dissipated and I felt slow and sudden waves of vertigo before suddenly snapping back to where I was, sitting on the floor staring at the wall.


‘So this is was everyone was talking about’, I remember thinking as I shakily moved myself to the couch and sat down. The Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 1) that was on the TV suddenly became much more interesting and even the slightest comment, joke or even noise would make me break a rib from laughter. I was completely and utterly, without question stoned and found the experience to be very pleasant. Given my experience now, I was lucky to experience weed for the first time around friends in a controlled environment. Without the right setting and people, I understand how this feeling could get very unenjoyable quickly.


I will end this chapter with a quick stoner pro tip. Setting is everything, try your best to enjoy the herb with good friends and conversation.

 

Freedom


Despite the first taste of the holy herb, I wouldn’t smoke again for another year. As a young teen without drivers license, you are at the whim of your parents and most parents and after the band broke up ( read, got bored of playing Metallica) there was no reason to make the trek anymore. That would change as I got my full drivers license, I was now free to travel the roads.

People come and go during high school, many of my friends had graduated and were on to bigger and better things in other cities but a stoner friend is never far from reach. I never realized how little you actually know people you go to school with. I was a junior at this point and I had known this friend for a little over 2 years. We had played football together, wrestled together and ate lunch together almost every day over the past two school years. It was almost comical how we found out each other smoked, once you smoke the devils lettuce once you never forget the smell. You become a blood hound for the herb, even the slightest whiff is identifiable. One day in the parking lot of our school this innocuous odor wafted to where we normally parked our cars prompting jeering jokes and banter.


“ Wait….you smoke?” my friend exclaimed almost surprised he didn’t know before

“ Yes, I have haven’t in a bit” I replied oblivious to the scheming going on behind his glasses.


The look of utter joy flashed across his face in a sense of renewed brotherhood, a look I would come to learn comes from desire for a smoking buddy. He let out a loud “BRO!” and we were quickly making plans to toke up later that night, sharing our small repertoire of stories as we planned. I would of never guessed he was a stoner, but I guess I didn’t look the part either.


Freedom of movement was something my parents always advocated, based off trust and growing responsibility. It wasn’t like I told my parents that I was going to smoke the ganja with my friend but I didn’t lie to them either. I was going to meet a friend, that is true, but I was not going to disclose what we were doing while we were hanging out ( even if im sure they knew, my parents were pretty “savvy”). They trusted me enough to know that I wasn’t going out and doing any hard unmentionables or committing crimes, we were good kids despite our love for the Mary Jane.


I made the trek out to my friends place and was quickly received by my friend in his front yard. I parked hopped out and was waved over to his car, we got in and off we went again into the black abyss of country roads and farms. It was here that I was introduced to two new aspects of the smoking life, a new contraption called a bowl and the new method called “ rolling and bowling”. We would drive around, passing a bowl back and forth between the two of us, completely free from prying eyes of parents and hopefully law enforcement. Sometimes we would walk onto the golf course after dark and lay out in the middle of the green staring up at the stars and talking about our future’s. These were great times, we were free and we had friends to share in our freedom. Two kids on a golf course in the middle of the night would not raise any eyebrows, we were relatively safe from anyone who would kill our high. Afterward however, I would learn the impairing effects of marijuana and the crippling effects of the munchies.

Of course all good time had to come to an end and we had to go back to our respective homes. Being a relatively new smoker, I can say without a doubt that I was utterly smacked and driving high was a new experience. I thank the gods that I was a good driver with a good teacher, but I still made all the classic driving stoned mistakes. I would find myself cruising 35 in a 50 mph zones, waiting for stop signs to turn green and even forgetting where I was a times. In retrospect, this was not a smart decision and I wouldn’t advocate any of it, but we were young, dumb and extremely lucky.


I want to conclude this story with yet another bit of sage advice. Don’t drive and smoke, it wont be until later that I would find out how vulnerable you actually are while driving and smoking. Not to mention how dangerous it is to yourself and those around you. Be smart when you smoke, one or two people is a good group to smoke with but three and above just draws attention to yourself when your out in public. I live by the words of Sgt Horvath from Saving Private Ryan “ ten men is a golden opportunity but one man is a waste of ammo”