We have been victims of a collective brainwashing that stigmatized marijuana use. Marijuana should be decriminalized everywhere. Marijuana is good, helpful, and healing.
We hid to smoke pot. Sometimes literally in a cave! It was not only illegal, but it was severely frowned upon. Our elders believed the hype that Reefer Madness propagated and forbade us from smoking marijuana. All the while many of the same elders criticizing cannabis, smoke toxic cigarettes and drink toxic alcohol.
“Legalize It! Don’t criticize it!” – Peter Tosh
I was eleven years old the first time I smoked Pot. My partner, a Rastaman, was thirteen the first time he smoked the holy herb. I was born and raised in the USA, and he was born and raised in the Virgin Islands. Both our families were very much against marijuana smoking.
In the summer my family would stay in Upstate New York. One summer when I was ten years old my oldest brother ran away from home and lived in a cave on a mountain in the forest with his best friend. They would come out of the woods to collect supplies and then would quickly disappear again. There was talk of The Cave, it’s natural water spring and the defense catapult the boys had built – but the actual location of The Cave was a big secret. This was the 1970’s when we did not have cell phones and GPS tracking. I never saw even one photo of The Cave but I saw it a million times in my mind and wanted so much to explore it for myself!
I already knew what Marijuana smelled like when I was eleven. I grew up walking through Washington Square Park by NY University. My mother and father warned us from very young to “stay away from those pot heads and dope dealers!” I remember feeling the advice was hypocritical as my mother chain-smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol every day. Sometimes I would sneak her discarded cigarette butts and I would smoke them.
When my partner was thirteen years old at the basketball court, he would see the Rastaman smoking. As they flicked away the ends, he would pick up, collect and re-roll for himself. The elder rastaman saw him and told him if he was so determined to smoke, they would help him but he would have to Smoke and Gum and cool out so mommy would not know.
The Summer I was eleven I met an older neighbor boy. He said to me, “You are NOT inhaling that cigarette.”
I took a deep drag and blew several smoke rings. “Yes, I am – see!” I said confidently and took another puff and at that very moment he slapped me on my back, and I gasped pulling in smoke and inhaling for the first time. I broke out in a coughing fit, and he laughed at me. “Now you have inhaled!”
When my partner was thirteen years old, he was not a Rastaman yet. He lived with his Christian family in the Virgin Islands. They call marijuana “Stupid Bush”, and its use was unacceptable and an extreme violation and considered an embarrassment to the entire family. Anyone who used “Stupid Bush” was an outcast and considered the black sheep. At that time, it was illegal to be a Rastaman and there were even calls to kill them – literally. When he came home, he would have to pass through the family in the living room and make sure he moved swiftly to the shower avoiding all contact until he was clean and fresh.
I wanted to see The Cave. I remember he drove us down our road a few miles and parked. Then we walked through a big green field to the base of a mountain, up the hill, then he stopped, pulled out a hand rolled “cigarette” and a couple of blind folds. He lit up the cigarette. I smelled pot.
He said, “if you want to see the cave you have to smoke this with me and put these on.”
I said, “NO I am outta here now!”
Calmly he said “don’t worry I just want to make sure you guys can’t lead anyone else back here.
My buddy grabbed my arm reassuringly and took a long drag on the joint. She handed me the joint. I really wanted to see that cave I thought, and I grabbed the joint and took a deep inhale.
“TOKE IT!” he said with a smile. “Ok blind folds on!” I immediately began to laugh uncontrollably.
He spun us around three times before taking our hands and leading us. Everything seemed funny to me. He stopped and released our hands and said “OK blindfolds off! TA DA!”
I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of a marijuana field! Tall beautiful green marijuana plants all taller than me. The sun shone brightly, and the blue sky peeked out through the beautiful leaves. The aroma was tremendous. “What the actual fuck?!” my buddy exclaimed, still laughing.
“These are my babies!” He said proudly still toking his joint – the “home grown” he motioned to the joint.
“Cool!” I said crossing my arms, sticking out my bottom lip and stomping my feet while still laughing “but I wanna see THE CAVE!” I whined and pouted.
“OK, SMOKE!” he handed me the joint and put your blindfolds back on.” He spun us around and then led us again. I felt the temperature drop, a chill ran up my spine and I shivered. “Take off your blind folds – TA DA!”
We were in a much darker and colder area of forest. The trees were very tall and wide and the oldest I had ever seen. The lush canopy of leaves kept out, most sunlight. In front of me was what looked like a long river of huge boulders running down from the mountain above, ending directly in front of us. This “cave”, a gaping hole overhang had a natural wooden platform jutting out from it. I ran forward giggling. I climbed up the rock “steps” on the right side and onto the deck. It was made of logs lashed together with assorted rope and twine. My buddy caught up with me and my brother’s buddy slowly joined us. As we looked out from the cave, we could see a large catapult also made of lashed logs.
I circled back and walked in deeper. Towards the back end of the cave on the right side, water glistened and dripped down a boulder into an old pot. The cave was less a cave and more a very large and long pile of boulders. The decking was the only level area. I climbed higher and higher on the boulders up the mountain until I was called down. “Time to go!” they yelled to me.
I wanted to explore more. I looked as far as I could see. The boulder stream was massive – cutting over the mountain and through the tall trees. I turned back and saw my buddies leaving and I scrambled back down and joined them for the hike back smoking and laughing. That was the beginning of my journey with the holy herb.
We learned quickly to hide our marijuana use. Smoke and gum, wash and perfume before making contact with non-marijuana friendly people.
I was often at battle with myself. On the one hand I felt ashamed of myself for smoking marijuana because I was raised with it being bad. I was fed the myths and the lies. On the other hand, my adventurous and curious nature had me researching and learning all along. Everything I read, experienced, and learned proved to me the benefits of Cannabis.
I was very careful and I was never caught smoking pot. However, one day I came home from partying with my friends and my father was waiting for me. He looked deep in my eyes and said, “your eyes are red – have you been smoking grass or doing drugs?!”
I acted completely offended “How could you think such a thing of me Daddy? I have been training hard tonight and I hit myself many times with my nunchucks, “look!” I showed him my bruised elbow, knee and forehead and I pulled my chucks out of the back of my waistband.
“I am so sorry, “my father apologized to me. “Are you ok? Why do you have to train so hard? Why don’t you go take a nice hot shower and relax, do you need the first aid kit?”
I felt like a real piece of shit lying to my father. Technically I HAD hurt myself swinging my nunchucks but the reason I missed and hurt myself was because I WAS DRINKING alcohol in addition to smoking pot that night.
When my partner was a fifteen year old in High School he and his schoolmates were down by the ghut smoking herb after homeroom and the principal called out to them, “I can SMELL all of you! When you are done smoking your herb march yourselves to my office!” And they did! They were all told to go home and to stay home and were given a letter to give to their parents instructing them to come in for a meeting. He didn’t give his letter to his mother. He woke up the next day and told his mother his belly hurt, and he couldn’t go to school. She went to the market to shop and met one of the teachers who asked why she was not at the school meeting. He told her about her son and the others smoking “The Stupid Bush” and her grocery bag almost fell out of her hands.
When mommy came home, he was in the living room playing Atari (the old video game) and she grabbed the cord and whipped him with it. She then told his father who came and beat him with the electric company cord. He was hit everywhere but his head. He woke up and his body was swollen all over. He was sent to the USVI to live with his father who was busy working. Son landed in hard-core street weed culture.
Chronic
When I have discussed my marijuana use with doctors, they have always recommended I continue to use marijuana. Even when I have brought up alternatives such as medication (just to hear what they would say) they have always confidently told me that Cannabis is superior with the least side effects. I have told every doctor the truth – I am a regular marijuana smoker. Every doctor has approved of my marijuana use. In fact, I have heard many “off the record” testimonials from doctors. All this was long before medicinal marijuana was legalized. As soon as medicinal marijuana was approved in NYS I was given a medical marijuana card. Yet I hid inside the tree line as a grown woman to take my medicine, while the average person nearby was getting sloshed on alcohol in plain view for all to witness at every picnic, barbecue, and bar.
Today medical marijuana is decriminalized in the US, and I still find myself hiding from the haters. Even with so much approval I always remember my mother and father’s stance on pot, and how I felt ashamed for my hiding and lying.
Time has proven marijuana helps. Yet people are still shunned, assaulted, imprisoned, abandoned, even murdered for embracing marijuana. It is not ok to mistreat people because you do not like the choices they make and this includes children because they are people too! People have free will and smoke the holy herb marijuana because it helps them. Anywhere that allows tobacco and alcohol, but criminalizes people for their use of marijuana and cannabis should be called out for their hypocrisy.
