Pro Or Con

     I think that today, due to the election and the passing of measure 91 in Oregon, we are going to talk about smoking pot. If you are in the minority and have never tried the pot ignore this next question. When was the first time you smoked pot, and what was your first time like? There are a lot of opinions around the legalization of cannabis in the states and what it will do to our society. In all honesty I think that the legalization of pot is a good thing. Most if not all of the criminality I have witnessed around pot had to do with the fact of it being illegal in the first place to possess and or consume Marijuana. That may sound like a no shit kind of statement but if you think about it it is not. The consumption of pot is a relatively cheap pursuit so you don’t see nearly as much criminality in the getting of it. And as far as the addiction generating properties of pot you have a greater chance to become addicted to your morning cup of coffee or that extra Danish at noon. Now don’t get me wrong I am not advocating the use of pot I am just covering the bases. Pot can be addictive but so can any habitual act. As with any potential habit forming substance there is a portion of society that will have negative interaction with this substance. There has been a lot of study of the pot subculture while it was illegal’ but very little study of it’s impact while legal, so I will be using an educated guess as to what the impact of it’s legalization really is.  There is so much to cover on this subject that I cannot cover it in it’s entirety. I believe that initially there will be a spike in consumption of pot with it’s legalization but that it will level off with time, and maybe even decrease. I think that the medicinal usage will increase with open study of the benefits, it could even replace opiates in the reduction of chronic pain. With the legalization of marijuana, and the taxation of said substance, the flood gates of funding for research will open up and I believe the studies that will come about as the result will benefit our society. Also I believe that there will be a significant decrease in pot related crimes once the populous gets used to the new laws concerning the use, possession, and distribution of pot related products. That being said I also believe that at first there will be an initial spike in the need for addiction related services and there will be an increase initially of crime around the sales of cannabis. Now onto the story.

      I had been hearing my brother talk about smoking pot in the fields where he was working and I was curious about it. I asked him to buy me a joint so I could try it…I was twelve almost thirteen at the time. He took my three dollars and went to work. When he got home he gave me back the three dollars ant told me that the guy just gave him a bud for me to try. The bud was about three inches long, an inch and a half wide, and about a quarter inch thick, it had red hair like growths all over it and smelled like mandarin oranges. I took the bud and said thanks. Not being sure how much to consume I took about a third of the bud and crunched it up then mixed it with some tobacco to role a joint. That night I took the “joint” and went outside to smoke it. It was harsher than just plane tobacco and had a unique flavor. It didn't take me long to smoke the whole thing. At first nothing happened and I wondered if I had done it right. I went straight to my room and laid down before it hit me. The first thing I noticed was the feeling in my back like a series of waves crashing onto me, then my heat started drumming in my chest. It scared me how strong the feelings were. After a while, maybe a half hour I started seeing things, at first it was just out of the corner of my eye, then I saw, straight on, a clown form up from the shadows and it tried to throw something at me. At that point I covered myself with my blankets and hid. It took quite a while of this feeling that way before I fell asleep. The next day I felt none the worse for wear and I laughed off the effects the pot had had and told myself that it couldn't have been that way that it was just my imagination. What I didn’t know was that the pot my brother had got for me was laced with crystal meth and PCP. What he and I thought was just pot was actually a high powered drug cocktail. I finished what I had the next night and had one of the worst experiences of my life. After that night I swore off pot for life, but that only lasted for about six months. When I smoked again after the six months it was a totally different experience. I laughed, got squinty blood shot eyes, and got the munchies. 

     All in all the later experience with pot was awesome. It was similar to the first time I got really drunk (also with my older brother) and I remember thinking that my parents were wrong or liars, and that pot couldn't be bad for you. I never thought that way about alcohol. I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and these experiences aren’t anything I would want for my juvenile son…but when He becomes an adult if he chooses to smoke pot I won’t hold it against him, and I will never lump Pot into the same category as the hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, or meth. There is a huge difference in the drugs that pot has been lumped with. I cannot smoke pot and have a successful life but I have had enough experience with it to say that I believe that the legalization of regulated pot will be a benefit to our society in the long run.