High school.
First time I tried pot, I hated it. Didn't like the mind-bendy effect that I had no power to turn off. I just had to let it wear off in its own good time. Subsequent trials were pleasant, but I never felt bonded to marijuana. The only thing memorable about the high school era of pot smoking was the frequency in which my best friend and I threw away or flushed our pathetic little stashes due to paranoia when we saw a cop behind us on the road or when the doorbell rang at the house.
College era(s).
I don't recall any usage during my many, stuttering college years. Doesn't mean I didn't indulge; just don't remember it.
Young adulthood.
For much of my young adulthood, I was pretty poor. No money for weed, I could say. But really, I didn't buy it because the interest just wasn't there, plus why risk expensive legal consequences? I also didn't drink alcohol very much.
I had a different drug of choice: nicotine. There was money for that. There had to be money for that. I say that without any sense of wry humor or judgy smirkdom. I needed those cigarettes.
Amsterdam.
A brother and his family lived for a time in Amsterdam. My sister, Murphy, and I visited them one November.
Marijuana was legal there and we checked it out.
Using a logic I don't understand, a bar that sold alcohol couldn't sell weed, and a "bar" that sold weed couldn't sell alcohol. Maybe the powers-that-be didn't want customers to drink and smoke marijuana together? Don't know. I guess that probably does make sense. I suppose I could research this, but heck, it was so many years ago.
Colorado
On the "why not?" agenda for my visit to Colorado was the purchase of some legal cannabis.
So one day I visited the local outlet, where I happily discovered that I wore the appropriate apparel, to wit: Various shades of black with accents of green.
My green accents weren't quite on fashion point, as mine leaned toward a khaki green, while other shoppers favored a granny apple sort of green.
Surprisingly, my fellow customers seemed, well, kind of depressed. I'm not talking about the medical-use buyers; I'm talking about the recreational-use customers. I expected some cheerfulness, some joie de vivre.
Maybe the waiting room ambience tempered their otherwise ebullient spirits. It had a vibe similar to that of a 1970s STD clinic.
First orders of business: Show my photo ID. Sit down and wait to be called for entrance through the recreational-use door.
When my number came up, I entered the door into the recreational-use room. There was a glass counter and two sales people. "My" sales person, a pleasant woman, and I had a brief talk about how I might ingest the cannabis and what effect I sought. If I wanted to get laid back and sleepy, I might choose this blend; if I wanted more of a buzz, I might try this other blend. If I want something in between, here's an alternative.
Because I used to be a cigarette smoker, I knew I didn't want to wake up any dragons by smoking my purchase. Because I've got an eating disorder, I knew I didn't want to snack my drug.
I opted for a root beer delivery system and the happy-medium blend of cannabis. I bought two bottles of cannabis-ed root beer and was out the door.
When I exited the outlet, a sheriff's car was pulling out of the back entrance area, no doubt finding rich fodder in the scanned photo IDs of the day, along with the array of license plates in the parking lot.
I'll cut to the chase.
Each bottle of root beer cost about the same as a glass of wine at a restaurant (a modestly-priced restaurant). While I get a buzz from wine quickly, the effects of the cannabis root beer came more slowly and quietly.
Drinking wine is more convivial, social, to me. Drinking the cannabis felt more solitary.
There's a sensory dimension to drinking wine - the graceful curves of a glass, the jewel tones of the wine, the flavor and feel on the tongue - that wasn't present with the cannabis. If I were with a group of people smoking the weed via a hookah, in a sumptuous room of colors and textures, maybe my overall experience would have compared better with drinking wine.
But hot damn, I LOVED the shopping bag I received to carry my purchase!
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