I bleed a lot of ink in this column contemplating the many benefits marijuana brings to people’s lives. My hope, in those conversations, is to expand the aperture of cannabis use by highlighting how it’s helpful in different ways for different people. For instance, when I interviewed my own father, he posited that weed had made him a more patient parent. And during a recent interview with award-winning glassblower Jerome Baker, he shared a perspective that the act of smoking cannabis replaces a loss of ceremony for modern cultures. For many, marijuana is medicine, while to others, it’s a facilitator of creativity. What I value the most about weed is that it generally brings users to a more peaceful state of mind and that it presents an opportunity for people to be more reflective and empathetic.
I devote much less writing to the occasional moments when marijuana causes me to become a bumbling dumbass whose unthinking missteps lead to situations so profoundly awkward that I wince at their memory for years.
Years later, I still think about that stoned interaction, usually when I’m in the shower, at which point I pound my forehead and mutter, “God, I’m such an IDIOT.”
Like how one time, my friends and I prioritized hotboxing my van in an Alamo Drafthouse parking lot over arriving to the movie on time. When we eventually entered, smelling like a bunch of blunt roaches, the screening had already started and there were no more consecutive seats available so we had to scatter and fumblingly find individual spots in the darkened theatre. I remember being extremely thirsty and taking a few sips of my girlfriend’s glass of water on the table in front of us. Soon, I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had ordered chips and salsa so I started going to town on them. Then I heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice from directly next to me saying, “Now he’s eating my chips!”
That’s when I remembered that I wasn’t sitting next to my girlfriend.
The ensuing hour of runtime was the most excruciating movie experience of my life – and not just because it was that tedious 2010 remake of Alice in Wonderland. I sank into my chair and, as soon as Alice emerged from the rabbit hole, I booked it out of the theatre and took shelter in my van, pushing the rearview mirror sideways because I couldn’t even make eye contact with myself.
Years later, I still think about that interaction, usually when I’m in the shower, at which point I pound my forehead and mutter, “God, I’m such an IDIOT.”
I tell you this in an effort to bring journalistic balance to this column by emphasizing that marijuana does, after all, have negative side effects. In fact, just last week I experienced another oops-I’m-too-high incident of which I’m still recovering from the trauma.
I was out in the barn at night, decompressing with a few delightful bong rips of some Zkittlez flower topped with crumbles of old-fashioned bubble hash, and my mind started wandering. I found it thinking about a friend of mine who’d died earlier in the year. It was a happy reminiscence really, but it really made me miss having him a phone call away.
Then I clapped my hands together and smiled, like I always do when I surprise myself with a good idea. I probably had dozens of messages from him over the years in my email … I SHOULD READ THEM. So I grabbed my laptop, hit the bong again, typed his name into the search bar of my Gmail account, and started reading years of old exchanges between us – in chronological order – getting lost in the memories.
Then I found something special: an email from him in 2021 that was still highlighted as having never been opened. Excitedly, I clicked on it and read this very touching message about how some silly internet video I’d produced made him shoot coffee out of his nose in laughter and how it had really brightened his day.
So I emailed him back.
Then I went to the kitchen and got a snack. I had a big mouthful of dried mango when the sudden realization hit: Oh shit… Did I just send an email to a dead person?
Frantically, I ran back to my laptop to confirm. Yes, I’d definitely emailed someone who is no longer alive. No, there wasn’t an option to unsend it.
This would be particularly difficult to play off in any way where I appeared sane. It wasn’t like he’d just recently died – it happened months ago. Also, I’m almost positive his parents have his email account set up to forward messages to them. And they know … that I know … that he’s dead.
I considered sending a follow-up email: “Just kidding, I know you’re dead,” but that felt like compounding the horror of my already weird message. So instead I decided I’d just have to avoid his family for the rest of my life.
I’ve now given up hope of getting a bounce-back email saying “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently…” But I still recommend getting high and reading emails from departed friends – just don’t hit send. And if you do, tell them how you felt about them – unlike my high ass, whose final message was:
“Haha! Hell yeah dude. Hope you’ve been good. Let’s chill soon.”
Trump’s Pick for Health Secretary Supports Legalization
While President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks could be broadly described as a League of Unqualified Dipshits, there’s some sense of optimism, amongst cannabis advocates, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could influence marijuana reform if the Senate confirms him as secretary of Health and Human Services. While campaigning for president – initially as a Democrat, then as an Independent – RFK Jr. made clear his stance on the matter: Legalize marijuana federally, use its tax revenue to create designated drug treatment facilities (that incorporate organic farming as a form of therapy), and make it possible for cannabis businesses to finally use the country’s banking systems. Personally, I find Kennedy to be polarizing even within my own ideals. I support his crusade against over-processed foods and harmful pesticides, but find his anti-vaccine claims to be irresponsible. Obviously, the secretary of HHS lacks the power to federally legalize cannabis (or psychedelics, which RFK Jr. also supports), but the department has some influence on how cannabis is regulated, as we saw last year when it kick-started the process of marijuana being moved from a Schedule I to Schedule III substance. It now seems relevant for me to divulge that my recent Halloween costume was inspired by RFK Jr. I went as brainworms.
This article appears in November 29 • 2024.