Daze of Yor

Drugs. Huh. Yeah. What are they good for? Eating Lays and Puffins.

Although glamorized by redundant portrayals of humorous and "cool" characters in cinema and other media formats, drugs are nothing more than a great way to waste time, alienate yourself, and steal your drive and ambition. That is, except for your ambition to consume more drugs.

I've had first hand experience with the dark side of the force and let me tell you, it was a party at first but in the end, it was no picnic.

Age was of no concern to me. I smoked grass for my first time when I was thirteen. Didn't get high the first time actually. But the second time, I thought I was literally flying. Phases were the name of the game for the next few years. I'd get as stoned as a Hebrew whore for months on end and then I'd write marijuana off and just stick to getting soused. Of course when I was in full "go get 'em" mode, I would drink while smoking and end up singing mysteriously intelligible made up song lyrics in Spanish. Also, I would cackle like a witch -- typical of any adolescent really.

It wasn't until my last year and a half of high school that I really began to hit my prime. By the end of my junior year, I was getting glassy eyed at least two or three times a week -- depending on the weather and my cash flow. Finally, in my senior year, I was wasting so much money on pot that I needed to come up with a plan. Bingo. Sell that junk. And sell that junk I did.

Selling drugs is pretty easy if you're in the right circles. I never could understand how people could fail at it but then I found that most low level drug dealers are not only stupid, but they're more focused on intoxication rather than business. It came naturally to me. I found a guy through a friend. He'd front me some pot and I would pay him back in no later than two days. I didn't have to but that's good business. Who cares if I put some of my own money in initially, I could make it back easy. Before long, he couldn't keep up with my pick ups so I got in contact with another guy, who happened to be a buddy of mine that I had no idea sold the sweet leaf. He was my bread and butter. Not only did he have great stuff, he introduced me to some more people and filled me in on the local scene. I put my same business ethic to work and he really appreciated that. I was getting quarter pounds of high-end bud for between fifty and two hundred dollars cheaper than the average retail price. Being quick was my secret and it paid off -- I was a mover and a shaker. I even ended up selling to my original supplier up until my disbandment.

Never getting caught was the most important thing I ever did. I've now come to find out that after I quit the game, my supplier did some hard time after a raid. The closest I ever came was unforgettable. I was at a party that I didn't drive to and I was smoking, drinking, selling, and doing what dumb little late teens do. My friend came and picked me and a buddy up and we were on our way to a KFC so that I could make an exchange. Of course, the driver was hammered and we were taking hits from the bong on the open road. Long story short, after an illegal turn, we got pulled over. I was sitting shotgun with about an ounce under my thigh (enough to go to jail) and a six pack behind my feet, wedged up against my seat. My buddy in the back had the bong in between his legs. After this cop walked the perimeter of the car, noted a busted head light, ran the driver's I.D., and shined a Maglite in my face, he let us go. We drove away and the car was silent for twenty seconds. Then unstoppable deep laughter ensued. Retarded.

Yes, I made the transaction but the twenty dollars from someone I didn't really care for that much wasn't at all worth it. Through that wild and crazy senior year where the calls came in like wildfire, I got into mushrooms. Sold some because I could and tried it out. It was pretty fun. I'm not going to lie. It was a strong body high that was the next level from pot. In this stage of my life, I did some strange things. I smoked some kind of leaf bug out of a gravity bong. Didn't do anything for me. A couple of girls with a Dustbuster noses started hanging out because they were all about getting high as well. They were trying to kick the dandruff and had the remainder of an eight ball left. They didn't want to snort it so we made a deal where we would use it solely for smoking with marijuana and doing "gummies," which if you're unfamiliar, is when you rub some blow on your gums until they go numb. So basically, I was a bona fide crack head for a week or so. Never snorted cocaine though. Glad I didn't. I don't like things up my nose so it would have been a bad relationship from the get go. I freak out if I get sand in there.

As college approached, I had to make a decision. Keep selling or quit. I had elaborate plans to start selling in my new college town while keeping someone back home to handle business and working out a deal with a friend going up to Santa Barbara. After a bunch of useless stony planning. I decided I was out. I still got calls from dealers and users, which was hard because it made me feel like I was missing out on business but I got over it and focused on just being a stoner. The night before my first day of college, I did mushrooms with my roommate and was up until the sun doth shine. The first day I moved in, my roommate and I smoked a Bob Marley sized joint on a bus stop bench. Real smart. We were something else. We found all of the druggies on campus and made friends so that we had people to smoke, pop pills, or whatever with and so that we had a place to go if our resources were dry.

We had an awesome Asian drug dealer in the dorms that would always smoke with us free of charge as long as we either bought something or played some video games with him. He had these mushrooms candies that didn't make you want to throw up like normal shrooms and they were concise and potent. I did those everyday for a week at one point. Did a ton of strange thinking and though I came to some revelations. Turns out, I was just high.

After getting my hands on some LSD, my roommate and I walked what seemed to be the entire town at night, finding all kinds of weird things going on. My second experience with acid was on Halloween of my freshman year. It was wild. Everything was moving and had personality and it was a whole different world. When I was walking in, I didn't know if I was coming back out. I sat on a log with two buddies and we smoked some pot. We got up and looked at this heap of cut grass or something like that. However, we had no idea whether we had really gotten up or just hallucinated the entire endeavor. To this day, it's a mystery.

This particular event also marked the date that I had my first official "trip out." I didn't know if I was ever going to be the same, felt like I was slipping toward the dark side, and had all kinds of intense spiritual feelings I could not control. It was pretty bad. I sat on a log for God knows how long and had a good cry while engaging in what passersby would consider "talking to myself." The rest of the weekend was strange and tainted by that experience and I then decided that LSD was something that would never enter my system again...