Reply #96: Yes, mostly early on in college, but never again. [View All]

[Alexander]

I smoked weed on accident for the first time when I was 15, bumming what I thought was a cigarette off a kid at my high school. I didn't really touch it again until I was about 17 or 18, after I finished school, and even then didn't use it much - only if I got blasted at a party.

During my first two years of college, though, I had plenty of experimentation, including:

-Smoking marijuana a lot for a couple of years (although I have since quit and haven't looked back).

-Tried cocaine 1 time, didn't like it, never went back.

-Tried MDMA 1 time, didn't like it, never went back. This is, I believe, the pure version of X.

-Tried LSD 3 or 4 times. While my experiences with it were pleasant (no bad trips, no flashbacks), I really recommend against trying it - friends of mine have really fucked up their shit playing around with this stuff, and I'm lucky I didn't.

-Tried mushrooms 7 or 8 times. I didn't like, among other things, the weird queasy feeling I would get while tripping, nor did I care for some of the shady people who fooled around with it, so I quit.

-Tried opium about 10-15 times. It wasn't as intense as I thought it would be.


That's it as far as illegal stuff goes (I stayed away from needles and other hard drugs), although I did smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol before I was legally allowed. In high school I nasally used Ritalin once or twice - I didn't know why it was prescribed and I didn't like the feeling I got from it, whether taken properly or not.

I also quit smoking cigarettes over a year ago and now only have the occasional beer or glass of wine - and I don't think I'll touch even hard alcohol again.

Overall I feel that the time, money and effort I spent dabbling in this stuff was a waste - drugs didn't help me deal with reality, they didn't exactly fatten my wallet, and probably largely due to the illegal nature of narcotics, I wasn't making a lot of good friends, instead mostly shady people I'd rather forget - and when I quit doing all this shit, 75% of these "friends" suddenly disappeared from my life, even though most of them claimed to be "chill" with people who had no interest in illegal drug use. Now I know better.

In addition, I find a lot of people who have occasionally dabbled in pot or who have never taken drugs know shockingly little about the facts of narcotics - instead painting wild and untrue pictures about the effects of drugs, thinking that a user's life revolves solely around drugs (a drug user is not necessarily a drug abuser), and generally being stereotypical jerks. There are closed-minded people in both corners, and it's unfortunate. But there are also open-minded people in both corners as well, and I'm not saying you have to try drugs to be open-minded about them.

That being said, the "War On Drugs" is absolute and utter BS. Marijuana is a gateway drug, yes, BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL. So are the other drugs; it's a catch-22 argument.

Weed is a felony, still, in many states (including AZ), and if you're already risking a felony conviction by puffing down in your living room, my guess is the fear of Johnny Law isn't going to stop you from trying coke or meth or something.

If marijuana is legalized, taxed and regulated, then the shady, criminal element will disappear, as will the "gateway drug" argument. Should it be encouraged? No, and I wouldn't touch it even if it were legal. But hemp is a valuable resource we should be using, and quite frankly I don't see how some stoner college kid toking up with some buddies while listening to old Foghat records is a threat to anyone.