Eight years ago, Heliotrope Books published my book Just Say Yes: A Marijuana Memoir, in which I looked at my life through a marijuana screen. How much of my experience could I capture if I only focused on what related to marijuana? Quite a lot, it turned out, for I’ve been smoking weed since the age of 16. It was the numbers that intrigued the media: I wrote that for 50 years, except during my pregnancies, I’d been smoking grass every day, usually more than once. I wanted to normalize smoking pot and show that you could live a full life (marriage, children, house, career, friends, pleasures, satisfaction) even if you got high. A lot.
Apparently, this was news, for The New York Times interviewed me in section one, and other media outlets followed. I got a great deal of publicity just for coming out as a cannabis user and enthusiast.
How much has changed in the last eight years! When the book was published, my neighbors worried that I might get arrested and go to prison (although for decades if you possessed an ounce or less you only got a fine in New York State). Today in New York State it is legal to grow and buy both medical and recreational marijuana.
In 2015, when interviewed about my book, I never revealed where in Westchester I lived for fear an anti-pot zealot would report me to the local police. Now many local governments throughout the state (although not in my village) are happy to accept the tax revenue that a dispensary can bring. New York City cannot license dispensaries fast enough to keep up with the demand, so illegal ones are springing up like, um, weeds.
Looking back, it seems funny, even quaint. I wrote a book about smoking pot . . . and the book got published? How strange! You might as well write a book about eating food (although with the right writer, any subject can be interesting). Perhaps the only thing truly notable was that the book didn’t follow the usual pattern of a drug memoir: introduction to the substance, increasing use, grievous harm to self and others, hitting bottom, arrest and prison, getting clean.
To prevent people from expecting this arc, in Just Say Yes, I started from the present (in late middle age, visiting my dealer at his 6th floor walk-up) and went backward. Every chapter starts at an earlier time until I am a child, spinning wildly to get dizzy and high. I might have gotten the idea of going backward from the Martin Amis novel Time’s Arrow.
When Just Say Yes was published, I was considered brave because I admitted to routine marijuana use. Today, mainstream celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and Jennifer Aniston are marijuana entrepreneurs. It hasn’t hurt their brand or their reputation. They just see a good business opportunity.
I write this during a visit to my son in Fairfax, CA, home to one of the oldest dispensaries in the United States. We stopped in and bought some pre-rolls (a boon for arthritic fingers) and some flower, nicely sealed in plastic to block the powerful aroma.
The flower I chose has a 35% THC concentration. The grass of my youth clocked in at 6%. Yet I’m not getting as high as I once did.
Hedonic adaptation rears its ugly head again! We get used to our dose; we keep needing more.
It helps to switch things up, to smoke at different times of day, such as the middle of the night, or for a different activity, such as getting a haircut. It’s easy to develop “strain tolerance,” so it’s helpful to have a couple of kinds on hand. But the best way to feel high again is to simply abstain for a while, which I do from time to time, although not all that often (I like it too much).
When I resume, it’s still not the crazy joy it once was. I remember feeling the world was atilt and that I was breaking through a ring of giggles . . . Now, cannabis just brings me confidence, ease and well-being.
Hmmm. That ain’t so bad.
(Like I don't know?) !
Always a delight to walk in your world Cathy... (((o:
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