Using Mary Jane During my Teenage Years.

Marijuana has been banned all over this Earth. Police spend their
precious time and energy persecuting the users, dealers, and growers of
a worthwhile medicine. The future will look back upon today’s laws
with much the same dismay as we view slavery today. In 2006, the United
Nations condemned the mild herb, which illustrated for me, better than
any other pronouncement, the U.N.’s limitations.

Prohibition’s defenders will accuse me of being a user, but the
opposite is true. I have not in any way consumed in over two decades. My
youthful love affair with Mary Jane lasted two years, a span almost
equal to my friendship with Ian. I used marijuana almost every day. I am
ashamed to admit that it diminished my intellectual acuity. Habitual use
of any intoxicant will do the same. Eventually, I felt that I had to
quit using it. I recommend strict abstinence for anyone who finds their
use of a substance interfering with their relations with family or
friends. I see no contradiction in defending the legalization, while at
the same time recognizing the potential dangers, of a substance. My
position is that the government should not intrude upon our personal
lives. What we ingest into our own bodies should be our own affair. It
is indeed possible to use substances in moderation and to positive
effect.

Marijuana is deemed a soft drug because it isn’t physically addictive.
You leave it whenever you like. Those who once enjoyed marijuana and
later renounce it for political reasons deserve our contempt. Honesty
seems to me the best policy. Repeatedly the question must be put to
those who are less than honest: Why lie? If you enjoyed pot, admit it.
Don’t demonize the drug. Don’t make it the scapegoat for your woes,
past or present. Former drug users sometimes join the “Just Say No”
cheering squad to shirk blame for past misdeeds by pointing the finger
at an unpopular drug. In the case of harder drugs like meth, this may be
justifiable, from what I’ve heard, but I don’t know because I’ve
never touched harder substances out of concern for my well-being. Where
marijuana is concerned, the charge that “weed made me do it” is
ludicrous. Weed promotes passivity and inaction. Under its influence, I
became lethargic and introspective, even more so than normal.

Marijuana is no more harmful than beer. The latest argument is, oh well,
today’s marijuana is far more potent. Good; then one can consume less
of it to achieve the desired effect. Drinking too much alcohol can kill
you, but we don’t see people leaving bars in body bags, and there’s
a reason: human beings prefer moderation, not pain and sickness. Smoking
too much pot, yes--I imagine that would have a negative effect, though
I’ve never experienced it, no matter how much I’ve smoked. One wants
to stop at a certain point of inebriation.

The harm wrought by smoking can be avoided by eating the substance,
negating the dubious research claiming grievous lung damage from
occasional tokes. Marijuana doesn’t have the harmful additives of
cigarette tobacco, such as formaldehyde, unless a dealer has adulterated
it with other substances, which is a palpable risk caused by
prohibition. If marijuana were legal, it could be regulated and
standardized, not to mention taxed, which would do much to counter the
current budget deficit.

As a fourteen year-old middle-class white boy in the United States, I
viewed smoking pot as an extreme act of rebellion. My parents for their
part vehemently disapproved of all illegal drugs. Alcohol in their view
was a gray area due to my age. However, smoking pot was a huge taboo.
Succumbing to pot represented my ultimate surrender to depravity. I was
hungry for adventure, excitement, anything to rescue me from my broken
heart, loneliness, and boredom. My getting involved with marijuana had
everything to do with being dumped by Ian. I gave up on everything
because Ian gave up on me. I used to blame him, to think him wicked and
unfeeling, but in the sober retrospect of twenty years, I see now that
he had little alternative. He had judged me beyond redemption. Was my
homosexuality the real reason he dropped me? My heart tells me no. Ian
admired strength. Sexuality was beside the point. He wanted a strong and
popular friend. When I proved to be neither, I was dropped, just like
that. Ian mocked me whenever we met, and gave me public insults to make
sure I knew that I was persona non grata. As the corpse of our
friendship rotted away, so did my resolve, until I had no more willpower
to resist any temptation that came my way.

I had no other friends besides Ian, that is, no one I cared about. I
missed him terribly. In the summer vacation after eighth grade, I
evaluated my life. I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. Ahead of me
loomed four years of high school. I had no good, close friends, not
since Ian. I felt like a loser. I didn’t care about life anymore. This
can happen when one isn’t vigilant. You have heard, “There but for
the Grace of God go I.” It is easy to lay a knife upon your wrist and
apply the necessary pressure to end your life. Other teenagers have
taken their lives in situations like mine. I am glad that I didn’t.
The one thing that I can say, particularly to gay boys, is that life
gets better with age and experience. Don’t depreciate old age because
of the loss of beauty. For me, the wrinkles and extra body fat of
advanced years have been more than compensated by romantic success (a
life-long partner) and financial independence.

My parents didn’t understand why I was depressed, nor did they foresee
the imminent danger of my suicide. I didn’t want to talk to them. My
parents were too busy with their middle-class, stressful corporate jobs.
I couldn’t bring myself to broach the thorny issue of homosexuality. I
thought I was perverted, sick and immoral. I felt like I could not share
this terrible secret with my mother or father. At the same time, like
all the other kids, I didn’t know any gay adult. We were carefully
shielded from exposure to any homosexual. I didn’t know any gay men,
and therefore couldn’t visualize becoming a gay man. It simply
wasn’t possible. To be gay was to be unique, in my view. There was a
complete absence, a censorship of all gay role models. In such an
environment, suicide is more probable, at least for those of us who have
an innate desire for conformity and acceptance.

There was no one with whom to discuss my feelings. My aunts, uncles, and
cousins weren’t close to me. They never visited except at Christmas.
The only buddies I had were incurably straight, and back in those days,
straight people tended to be bigoted. When sorrow is repressed, its
dreadful influence increases. The turning point may have been after a
rotten day at school, when the other students had made clear, as they
often did, that I was despised and friendless. My spirit turned to the
blackest despair. Thanatos, the son of Night, assumed dominion over me.
In this mindset, the temptations of drugs are overwhelming. I yearned
for oblivion through whatever means. It is good that drugs are
available, as an intermediary firewall between this despair and the
final solution, which I need not elaborate upon again.

Law enforcement will never stop drugs as long as there is pain for which
there is no cure. The redneck mentality rears its angry face in
Congress; and our leaders espouse violent suppression of drug users and
draconian prison sentences. All that I can say is--go ahead. Have your
war on drugs: incarcerate the poor. Because as we all know, the rich
will get off. Bring in the dogs to search students’ lockers.
Strip-search the kids; turn school into prison. All of this achieves
nothing. I found all the poisons I wanted, and more, in just such a
fascist environment, in the center of conservative Republican America.

Despite the propaganda that portrays marijuana as a gateway drug leading
to harder substances, I adhered to a strict preference for marijuana,
and had no interest in more powerful hallucinogens or other substances.
I like to remain in control of myself. There are drugs such as acid,
peyote, smack, crack, meth, or more obscure substances such as datura
that can diminish or eliminate control, and these I avoided.

Marijuana protected me from suicide by showing me bliss even while
trapped in hell. Marijuana made the pain easier to bear. My parents
viewed marijuana as the sole problem, alpha and omega. No one
understood. My drug-using behavior was punished, but the underlying
causes were never addressed. My parents should have praised the herb.
Without it, these words never would have been written. Hands and fingers
now composing words would instead be decomposing in the grave. My
parents should have smoked my medicine with me. What conversations we
might have had! Instead our conversations were nothing more than hostile
interrogations and pitched battles. I recall no pleasant moments with my
parents from the ages of fouteen to sixteen. We were as enemies. I
don’t blame them, but instead the misinformation disseminated by our
government. And our government is itself a victim of its own ignorance.
Many who are employed in government have the desire to do good works. It
is to those who exercise power—the policemen and the politicians--that
I address my story. I want to enlighten them. I believe that many of
them have a sincere desire to understand drug abuse.

Prohibition fails to achieve its primary objective, which is, if I read
the politicians right, keeping drugs out of the hands of our precious
children. Marijuana wasn’t difficult for me at fourteen to procure. It
was already in our house on the person of my older brother, Andy. My
parents castigated him for being the bad influence that introduced a
young boy to drugs. They had dramatic screaming battles with him,
sometimes with the police summoned in order to provide sufficient
intimidation. Overlooked was the simple fact that Andy was learning
disabled and hardly capable of manipulating anyone. Andy disapproved of
my using. I had to work on him for weeks to get him to agree. It was
only my skills at manipulation and my persistence that wheedled a small
amount of herb out of him. My motive, as stated before, was finding
solace for my sorrow, or as the shrinks say, self-medicating. Sex,
affection, and friendship had been denied me, and without them, only
oblivion would serve.

Andy initiated me into the mysteries only after I had threatened to find
alternative sources. Any number of druggies at school could have
supplied me. Andy worried I might get an adulterated batch or fall into
a bad crowd and start using harder drugs like coke. My brother realized
that he was by far the safer alternative. He provided untainted weed,
controlled and monitored my usage, and guided my trip with the care and
concern only a brother would have.

My parents disregarded his good motives, preferring to assume that he
had gotten me on drugs out of pure malice and revenge, to get back at
them. They could see no good in him, just because he had chosen to use
an illegal substance. Given their hysterical response to marijuana, I
can’t be blamed for not telling them my deeper secret of
homosexuality. My parents weren’t good at handling reality. They
reacted with fear to anything out of the ordinary. To me, their lives
seemed deadly dull and boring. What scared me more than drugs was the
fear of becoming squares like them. All the passion and sense of
adventure had been extinguished from their lives.

In my early teens, I was in the habit of absconding alone to a few acres
of overgrowth, trees and shrubs that had miraculously escaped
development. They are gone now, sacrificed to the altar of greed, the de
facto religion of this world. I for one loved this tiny forest. Among
the loblolly pines, I hid in safety from my disapproving parents. There
I did as I pleased, sleeping, meditating, thinking, dreaming, crying,
drinking, or smoking. I’m not playing the prude by censoring one of my
activities. Unbelievably, I never masturbated in these dim days. I
should have, but didn’t. I really believed that my desires were wrong.
Oblivion was the only possible and rational answer, if sex and love were
morally impossible. Dangerous and dark Thanatos ruled me, not fun-loving
Eros. Therefore I understand the malevolent authors of the headlines
that scream at us with blood and fury. My deeds did not go there, but my
thoughts and feelings did; this I confess. When I read the headlines
that came later, I felt a chill, and understood all too well. There but
for the grace of God, go I.

My first buzz came on a summer night after eighth grade, at the age of
fourteen. My brother and I waited until late on a Friday night, a full
hour after my parents had gone to bed around midnight. Then we slipped
out of the house being careful not to make any sound. We walked two
miles to my friend Luke’s house, tapped at his window, and he joined
us in our expedition to the woods, my favorite place.

We built a fire, not because it was cold, but to satisfy my pyromania. I
had brought along a garbage bag full of trash to burn. Fire’s
relentlessly destructive force inspired my respect and admiration. The
beautiful flames changed color depending upon the fuel feeding them. My
favorite fuel was magazines and newspapers, which burned with weird
green flames, presumably from the copper content of the printing dye.
Metal objects like pennies and soda cans never burned, but grew red-hot
and then black from carbon deposits. Plastics melted into puddles with a
long-lasting burn due to their petroleum content. I learned to avoid
them because of their noxious odors.

While I studied the fire, my brother walked to the grocery store to buy
beer. I offered to come along, but Andy turned me down because of my
age. He imagined the cashier might care enough to chastise him for
furnishing alcohol to a minor. I knew better, but didn’t argue the
point. Luke didn’t like walking and stayed with me. Andy returned half
an hour later with cold beer. He held out his hand.  Each of us handed
him a five-dollar bill, a ritual repeated on subsequent nights in the
woods, the only bar I ever liked. He handed me a cold one, but I had
drunk beer before, even from the hand of my father. Beer, wine, and even
liquor were no big deal by fourteen, but marijuana was. We shared
cigarettes and snacks we’d taken from our respective kitchens. We
judged ourselves cool and had fun, like millions of other young men.
Livers and lungs should form a union and strike against their owners.
Until that day comes, drugs, beer and cigarettes will remain popular.

Andy watched me with a cigarette dangling from my lips, a beer in one
hand, laughing at one of Luke’s rude jokes. He shook his head. “You
sure have changed, Drake. You always used to be a goody-goody. What
happened to you?”

My relevance to Andy before this had been as an upstart brat who made
him look bad by comparison. I was a straight ‘A’ student who never
got into trouble. My parents made clear I was their favorite, and this
embittered him to no end. He had never imagined in his wildest dreams
that I’d be drinking and smoking with him, a co-conspirator. I’d
forged an unexpected alliance with him of the same paradoxical nature as
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. I
foresaw that my parents would sooner or later detect my usage of the
forbidden drug, much as God had found out Eve’s taking the forbidden
fruit. The result would be my expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the
loss of my primacy in my parents’ affections. I viewed these outcomes
with ambivalence. Because Ian had forsaken me, nothing seemed important
to me anymore; not my relationship with my parents, not my grades, not
even life itself.

When Andy pulled out a marijuana joint, my eyes grew wide as quarters.
Andy smiled and lit the forbidden drug. I had only seen joints in
anti-drug commercials before. After imbibing, he ignored my outstretched
hand and passed the joint to Luke, to my annoyance. “What the f---?
Give me a shot, d---  it! Don’t leave me out!”

Andy said, “It’s called a hit, not a shot. And you know what? I’m
not sure I should let you have any of this. You’re too young. You
know, Mom and Dad would be pissed if they found out you were smoking
pot.”

I smiled at the understatement of the century. Then I mustered an
argument for giving pot to a fourteen year-old boy. “I’m not a
little kid anymore. You think I don’t have hair on my ---- yet?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, I got a full bush! But I ain’t going to show it to you.”

Luke said, “You better not, or I’m leaving!”

Andy laughed. “Show it to your girlfriend, if you ever get one. You
may be sexually mature, but you’re still young. Pot is illegal, and
you’re still considered a minor.”

I shook my head. “Why’s pot is so f---ing bad?  Pot never killed
anybody. Even at school where they feed you all that anti-drug bullcrap,
even those f---wads never claimed pot killed anybody. Alcohol can kill
you, but you can buy a bottle of liquor at a store. Why is booze legal,
and pot illegal? You never hear about people overdosing on marijuana.”

Andy smiled. “No, you don’t. It just puts you to sleep, if you smoke
too much.”

“You drink too much liquor, and what happens?”

“You die.”

“Right. So it’s total bulls---. They sell liquor, and nobody is
supposed to try pot. What’s up with that? F---ing bulls---.”

“Yeah, well I agree with you. But the parents don’t see it that way.
They’d kill me if they found out I gave you weed.”

“Look, I want some f---in’ weed, and if you don’t give it to me,
I’ll get it from somebody else. You think I don’t know nobody at
school? You think I got no contacts?”

Andy sighed. “Well, look. I’ll let you have a toke. But listen up.
You have to promise not to tell anyone. This means not only the parents,
but anyone at school, like your friends. Will you promise not to tell
anyone?”

“Yes.”

Andy’s expression grew grave. “This is serious. Put your hand on
your chest and swear.
Because I could get in big trouble for giving you weed. Tell him,
Luke.”

Luke chimed in, “He’s right. Your brother could go to jail and s---.
So you’d better not do it. Just drink your beer, and be happy with
that. I don’t like pot much anyhow. I don’t know why you want to try
it. Beer’s better.” As if to emphasize the point, he belched.

I performed the gesture that my Phys-Ed coach had expected of me during
the Pledge of Allegiance. Alone among my peers, I had declined to
pledge, because I didn’t feel like the nation gave a damn about people
like me. Instead, I felt like a pariah. So I was one of the few kids not
pledging, and the coach shoved me to the ground and said, “What the
hell is the matter with you?” He was the same coach who turned a blind
eye to the bullying that went on in his class. I had no doubt that he
would kill me if he thought he could get away with it.

After my oath was completed, Andy nodded, and passed the joint to me.
Now that I had the object of my desire, doubt reared its ugly head. I
stared at the illegal substance like it was a cobra poised to strike.

I hesitated at the last moment, weighing the consequences of this
fateful decision. The school had indoctrinated me against marijuana.
Propaganda films from school claimed that pot killed millions of brain
cells that could never be replaced. The implication was that pot made
users stupid. A lie repeated often enough gains undeserved influence.
Later I learned that brain cells martyr themselves by the millions daily
without drugs. The act of blowing one’s nose destroys brain cells by
the thousands.

At fourteen, however, I believed the lies I had been told and assumed I
was embarking upon the path of intellectual decline. I told myself: to
what end am I intelligent--merely to make grades in school?  And what
good is that?  Does my intelligence make me popular or happy? No. I’ve
lost Ian; he hates me now. At least by smoking pot, I’ll be doing
something fun and exciting that straight-laced Ian would never do. I’d
prove to myself that I was an adventurous, romantic spirit, while Ian
was just a square, a nerd, and no fun at all. The irony, of course, was
that if Ian had appeared before me, right at this moment, I’d have
dropped everything just to be with him. My love for him had not been
diminished by separation and bitter words.

My thoughts speculated upon what Ian was doing right at this moment. At
this hour of the night, Ian must be asleep in his bed. That serious
scholar had probably spent the evening studying for a test not even due
until the next week or the week after. Or else he had been out jogging
with his wholesome friends. He was physically strong. He was serene,
stable, and confident. He’d not be thinking about me at all--ever. Oh,
maybe once or twice, he had prayed for me with pity mixed with righteous
contempt for my many sins, homosexuality chief among them in his mind.

One last thought gave me pause. If my grandmother discovered that I used
drugs, she’d be heartbroken. She was a simple person from another
generation, and to her marijuana was alien and dangerous. I loved her.
She’d treated me well. I couldn’t imagine her finding out.
Eventually, she did find out. Our relationship didn’t survive my
adolescence. She was a simple woman living a simple life. Her passions
were dolls, clocks, African violets, teacups, and a grandson named
Drake. She couldn’t relate to the thoughts and feelings I was
experiencing. The keen pleasures of marijuana, alcohol, and sex were
alien to her. My angry rebellion against school and parents filled her
with bewilderment. Her heart was broken, but there were still dolls,
clocks, African violets, and teacups to fill the void in her world. I
never wished to hurt her feelings. She was a gentle and kind soul. I was
selfish. I wish I had been the grandson that she deserved, a simple man
that she could understand. The last time I saw her, she looked upon me
with dismay, as though there had been something there that now was lost.
But the image she had projected upon me had never been there.

Andy nudged me. “Hey, you okay? Look, if you don’t want it, pass it
back to me. It’s burning. You’re wasting it. The s--- ain’t cheap,
you know.”

“Alright, alright.” Placing the joint to my lips, I inhaled as Andy
had instructed me, the burning herb crackling from my aggressive toke. I
coughed, provoking snickers from Andy and Luke, along with an admonition
from Andy. “Don’t waste it! Inhale more slowly. And keep it in.
Don’t cough. Don’t exhale.”

“F---, I gotta exhale sometime!”

“I know. Just keep it in as long as you can.”

I toked again and kept the hot smoke in, repressing the urge to cough
for a count of five. Then I coughed with relief and passed the joint to
Luke, who shook his head. “I don’t want any.” Andy eyed him with
curiosity as he received the smoldering took the joint. He toked,
watching me with an expectant grin on his face. “Anything?”

I shook my head, disappointed. “Nope. You sure it’s pot, and not
just tobacco? Maybe you got ripped off.”

He shook his head, smiling, and handed me the joint. “This time, keep
it in longer. You must be exhaling too fast. That’s the problem. This
is good s---.”

I’d spoken too soon. The countdown to liftoff was commencing. I felt a
change coming over me. My body didn’t weigh as much. I stared at my
feet, afraid they might leave the ground. I took another toke. Each
second I held my breath lifted me higher into the sky. By the time I
reached ten, I was over the moon. “Oh s---. Oh… f---...this is some
awesome s---…”

Andy said, “You okay, little brother?”

I nodded, smiling. I felt like when I was six years old, waking up
before my parents on Christmas morning to tear open my presents. Such
euphoria I had seldom ever experienced. I laughed and then Luke and Andy
laughed, and then I rolled on the ground laughing. When I recovered my
composure, I stood up and made excuses for leaving the party. I’d
decided where I really wanted to be was at home, in bed, because I was
starting to feel sexy, and these two guys were the farthest thing from
sex that I could possibly imagine.

Andy said, “Listen up, Bo. If they’re awake, if they ask you where
you’ve been, whatever you do, don’t let them see your eyes, because
they’re red. Where do you plan to go?”

“Upstairs. To bed.”

“Good. Stay there. They can smell it on you, and trust me, they know
what it smells like.”

I nodded and left without another word. I snuck back inside our house
and walked on cat-feet like a ninja back to my bedroom, where I locked
the door. Straightway I went to bed. I felt myself riding on a roller
coaster track at a hundred miles per hour, but I didn’t get nauseous.
My abdominal muscles clenched in the excitement of imagined motion. I
giggled until a fear arose that my parents might overhear and come
investigate me. I imagined their interrogation with me reeking of pot
smoke. They’d get hysterical--and not the laughing kind of hysterical.

At first, I guided my trip into silent and contemplative territory.
Fancies of my imagination took shape in the air above my head: the
figure eight, stars, cute boys from school (some of whom I didn’t even
know their names), dragons, snakes, diamonds, and a marijuana leaf. My
groin was warm and sensitive to the slightest touch.  Stripping to my
underwear, I rapidly achieved an erection by thought alone, not even
touching myself, but by indulging my favorite fantasy that in my soberer
moments I judged sick and perverted, but it was terribly exciting for
me. These thoughts were forbidden, and I could speak of them with no
one, but they were very alluring to me.

In my mind’s eye, I conjured up an authority figure--and the precise
person varied, and was seldom the same; it might have been the
vice-principal of our school, or a teacher, or a policeman. He had me in
his office alone with the door closed. His eyes burned into mine as he
lectured me on my misdeeds, which could have been any number of things,
such as shoplifting, poor grades, absenteeism or insubordination. When
he had finished enumerating the reasons for my punishment, he ordered me
to pull down my pants and underwear and lay myself across his lap. I
flushed with embarrassment as I complied with his strange request. Then
the spanking commenced. For another person this might offer nothing more
than pain or humiliation, but for me there existed a connection between
pleasure and pain.

When I opened my eyes, my underwear felt warm and wet, and I realized
what had happened. Never before had this happened during a conscious
moment. I was surprised but knew that physically, it was a natural
process and nothing to be concerned about. Under different
circumstances, I might have felt remorse, and worried about the
normality or morality of my sexual desires, but for now the blessed herb
guided my thoughts into calm and peaceful channels. I slept over twelve
hours until morning, when I took a shower to wash away the telltale
smells of cannabis smoke and sex.

When I told Andy of my powerful trip, omitting the sexual details, he
was surprised. To him, the marijuana had given just a mediocre buzz. The
first time with any drug is always the best. I never was able to
recapture my first rapture, though I tried.

Marijuana became a trusted friend that never let me down, criticized or
found fault with me, but always gave me a good time. Weed gave me
unconditional love. To rendezvous with my forbidden lover, I skipped
school, escaping to the woods to light up. Usually, I was alone, because
no one else loved marijuana like I did. I remember lying in the woods,
staring up into the sky and thinking about nothing in particular, but
just enjoying myself and feeling groovy, escaping all of my worries and
anxieties and being myself, free from parents, peers and teachers for a
while. I hid stashes of beer and wine in under piles of pine straw as an
emergency last resort, in case I ran short of my favorite drug.

My favorite method of consuming marijuana was through a bong (marijuana
pipe), because it was cheaper than having to buy expensive rolling
papers. My friends and I constructed bongs from bamboo, plumbing pipes
and other materials. My parents confiscated several bongs over the years
with unhappy scenes resulting. My parents viewed my pot smoking not as a
logical response to depression or mere recreation, fun, which were the
two ways that I viewed my practice. Instead, they adopted the severe,
pathological view, as the rest of society does, that using illegal drugs
is a horrible problem, isolated from other problems, that all by itself
results in a downward spiral into crime, poverty, and uselessness.

What could I say to them?  Getting high was fun. Why did my parents want
to take away the one pleasure I had in life? They forced me to promise
to quit a dozen times, but a coerced promise is no better than a lie. My
disobedience instigated many fights, arguments, and destroyed what
remained of the parent-child relationship, until I was transformed from
a loving son to a stranger, then finally to an active enemy fighting
against them, much as Andy had been. They waged war against my drug use
and me, and I responded with war against them.

This scene has been repeated in millions of homes across the world for
time without end. The central theme is the battle of parents to control
the lives and actions of their older children. The parents can’t win,
but they believe they must fight the battle in order to be good parents.
On a larger scale, observe that the U.S. government through the current
anti-drug policy attempts to act as a parent to the people who are
treated like children and who rebel in the same way. The government can
never win the battle either and wastes billions of dollars and countless
lives due to a lack of wisdom.

Due to my untreated depression, I no longer cared about anything,
including grades. Declining grades set off alarm bells. They viewed my
lack of wholesome friends as of lesser importance, though it meant the
Sun, Moon and stars to me. They assumed that the cause for my fall in
grades was my drug use, and blamed Andy for introducing me to evil
marijuana. The actual cause for my fall in grades was loneliness,
despair and apathy.

I used marijuana for an inappropriate end, to treat my depression.
Marijuana aggravates rather than alleviates depression. Regular usage
left me dull and absent-minded. I got high every other day and was
considered a pothead by my peers. I acted like a senile old man,
misplacing my coats, wallets, and all of my possessions, including my
marijuana.  I once misplaced an ounce worth $120 that was found by my
parents. You can just imagine how happy that made all of us.

My downfall was crystallized for me when a well-respected, athletic
black boy looked me in the eyes and said, “What’s wrong with you,
man? You into drugs. I can tell.” I shook my head. He continued,
“Yeah. You into drugs. You should get off that junk, man.”

“No, I’m not.”

“No, no, don’t lie! I can tell, just looking at you. Listen to me!
You should get with the Lord, man! Talk to Jesus! Go to Church!”

“I’m sorry. Maybe you’re right about me, but I don’t really
believe in all of that stuff. Church and Jesus.” I was mild. I
didn’t want to get into an argument about religion with him.

“That’s because you go to a white person’s church, where they just
sit still and mumble. Ain’t that right? Oh, man! You never feel the
Holy Spirit in there! You don’t stand up, shake your body, and shout
out loud! You don’t sing praise at the top of your voice and feel the
Lord moving through your body!”

I admitted this was so. As a boy, I’d attended a quiet, staid
Episcopalian Church. According to media reports, my denomination has
been experiencing declining membership for decades. Maybe enthusiasm is
the ticket to popularity. But to me, popularity is a sure sign that
something’s wrong. I just think the Episcopalians are smarter. More of
them figure out that God is a great big fraud. Only the docile and the
stupid fill church pews anymore.

He continued, “Come to my Church, man! You can come with me. I’ll
take you. How about it?”

“Uh… yeah, whatever. Thanks anyway, but look, I’m really not
interested.”

I sensed he had a taste for white bread, but not toasted like me. Church
provided the perfect cover for his homosexual angle. In church, he’d
get me off drugs and singing praises. Back at his house, after his
parents had gone to sleep thinking their son had saved a troubled white
heathen, we’d minister to each other in his bed. I’m sure he’d
have me worshipping on my knees, and later on calling out to God and
Jesus.

Black guys didn’t populate my fantasies, but he was premium cocoa.
I’d have given him whatever he wanted if he had quit prating about the
Christian God. I associated the religion of my ancestors with evil
hypocrisy. His ancestors, meanwhile, had been animist, not Christian at
all. None of our ancestors would have approved of either one of us.

He thought he’d failed to reach me, because I didn’t stop using
drugs for many months. Instant change seldom occurs from advice.
Instead, wise words plant seeds that require time and nourishment to
germinate. I agreed with his assessment of me as a pothead and sensed it
couldn’t go on forever. My pride languished under the thrall of
Thantos. Meanwhile I was beginning to get curious about what Eros might
have to offer me.

Write to me with comments at zeebazu at gmail dot com. Flames will be
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