History Of ...

I thought for this entry I'd wax nostalgic with some of my most memorable drug experiences - including first times, best times, and worst times.

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The interesting thing about weed is that the first time you smoke it, you don't get stoned. At least, that's the common impression. In reality, I think you just don't realize you're stoned the first time.

My first time smoking pot, I smoked a little dirty looking bundle of dried leaves out of a pipe my friend fashioned from an aluminum soda can (crushed carefully to create a bowl area, then holes punched with a tack to create a sort of screen). My friend had smoked a couple times before, and he brought the stuff to my house after school. My mom wasn't going to be home for an hour or so, and we smoked in my back yard. I didn't feel anything, although my friend acted like an idiot. At the time, I was sure it wasn't really pot, and that my friend was playing a trick on me.

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My dad used to let me drink out of his beer, as far back as 10 years old. I never drank enough to feel it, and the first time I actually got drunk wasn't until I was 14. I was a Boy Scout (yes, really), and I was on a backpack trip with my scout troop. My buddy in the troop had brought some Vodka he stole out of his parent's liquor cabinet, and that night in our tent we drank until we couldn't even see straight - it was probably only about 3 shots each. One of the scout leaders caught us falling down drunk - I was scared shitless. He gave us a choice between him telling our parents what happened or accepting his punishment. We chose not telling our parents, and in the middle of the night we had to hike up and down a hill next to camp until we were sober again. The next morning we were sick as dogs, and the leader that caught us gave us each large stones, practically boulders, to pack back out. They weighed over 5 pounds, which was a significant addition to the weight of our packs hiking home.

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One summer day in 1985 I was riding in my friend's back seat, with at least 4 other people in the car, on our way to the beach. We were all stoned, and this girl had these little squares of paper she called Blaze. We all chewed and swallowed them, then I promptly forgot all about it. A half hour later, still riding in the car (I lived in the San Fernando Valley, at least an hour from the beach), I was feeling very funny. This girl that had handed out the blotter paper squares was running her finger across the roof of the car, as if she were finger painting. As I watched her hand moving in the air, I realized I could sort of see the trail her finger was leaving behind it on the roof - she was spelling out L-S-D. LSD. I was stoned (and significantly more than stoned), and slow to catch on, so I asked her why she was writing LSD on the roof of the car. "Because I'm on it, Eloi. So are you." LSD. Acid. Blaze. I hadn't known that's what Blaze was, and at first I was kind of pissed off. It took at least 4 hours for it to wear off, and the whole time I was worried that it never would wear off. That was a very interesting day at the beach - I spent most of the time building sandcastles. Sand was absolutely fascinating.

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My senior year of high school was dedicated pretty much to Methamphetamine. When I could afford it, which to be honest wasn't very often, I would take speed all day and late into the night, then take qualudes or valium so I could sleep. How I kept a 3.5+ average I have no idea.

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Another high school favorite was whip-its. Buy a can of whipped cream at the grocery store, being careful not to shake it too much and hold it upright for a good long time before you use it. When you're ready, put your lips around the little white tube at the top and tilt it, releasing the compressed nitrous oxide used to froth the whipped cream into your lungs - without the cream of course. A full can of whipped cream gives about two lungfulls, enough to leave you drooling and blue-lipped for about 5 minutes.

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I didn't try cocaine until I was 18 and away at college. I knew a guy that could get the most awesome Humboldt County weed, and one day he said he had some coke and could sell me a gram for 70 dollars. So I tried it. I didn't like it at all, not that first time.

A year later I was hanging out with my sister and some of her friends, and we were all smoking pot. One of her friends was a coke dealer. He poured what must have been half a gram of cocaine on top of our pipe bowl full of pot, and I went ahead and smoked it. Half a gram of coke, and it was mostly gone after my hit - that mixed with the pot was probably the best high I have every experienced. I tried it again after that day, but I was never willing to pour that much coke on at a time (half a gram costed about $50 at the time, a very expensive hit), so it was never as good. Just as well.

I ended up snorting coke quite a lot for several months later, along with my sister. We even sold it to our friends a little. Then one day I just realized I was spending a lot of money on a drug that in all honesty I didn't really like. I quit it, completely, after doing it almost every day for a couple months. My sister had a harder time of it, but she left it behind too. I've never done coke again since that time.

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Shrooms (psilocybic mushrooms) and I have never quite connected right. I tried them several times, chewed or smoked, and never really seemed to feel very much. Apparently shrooms affect people inconsistently sometimes. I did have one experience with shrooms that I will always remember:

My friends seemed to all love shrooms, and I was getting progressively more frustrated with my own unsatisfying experiences with the drug. I was convinced that the problem was I wasn't taking enough, but I didn't want to ask for a larger share because I wasn't the one that bought them. One day, when we were hanging out in the parking lot scene before a Grateful Dead concert, my friend bought some shrooms from a guy that was just riding around the lot on a bicycle. When I realized he got some, and made him point out the guy that sold it to him, I approached the bike riding shroom dealer and bought an eighth of an ounce of shrooms. I didn't share, I just kept them for a little personal expirement later.

All alone, with a whole uninterrupted day before me, I chewed