Hello Divinelove,
My name is John (Not Real Name). I am a blog reader based in Port Harcourt Nigeria. I want to share with fellow D.U.Blog readers and the world at large on my experience with Marijuana and how it almost ruined my life.
Read story below...
Marijuana also known as "weed" and by other numerous names, is a preparation of the cannabis plant intended for use as psychoactive drug or medicine. Cannabis is mostly consumed for the purpose of its psychoactive benefit which includes the elated feeling of been “high” or “stoned” which is a general alteration of consciousness, heightened mood (ecstatic), relaxation, and increase in appetite. Onset of effect is within minutes when smoked and about 30 minutes when eaten which may last about 2-6 hours.
Cannabis are of the strains which are; Sativa, Indica, and Reuderalis. The most common are the Indica and Sativa which have their distinct, smell, taste and appearances. The Indica has five leaves while the leaves of the Sativa are up to seven in number. When both are cross bred they give rise to a whole new different type of strain which is of higher quality and has a stronger effect when introduced to the body. This breed is called “Skunk” mainly because of its strong smell. Among many other names which includes "OG Kush", "High Grade", "Grand Daddy Kush" and "Sour Kush" (which is also gotten from the cross breeding of the Sour Diesel plant and the Indica or Sativa).
Here in Nigeria where drug abuse is on a rise, the predominant form of marijuana is the "weed" (Indica) and the "Skunk", where youths, and adults take it for its psychoactive benefit.
When I was much younger, the gravest sin a young person could commit was smoking. Such a person would be seen as an outcast and one to stay away from. The last thing you would ever want is for your mom to spot you with a renowned smoker in public, and if you eventually get got caught, firstly you would try to psyche yourself into believing she didn’t actually see you with such a person, and try to leave without making it obvious that you were with the person earlier but if it was so obvious that you had been spotted, by now you would already begin to imagine the lashes of the bitter-leaf stick caressing your naked and back as surely she would give you the whipping of your life when you get home get home and got locked behind the doors, to make the room a bit sound proof and prevent compassionate neighbours from coming to beg on your behalf, and kill the chances of you running out of the room in order to escape the whooping.
The imagination was so scary I vowed to avoid crossing path with anything that would have me feeling like Kunta Kinte. Therefore I picked the friends in my circle carefully and had my lungs as clean and red as a toothpaste.
After six fags of skunk, ensuring that the smoke doesn’t escape through either of my respirational cavities so as to make certain that I maximize the "weed" to the highest optimum to get the desired feeling of high. I started to feel somewhat different as my head began to spin like Its on a Ferris wheel.
Nonetheless I tried to comport myself in order to prove to my friends that I have a very strong head and not the type to get high easily. Did I fail to mention, this is my first time of smoking skunk.
My little deceit seems to be the inception of my downfall, as unknown to me, the intention which my friends have towards me are that of getting me high to stupor which they are hell bent on achieving even if they have to roll me a whole bag of weed. Anyway by the time I feel I have reached my limit on the sixth fag, I try to pass the stick of burning weed to the person next to me, but he refuses to collect it. I’m usually the type who gets swayed into doing things I don’t want in a bid to satisfy my friends and most times all it takes is a little bit of hyping, so next thing I know, here I am again with the very same stick in my mouth going on my ninth fag before I start to cough violently, seeking a glass of water, because by now my throat was as dry as the surface of the sun.
I try once again to pass it to the next person but as he refuses I threaten to drop it on the floor. Then they all begin to laugh and tell me never to underestimate the power of weed, telling me that by now I must be fucked already. Then again I’m so high to pay mind to anything they have to say. My eyes are parched already, red as the light on a network mast in the middle of the night, with my pupils dilated. To some extent I still believe myself to be normal and request for the plate of rice one of us is eating. The food tastes like ash in my mouth. Already my mouth was as dry as a marble floor.
One of us in the room who oversaw the preparation of the rice, already is renowned for his awful cooking, nonetheless, to me, the food didn’t taste any worse than it already did no thanks to the current state I am but this isn’t because he outdid himself today, rather the high has gone as far as numbing my taste buds ridding my mouth of saliva so the food isn’t moist at all, and it’s a little bit difficult to swallow. So I ask for the plate to be taken to the kitchen for me because of my inability to get up and walk.
Once again, I am poured a teaspoon full of hyping, that I am stronger than that. (Unknown to me, this is just a ploy to get me on my feet and watch me stagger and fall) so I choose to do it myself to prove to them that a stick of smoke couldn’t phase me, and impressively I do this without falling.
On my return from the kitchen I stop feeling my legs while walking, this feeling is very scary but, I don’t want to panic, I just smirk after confirming that I’m not handicapped Soto say, and just try to enjoy the fact that I’m floating like a balloon as I walk back to the bed.
Nearly five minutes or more have passed and here I am sited on the bed without even being self-aware. My mind has drifted to the beginning of time, it seems to me that I have left my body for a moment.
After resuscitating myself back to consciousness, i crack a smile in full acknowledgement that indeed I’m no longer myself, then announce to my friends that my “Trips” has finally begun and all I need to do now is sleep. The voice I spoke in sounded to me as an echo and my vision by now is all distorted.
As I stated before, marijuana can also pass as an Anesthetic and a form of Aspirin, which explains why I could barely feel the punches and slaps my friends dealt on me while they laughed and made mockery, but I was still in the stage of being aware enough to tell them to stop hitting me.
Slowly as I gave myself to the highness, I felt a whole colony of ants stampeding under my skin with my heartbeat racing like a thief with Hussein Bolt’s legs in a pair of Jordans in the dead of the night chased by a whole pack of hungry panthers, it felt like my heart was going to burst through my chest with all the smoke stored up in my body escaping through the gape in my chest and filling the room with a thick cloud.
As thick as the smoke that gathers when mother douses the flames from her old rusty stove. That’s how much smoke I believe I had inhaled Soto say. I felt like my head was going to pop with the pieces of my brain splattering on the clothes of my friends and my blood splashing on the walls of the room, as I felt my brain throbbing furiously in my head.
Closing my eyes to sleep I saw flashes of light, like strobe light in the club and couldn’t even keep my eyes shut. All this was new to me, and I didn’t like it one bit and so I entered a state of panic.
By now my mouth was as dry as concrete and every movement I made seemed to be in a flash, you know how u fast forward a movie or video by the playback speed of 2 and all the characters on the screen move in a comical way? That was exactly how I felt.
Then as I laid on the bed, one after the other, my sense organs became very much hyperactive, it started with my hearing; things where louder than usual. I had the ability to hear cars and motorcycle’s passing. I was able to hear Mama Obiora scolding one of her children for playing with the breasts of Bullet; a stray dog in the neighbourhood.
For a moment I also believed I heard the trumpet blow signaling the end of time. If I could hear all these noise from outside, imagine how loud I perceived the noise in the room to have been, I didn’t know when I stood up to beg my friends almost crying to help me get sleeping pills, I believed I pleaded with them with my very entire body spirit and soul, and all they did was just burst into more and more laughter which just made me more frustrated.
I was very scared for myself and it made me annoyed that they found this very amusing. In a flash I made it back to the bed and made another futile attempt to sleep, yet it was to no avail.
Where is the witch with the poisoned sleeping apple when you need her? In my little frenzy I heard one of my friends laughing at me and calling me weak that he was going to eat the weed raw with rice and still stand firm, In order to ultimately separate the men from the boys.
So the other guys in the room coaxed him and encouraged him to go ahead. In a bit this very fellow joined me in bed too, same position, same predicament half gone and also laughed at in derision, but that was much later after he held up a little performance of his own too.
Narcotics, bridges the gap between being sane and being an even wackier version of Mr. Bean. Separating the state of being absolutely normal and totally insane by just a very thin line. I felt like I had gone insane; completely insane. My mind was totally fritz. It felt like I had been possessed by a demon. It was at this point that I realized that this was no longer a joke.
The feeling is very inexplicable but I’ll try my best in explaining this. It was like the weed had made my spiritual being totally vulnerable to domination by a stronger spiritual being which just wanted to be granted with the absolute power over my body. I felt like my very essence was bound to chains and strapped firmly to the backseat while the other being which my brain perceived to be evil, took control of the wheels, nevertheless no matter how much I struggled to be in control, I still failed, yet I wouldn’t stop, I kept reminding myself that this was just temporal reassuring myself that I would be normal again.
At this stage I began crying in my head, thinking about my mother who was back home believing that her only son was going to graduate as a doctor in less than two years’ time, then finally alleviate her from the poverty my father had left us in seven years ago when he died of stroke. Yet it was this very same messiah who was probably going to end up on the streets of keffi with long dirty dreadlocks and beards as plenty as that of Abraham, probably in the very shorts I wore when I got this high only that they would have been much dirtier, that’s if I wouldn’t have been led to removing it by the presence behind the wheels.
Then I thought of how humiliating it would be for me after recovering, with the full knowledge that I toured the whole state and ate from the dirt naked.
Thinking of the heartbreak my mother back in Minna would have to suffer made me more determined to fight for my sanity. So I kicked off in power prayer pleading and crying to God as Hannah did for a son. Promising that I wouldn’t smoke or touch any form of narcotics ever again. After a while I heard a voice telling me that I would be normal again and all I needed to do was sleep, but the sleep wasn’t going to come easy as I was going to suffer in this state so as to deter me from smoking and doing any other form of drug ever again. Then it warned me that if I ever came “here” again I wouldn’t leave easily.
At this point all I needed was sleep so I begged my friends for pills to help me sleep and they just left me in the room locked in, promising they would get it for me.
Then I started to feel cold, and my body became heavy. My legs pressed against each other as I slept on my sides, it hurt and I couldn’t help it. I was quite restless as I laid there in bed thinking, if this was what it really meant to be high and what people really enjoyed in having their mind slowly torn apart with them being incapacitated to do anything about it.
For so long I kept trying to keep my mind together, constantly reminding myself that this was just temporal and the voice In my head already assured me things would be fine I wasn’t going to end up in the streets.
Subsequently I was moved to another room where I was joined by the guy who laughed at me and ate the "Skunk" raw. By this time I had gained myself just a tiny little bit or well enough to notice the little spectacle he put up. I heard the other guys laughing at him and telling him to keep his mouth closed. Apparently he kept flexing his jaws without control.
Picture trying to talk very fast with your mouth widely open yet not making a single sound. This was exactly what he was doing. After this they all left the room leaving me and my partner in high together. I was a bit worried about this as I feared that if he actually went coo-coo crazy he might have just gone ape-shit and torn me into shreds. I heard him climbing the bed to lie down, then after sometime he stood up with his fat self and attempted to do some ballet routine, and then came back to lie down on the bed.
Not long after this he got up three more times to go to the toilet, but always came right back to lie down each time he got to the door. He seemed to have been forgetting what took him there each time he got to the door, until he finally stayed focused well enough to see himself to the end of this extremely difficult, mind bending task.
Seems there was someone else behind his wheels. In a conversation with him months after this day, as we laughed over the entire episode, he confirmed that he heard voices in his head urging him to go to the kitchen, fetch a knife and just stab me with it. I can’t really tell if this was a joke but the thought that I could have died instead of run mad that night took the fun right out of our jolly reminiscence. We were given aspirins which calmed me down a bit.
Before I could sleep I still noticed my consciousness in oblivion struggling to take control of my mind from whatever was in control of it, but time after time I failed and failed and failed again. My body became so numb I couldn’t feel a thing. I had the nudge to pinch myself till I felt the stimuli, which I did, at least until I reminded myself that this could lead to me inflicting injuries on myself which I wouldn’t feel till I got better… if I got better.
Then as I opened my eyes I started to see some inexplicable things in the room. I’ve always believed in the existence of a parallel metaphysical universe right next to the one we live in; that is, an invisible or spiritual world simultaneously in existence with ours, which can’t be seen with the physical eyes, although the beings in that world can see us, this belief was further substantiated by a movie I saw a year ago; Insidious.. But since I had no strong proof of this I still had my little doubts about it… at least until I think I saw some of these elements first hand in the state I was. It was pretty frightening so I closed my eyes before I entered a state of paranoia.
Then I started perceiving smells strongly. It was like my nose was laced with those of a thousand blood hounds. If I had a collar on me and was made to walk on all fours, I would have been able to work as a dog at the airport and customs sniffing out cocaine from drug traffickers and probably get rubbed on the head and called “good doggy”. Perhaps I would have even appeared in the front pages of newspapers with the headline “Dog sniffs out 30 kilos of cocaine in luggage of traveller”. Automatically becoming famous. A feat which is quite hard achieving as a human anyway.
I could smell the fume from a neighbors generator three rooms away and started to choke. Then all that madness stopped gradually. My mouth began to salivate once more. And finally I fell asleep.
By the time I woke up late in the night I was so glad to have escaped from insanity or demonic possession or even both. It took me up to a month to regain myself completely. I sometimes hallucinated, went blank and frozen without being self-aware, and other times I wouldn’t be able to reason or think fast or even contribute to any conversation wittingly.
For so long I had heard stories of how people tried weed and went mad, one of them was the story of a young man in Lagos who smoked enough weed to be motivated to jump over the third mainland bridge but was only lucky to have had people intervene in the nick of time. Indeed I actually did think all these where like stories of the existence of the legendary boogeyman; a complete facade, till I had my very first experience.
I believe the tendency to feel deranged and fear of the possibility of becoming mad comes as a result of intense anxiety and panic, mostly in first timers, due to the unfamiliarity they have with the substance and the feeling it comes with. Panic and anxiety or fear of psychosis heightens the chances of a person going mad from there, which was why in my case i tried to be calm and avoided thinking too much. I believe if I had allowed fear get the better part of me, I would have actually gone mad, because at the point I was, my mind became extremely hyperactive, with a whole lot of thoughts running through my head. At one moment I thought I was a knight, the next I thought I was the president.
Anxiety isn’t only able to make you believe things which are not true, but the thoughts and sensation it causes only magnifies your belief in these lies, which only fuels your anxiety further, and even if you try convincing yourself that these things about yourself aren’t true, it just leads you to having conflicts with yourself and arguing mentally with yourself on the most mundane of things, and if you aren’t careful enough you might get carried away to start speaking out to yourself to the amusement and fear of those around you (I actually saw a girl smoking a hookah whose flavor was laced with a high concentration of weed, who got so high she ran outside the room talking random things and laughing one moment only to cry the next, it was funny at first till her boyfriend became so scared he got water, treating it like holy water knelt down with a bible, calling the name of Jesus who answereth’s by fire like Elijah to come heal her, turning a room once filled with smokers to a room filled with prayer warriors).
Once you notice you’ve started acting weird, it doesn’t take long before you come to accept the very scary reality that something is wrong with your brain. Once you believe something is wrong, you begin to fear the worst, then deep down inside of you, you utter that terrible thought “I’m going mad, I’m losing my mind, I’m going insane and will never be normal again” at least not until donkey years later, if you manage to not get run over by a sleepy truck driver with a faulty brake system or get kidnapped by ritualist only to have your mutilated body discovered in a ditch three days later without genitals.
The fear that comes with the anxiety during the period of extreme highness, raises your anxiety even much higher, further providing you with even more concrete evidence to support your new found theory of madness.
Therefore every action you make is translated as a sign of madness to you. It’s a truly frightening experience. Anyone would rather lose his sight than his mind. People who run mad, do so because of their inability to maintain a touch with reality, other cases may include a powder being blown at a picture of yours by an evil ex or wicked relative.
Consequently Since narcotics have the ability to distort your image of reality making you alter your perception of life it just helps in buying you a bus pass to the land of crazy. But then again anxiety may also be a sign that things would get better for you.
You can only run mad in the state of highness when you give yourself completely to the trips that come with the smoking, trying to belief that all is well, even in the state of anxiety, as you may run mad without even knowing this, because to you, you’re very much normal; after all a mad person doesn’t know he is mad, thanks to your anxiety you begin to be very much attached to reality, struggling to not let yourself go, checking your actions, thoughts and environment, in order to remind yourself that you are still ok.
When you are in this state you will not go crazy because by having thoughts of madness, it means the mind has become hyper connected to reality thanks to the activities of the toxins from the weed on the brain.
Moreover remember, a mad person doesn’t know he is actually mad!
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