Drugs

By the way, relevant:

I actually took the time to translate this from a blog in spanish, and I think it's the pure truth behind what do you feel like when you're high.

Part 1

I wouldn’t want to encourage people to do drugs. I don’t know what it means but I always looked at it associated to bad stuff, and I don’t want no more trouble. Besides, there’s a lot of teenagers around focused on doing whatever.

I don’t know how the world was 10 years ago, I was just 17 and I just wanted to find out how was this ‘’pineappleing’’ thing. There’s evidence that pot was around everywhere for a while already: Cheech & Chong movies, Grateful Dead’s music, etc. Somehow, I didn’t see this at all and I thought marihuana was just something Americans smoked in high school and that only drug addicts consumed it here. The kind of guys that stab you just to steal your wallet because they want to buy cocaine, melanin or Iced Tea. I don’t know what they consumed because they are such druggies they do anything to get that pomegranate they take into their body.

[…]

Encounter.

The first time I smoked weed I was young. I was in high school. See why I don’t want kids to read? Hey, I wasn’t planning to do it, it just happened. I was walking by my brother’s room where he, my older brother and his girlfriend were smoking. They suddenly tried to cover it, but due to the fact they had a bigger smile than the cat in Alice in Wonderland, it was obvious they were up to something. I really had no idea on what they were doing because I had less knowledge of the streets than America before 1942, but they told me they were smoking and they even offered me some, arguing it’d be better to smoke in a family circle than with any retard out there.

I had no interest on smoking back then and I was kinda scared. We do thousands of things that are “bad” all the time. You can smoke a cigarette, which is legal but is pineappleing killing you and it’s looked down upon. I don’t know anyone that hasn’t downloaded an MP3, and that’s illegal as well.

[…]

When I looked up information about cannabis a couple years ago, I found the same thing I did now: It’s a psychoactive drug that affects the central nervous system altering perception, mood, consciousness and attitude. pineapple that, I want to know how it feels like to be stoned. Logically, I also wanted to know it’s cons and there’s various pages that detail them with more or less enthusiasm.

[…]

Effect one: I’m pineappleing stoned man.

First thing that happens after smoking weed is within the first 5, 10 even 20 minutes. It’s the same thing as always, and there’s always someone that states “Hey, I’m fresh as lettuce”, but suddenly the change can’t be ignored. Almost always it has to do with the last thing you were doing. If you were talking with someone, you realize you’re telling your friend thing you wouldn’t even tell your psychologist in therapy. If you were reading, you realize that you haven’t even read the last 3 pages and you were singing “Funky Town” in your head. If you were laughing, you can’t stop. It doesn’t matter how it happened: you always end up thinking “I’m pineappleed up mang”. It’s like a mini surprise party in your mind. All of a sudden everyone jumps out from behind the couch and you burst into laugh thinking “Oh, you guys, you always catch me off guard.”

Once you realize that for the next 4 hours you won’t be able to handle heavy machinery, the other effects start popping out.

Effect two: Reordering your priorities.

Let’s say that, for example, the “To Do” list of the day consists of:

- Mount the new desk for the compy.
- Ask Joe if I can go hang out.
- Talk to my girlfriend to see what is she doing tonight.
- Take a shower.

After a smoke the order is:

- Get some snacks
- Get something sweet or with a lot of sugar
- Go to sleep with my thumb in my mouth like Prince John in Robin Hood.

I never knew why I saw so many people with black glasses at the mart. I now know it very well.

Effect three: Ravenous hunger for goodies.

For a stoner, a supermarket aisle is like taking a dean from a literature college and making him time travel to the Library of Alexandria. I never stood for so long, and I mean like 6 or 7 minutes, reading the ingredients of every single snack in front of me. Visualizing how the chocolate chips blend with the vanilla dough. Tasting the mousse. Solving in an atomic scale how the different elements combine and how they are going to affect my taste buds… Like in the Schindler’s List, at that moment there’s nothing more important than saving a brand of cookies from that Goodies sector.

After putting all kinds of snacks and dairy products in my basket like I was a squirrel saving for the world’s end, and after picturing myself as the squirrel and wondering why my laugh is still human, I arrive to the cashier. A good moment to talk about another effect.

Effect four: Paranoia.

Nowadays it’s difficult to find someone that hasn’t smoked in his entire life, and even between those who haven’t, almost no one judges it as before. Running into a pothead is as repulsive/funny/indifferent as running into a drunkard, and most of the time you really have to pay attention to notice he’s high. However, when you’re stoned, and the most crucial thing in your life is finding some toasts, you realize than for someone not sharing your vision you’re a retard staring at a bakery like an idiot for 20 minutes.

That shame sometimes turns into paranoia. That’s why when you’re high, you don’t want anyone to notice. This is no easy task though, because, even though your acting all natural, your eyes state you’re more asian than a Japanese in Shinjuku.

Back to the cashier. You start passing him the goodies like nothing’s going on, because there is nothing going on. You separate the dairy products together, cookies according to their coating, you start noticing you’re overreacting, you stop doing what you were doing, you look at the cashier and you suddenly remember you have varicose veins on you eyes, then you start looking somewhere else, it’s 16 bucks 70 cents, do I have change? I think I have, nope, nope I have no change, haha, what are you laughing at idiot, did I say or think that? Crap, I’m already out of the mart! AHHAHAAAHA, MAN THAT TOOK FOREVER.

Effect Five: Times takes forever to pass.

In fact, everything happens the same way it always does. A humming bird flaps its wings the same number of times, you move at the usual speed, and every action has the same duration. But there’s a reason why the stones has that laidback-ness in everything he does. We all can remember how that minute before the bell rang, or that last traffic light, take forever to pass. Well, being high is like a lot of minutes like these.

See how in the soap operas they always say “I wish this moment lasted forever”? A couple moments later they are smoking a joint.

This is as positive as it is negative. Every stoner has experienced this: you’re with a couple of friends, you have already ordered a pizza and you have to go receive it at the apartment’s door, and when you come back someone yells at you “MANG YOU LEFT LIKE AN HOUR AGO”, and then you tell him “I never made it to the front door. I didn’t find the elevator” and everyone bursts into laughter. I bet only 15 seconds passed, but everyone inside was calling the cops because you weren’t coming back.

Worst part is when you actually go down to pick it up. I’ve grown old inside elevators. Go to the entrance, open the door, say hi to the delivery boy, wait until he grabs the money, lends you the pizzas, gives you the change, and you close the door, is such a complex action scheme that after you finish you feel tired and proud. It’s like finishing your career and taking your time to stare all the time and effort you put in that goal. Bah, I’m exaggerating; finishing your career isn’t as good as that.

And you have the trip back to the apartment on the elevator left. You feel like Santa Claus. After that crusade, when you finally arrive to the apartment and some idiot yells at you (again) “MANG YOU LEFT LIKE AN HOUR AGO”, but you can’t help but reply “I think longer”. The important thing is that the pizza is there and after the first bite you want to kiss the cook.