hash, and other drugs

The first time I tried a drug of any kind was in sixth form. Two other degenerates and I huddled in an unused garage behind our college, where one of them whipped out a small bag of skunk that he'd procured from some roadman on his way to college that morning. Having never been this close to weed before, I asked if I could take a closer look, and the degenerate handed me a bud while he rolled the other into a joint. I inspected the bud on my palm. It was luminescent green in colour and smelt pungent.

A few moments later, with heavy rain beginning to fall, a joint was rolled, lit and passed around, and I inhaled my first ever toke of weed. It tasted repulsive — a taste that I can only describe as a sour patch kid that had been pissed on — and my chest burned as I held the smoke in my virgin lungs. The other two experienced no issues. At the age of 19, they were already seasoned smokers.

I was cautious with my tokes, inhaling only small amounts and being careful not to over-egg it. But a man can only possess so much restraint, and as the joint dwindled in size, and with me feeling no change in consciousness, I asked if I could take the last few remaining tokes. My request was obliged.

Life soon turned very unpleasant. Walking back to college under thick grey clouds, I felt nervous, anxious, panicked. What if my teachers found out? I was already on thin ice, having been expelled from my previous school for the meagre charge of bringing a portable shisha with me on an overnight Geography trip to Norfolk. The all-white cast of teachers assumed it was a device for smoking weed, despite my repeated attempts to tell them otherwise. I even produced, as evidence, the box of fragrant pomegranate molasses that I'd been smoking in the local playground while the other students poisoned their livers with cheap vodka. No punishment was handed to those who drank. Make of that what you will.

Back at college and sat in a maths class, I felt queasy and uncomfortable, and my vision and hearing felt jittery. Then I felt the sudden urge to throw up. I quickly excused myself, and moments later I was bent over a toilet, vomiting violently, as though my body was desperate to rid itself of its internal organs. Tears streamed down my face, and I begged for it to all be over.

I vowed never to touch weed again. Shisha was to remain my drug of choice. For it is, in my opinion, that tobacco — or more accurately nicotine — is the greatest of all drugs. A nootropic, as science has proven it to be. A cognitive enhancer. A stimulant that assists in the development of great thoughts. It is no accident that the greatest minds of our time, the greatest writers, the greatest artists, the greatest academics, loved smoking. Freud smoked up to twenty cigars a day, viewing them as inseparable from his intellectual work, and Picasso's biographer John Richardson wrote of the great artist: "work, sex, and tobacco were his only addictions."

But weed seemed adamant to play some part in my life, and sometime in my mid-twenties a close friend showed up to my house with a 1kg vacuum-packed bag of weed. Shocked and shitting myself at being in the presence of such a quantity — an amount that could only be described as intent to supply — I asked him where he'd got it from. He told me, with pride, that he'd invested in a 'grow', and proceeded to unseal the bag and present me with a bud for inspection. It was different to the skunk and the other types of weed I was accustomed to seeing. This bud was earthy green and smelt grassy and sweet. I asked my friend what was different about this weed, and he told me that it was bush weed. He went on to explain that bush weed was essentially weed that had been left to grow naturally, and was void of all the chemicals that are commonly used to inflate THC levels and make the weed more potent. This, he said, tapping the bag of weed, the contents of which were now spilling across my parents' coffee table, was clean and guilt-free. He asked if I wanted to try it but I politely declined and gave him an abbreviated account as to why I'd sworn off weed. He dismissed my grievances, telling me that my dismal introduction to marijuana was down to having smoked junk — weed likely sprayed with synthetic, Chinese-made THC. His weed, he said, had been grown organically, and he swore the experience would be different. I trusted him.

It was a warm summer's day, and feeling safe within the confines of my home, he rolled us a joint and we sat in the garden and smoked. After a cautious first toke, my immediate observation was that his weed tasted clean and earthy. Gone was the sour, piss-like taste, and I experienced no irritation in my lungs. Soon I felt calm and mellow. The contrast in my vision had been turned up; colours were more vibrant, and sounds arrived with a crispness that made me feel like I'd been deaf my whole life and simply hadn't noticed. The warm touch of the sun on my skin dissolved all stress and tension, and the rest of the evening passed in blissful awareness, humorous conversation and, in the quieter moments, deeply introspective thoughts. I woke up the next morning feeling well rested and invigorated. And now I had a taste for the devil's lettuce.

But this bush weed was to be a gateway drug to something greater. Some years later, I was gifted a small brown sphere of resin. Hashish — the concentrated resin of the cannabis plant. The person who gifted it to me said that hash was a far superior drug to weed. When I asked why, he explained that it contained more balanced levels of CBD and THC.

A quick lesson for the uninitiated. CBD (cannabidiol) is the non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis — the gentle, respectable sibling now peddled in small tinctures at Holland & Barrett and slipped into canned drinks found at your local supermarket. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the psychoactive compound responsible for getting you high — the one your body actually notices. The problem is that modern cannabis has been selectively bred — or more accurately, relentlessly tampered with — to contain THC levels so artificially elevated that they bear little resemblance to anything nature intended, leaving many smokers less pleasantly lifted and more thoroughly floored. The weed of today is not the weed passed around at Glastonbury in the seventies. Publications like the Daily Mail, never ones to undersell a panic, have taken to calling it Super Skunk.

I thanked my friend for his gift, and later that evening I sprinkled brown specks of resin onto a bed of tobacco, stood in the garden and lit the joint. The taste was far more pleasant than any weed I'd smoked, skunk or bush. It tasted like clay, and as my consciousness began to lift, the difference in effect became immediately apparent. My limbs grew heavier, my joints looser, and the tension in my posture simply went away. Where weed made my movements jittery and sometimes erratic, hash made them fluid and effortless. My mind felt clearer. Anxious thoughts were gently pushed aside and replaced by kinder, more positive ones. But above all, and most importantly, I felt present — a state of mind that I am in constant pursuit of.

Please do not think for a moment, dear reader, that I am a man trying to justify a drug habit. Now in my thirties, I enjoy and savour a joint in the way that some do a glass of red wine. It is for me a calming and creative ritual. At the end of a long week, and schedule permitting, I run a hot and foamy bath, light a candle or two, slip into the water and spend the next hour or two puffing on a small joint of hash while listening to music.

Over the course of the next hour or two, my ego dissolves and my mind is set free to roam the fields of my subconscious. Creative ideas surface with ease, and I reconcile the events of the previous week with greater objectivity. I also feel a profound sense of gratitude for my life.

Now, a very important caveat. Those who are predisposed to schizophrenia or other mental afflictions should steer well clear of both weed and hash — the research on this is clear. I have sadly witnessed first-hand what weed can do to a person with that predisposition. The son of a close family friend, a smart and promising young man who was carving himself a promising career in journalism, slipped into psychosis after some heavy skunk usage. He has since been sectioned and has been living in a government mental health facility ever since.

Climbing down a few rungs of the mental health ladder, I've spoken to many people over the years who cite paranoia as their main reason for avoiding weed. But I believe those feelings of paranoia deserve a reframing — a rewording. Paranoia is, at its crux, heightened awareness. And I would argue that if we can learn to sit comfortably with that heightened awareness, to observe it with objectivity rather than alarm, we can break through the wall of anxiety that holds us prisoner to our own anxious thoughts.

I will conclude by saying that I don't just recommend weed — I prescribe it. A sentiment shared by Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels, who once remarked that weed shouldn't just be legal, it should be compulsory. And I have found that one dose a week is the right and healthy amount.