My Drug Story

 

One day, about four years ago,  I was complaining to Tuna about severe pain from rheumatoid arthritis.  She had told me in the past that her husband, Ron, grew marijuana.  "That would fix your pain problem," she said.  I was doubtful of this.  It's not like I had never tried marijuana.  I didn't like it, pure and simple.  Plus, I doubted if Tuna had any concept of what level of pain I was talking about.  But I suppose she was pressuring me just a little, and I thought, "Well, OK."  I hesitated to go back to Vicodin or Percocet.   Marijuana seemed innocent, about like wine.  It had even been legalized.  

I bought an ounce of marijuana from them.  Tuna was kind enough to also bring me paper to roll joints in.  So I set about trying to make this happen.  I attempted to inhale, but soon I saw that my whole breathing system was rebelling against this plan.  I could not inhale this to save my life.  I decided to put a small amount in a gelatin capsule.  I had a bag of them that I had bought to put powdered nutritional supplements in.  So I took about 250 mg of marijuana by mouth.  A tiny amount.  

It was 1:00 in the afternoon.  Suddenly I felt drugged and knew I was about to lose consciousness.  From marijuana?  That seemed strange but I just had an idea that I better go lie down in bed.  Boom, I was out cold probably within five minutes of taking the capsule.  

I came to the next morning feeling horrible, and I continued to feel horrible all day.  It was 19 hours later.  Well, no more of Ron's marijuana.  I wondered if I should throw it away or maybe sprinkle it in the yard on the grass.  I finally decided to return it to Ron.  I told them I thought I had had an allergic reaction to marijuana.  "Impossible!" said Tuna.  "In any case, here is your ounce of marijuana," I said, handing it back to him.  I didn't ask for a refund because this whole thing was scaring me and I just wanted out.  I told Ron it had caused me to pass out.  "It must be good!" he said, in a way that gave me the creeps.   It seemed curious that he would say this about marijuana that Tuna claimed he had grown himself, and I realized he was not a grower, just a dealer.  And what else does he deal?  Who knows.  

Oh sweet summer child.  

Since that time I've learned something about the drug world, even marijuana.   The drugs are often laced with fentanyl to give them more of a punch.  For people with no tolerance to fentanyl, this can be dangerous.  That would explain what happened with the marijuana from Ron.  Even if that wasn't fentanyl, and I have an idea it was, something had been added to the marijuana to make it way stronger than marijuana is.  I had not been trying to find drugs that would make me higher than a kite.  I had been trying to find something a step up from aspirin.  Never again.