Posts Tagged ‘cannabis’

OK this post will be blunt (no pun)

I grew up in a small town called Kaikohe in the north of New Zealand. A small farming community with a population of around 4000. Not far from one of the most beautiful tourist resorts in New Zealand, the Bay Of Islands.

My town was rough, a town with high unemployment, domestic violence & drug use.

When I was 12 I was abducted off the street & nearly murdered by a paedophile. My family busted up a year later after years of turmoil & domestic violence. Not perpetrated by my father I might add.

So around the age of 14 I began to drink regularly & heavily. I would drink until paralytic at least once a week & pop packets of painkillers. I was having nightmares every night & in a great deal of emotional pain.

I made friends with some oddball bad characters. One was an old irishman who used to give me and all my mates free grog.

Essentially I became a part time street kid at 14. All my older siblings left after my parents divorce & I was left with my younger sister and abusive mother. It was sheer hell. At around 15 after a year of serious drinking I added cannabis to the mix and began hanging out with a bunch of hard core dope smokers.

These guys were 10 years my senior. They were my best mates. Made me feel safe & we had a lot of fun.

One of them was a convicted rapist. He and 3 others had raped a woman in a car. He used to tell us all about it, how he ripped her pubic hair out, punched her repeatedly in the vagina while they held her down etc. He did time for that. He was as mad as a shit and it paid not to piss him off.

Another one was a nice guy, very shy & soft spoken. But he had schizophrenia and when he had a psychotic break he would become violent and try to stab people. One time his parents left him to look after the house while on holiday. He burned the family home to the ground.

Another had been inside and had “Hang Loose” tattooed across his forehead and chin. A friendly nice guy who enjoyed having punch ups while drunk.

So there were a bunch of these guys, heavies & dope growers that became my best friends when I was 15 years old. Trust me I was every bit as bitter & crazy as them at the time.

At this stage I became in love both with a girl that I couldn’t get & with a drug that I could get.

I was given an ounce of weed per day to smoke – that’s a very large amount of Cannabis – about the same as a tobacco pouch.

Some time it was just leaf, often head – often extremely potent weed.

At first I was obsessed with Cannabis. I loved it. I would smoke my ounce, get pissed on whiskey and tequila, my mates & I would go to parties, beat people up etc.

All my mates were doing the same. This was our world.

Once they robbed the liquor store and we had free flagons of gin & rum for weeks.

I was totally stoned & drunk for an entire year.

I smoked more Cannabis at the time than any of them & I was only 15. Marlies, Pipes, Numbers, Doobies.

I became insane.

After 2 months of smoking I needed more and more to get high. What once took a joint now took a bag.

I was on a roller coaster. I would awake in the morning deeply depressed, often cry, I was so lonely with all my great friends, no family.

My memory was gone, hell after a few months I didn’t know the month or the season – all I know was there was a session tonight, and a party.

But it wasn’t fun anymore. I had loud tinnitus 24/7. I also had kind of visual tinnitus – blobs of psychedelic aura’s floating around before my eyes 24/7. My eyes were extremely light sensitive.

My weight dropped to 6 stone. That’s about 80lbs & I used to wear 4 shirts & jeans all the time to hide my skeletal appearance.

I also used to hallucinate. The voices, yep I dont wanna talk about that but Cannabis does cause hallucinations when you smoke enough and combine it with alcohol & painkillers.

About the voices I can tell you this. I had real loud tinnitus & real loud voices in my head for a very long time. I knew if I told the doctor or anybody I would be off to the nut bin. So I told nobody – that was my little secret.

Essentially after living like this for a year I was near the end. Either death, the nut bin or go straight were my only options.

I decided to go straight.

Well at first I ditched my friends which was very difficult. I went back to school and after a year I actually passed university entrance. I doubled my body weight in the first six months.

I think I probably doubled my IQ in this time also.

It was extremely, extremely difficult. Like a paraplegic learning to walk again.

But I was still topping up in the piss & drugs once a month I would get totally smashed which kept me from withdrawal.

Finally after this tough but amazing year of recovery – with zero intervention or support – it was time to go totally clean forever.

I did it in an isolated shack on a farm out in the sticks. The old booze doesn’t like to let go of a man. It makes you pay a price, same for the codeine & opiate pain killers and of course the THC.

I had a psychotic break big time.

I kept it secret from everybody but it was pretty obvious things had been up for some time.

I gave up Nicotine, caffeine, codeine, cannabis & alcohol all at once so I guess it was to be expected.

I can tell you that I was not rational, I was paranoid & obsessed with a crazy notion which I totally believed in. Like a huge conspiracy that I rationalized. You dont need to know the details because none of them were real.

After two months of drug and alcohol withdrawal, extreme rage, anxiety and stress, I came to an epiphany.

I had actually been insane for two months. It was all wrong – a delusion caused by the drug dependency wearing off & my neurotransmitters returning to a normal balance.

Quite a profound personal experience but that was the turning point & in the months that followed I remained abstinent and eventually by the age of 19 I was fine.

So that’s what Cannabis did for me. Everybody that I smoked it with was mad.

Many of them went on to become some of the worst drug dealers in New Zealand. Some died violently.

Most are still mates with rapists and convicts. They are scum still & I am not.

If you choose to smoke cannabis I am better than you.

I and those like me are better human beings. As I did these things as a child my respect for adult drug users & proponents is zero.

Your word is worthless. Your opinion meaningless.