Pubdate: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 Source: Sidelines, The (Middle Tennessee State U, TN Edu) Copyright: 2008 The Sidelines Contact: http://www.mtsusidelines.com/main.cfm?include=submit Website: http://www.mtsusidelines.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2861 Author: Michael Stone Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States) CHASING THE 'HIGH' LIFE Issues of Legality Don't Deter Some Student Smokers The driver reaches for the ignition, and the engine lets out a loud roar with a clockwise turn of his right hand. It doesn't hold my ears' attention for long. The engine's noise is quickly subdued by speakers, blaring Metallica's "Master of Puppets." I have no idea where the three of us are going, but a particular destination isn't the purpose of our drive. To be blunt, the purpose of the drive-for the two men in the front seat-is to "get high." It's obvious they're anxious to achieve that purpose. Most of their conversation during the drive revolves around marijuana. "You ever smoked the resin before?" the driver, who wants to be referred to as Malik, asks. "Well, I've laced a cigarette with it," the passenger, who prefers to be called Pickles, responds. They proceed to joke about past "highs," run-ins with police and good deals they've gotten in the past. Their desire for marijuana seems like a hummingbird's desire for nectar. The drive is short, lasting no more than five minutes. We park at an apartment complex close to campus, so close that some of the dormitories are within sight. "I know that guy smokes, and that guy and that guy," Malik says, pointing at different parts of the apartment building. "They all usually have some preh-ty dank [stuff]." He grasps the key in the ignition and turns it counter-clockwise. The engine stops, but the music continues. He reaches for the console between himself and the passenger. He grabs two objects out of a compartment-a pipe and a plastic bag. "Man, I gotta learn those Spanish flash cards sometime tonight," Pickles says. "It's all those verbs. Ya know, the weird Spanish words." The driver seems apathetic toward the passenger's need to study. He's too busy preparing the marijuana to be smoked. He moves the substance in between the tips of his fingers and pieces of it fall like snow onto a piece of paper torn from a notebook. He grabs the opposite ends of the paper, pulls them together and pours the marijuana into his pipe. "Ya got a light?" Malik asks. Pickles removes a blue lighter from his pocket and passes it to Malik. Malik brings the pipe to his mouth with his left hand, raising the lighter above the bowl of the pipe with his right. He lights the marijuana and inhales. Malik hands Pickles the lighter and pipe, and Pickles repeats the process. The men keep passing, lighting and inhaling for about 15 minutes as smoke fills the car. Their conversations wander from their drug use to family, school and music. "Dude, it's getting late," Pickles says. "You care if we roll back?" Through the billowing smoke, the green analog clock projects the time: 12:47. "Sure, man," Malik replies. The two are done "getting high" for the night, but it won't be long before Malik's thirst has him hankering for more. What these two weed-smokers did on that night hasn't always been illegal in the Land of the Free. In fact, once upon a time, marijuana production was highly encouraged because of its other uses which have no relation to "getting high." Larry Sloman explores this era in his book, Reefer Madness. In the book, Sloman says that marijuana plants were used by colonial Americans for the production of clothing and paper. Its use was so important that, in 1762, Virginia penalized farmers who didn't grow it. Sloman even writes that the first president of the United States himself, George Washington, wrote in his diary that he grew marijuana plants. But its uses for products lessened because of inventive farming machinery like the cotton gin which made other plants more efficient. As the demand for marijuana products decreased, the demand for its medicinal purposes increased. When inhaled, it relieves the pain of ailments. America wasn't the only country mad for reefer before it became a social no-no. Mexicans had a strong taste for marijuana, according to Reefer Madness. Weed, Sloman says, is embedded in Mexico's culture and folklore. As more Mexicans immigrated to America looking for work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their custom of smoking marijuana immigrated, as well. In 1937 came the Marijuana Tax Act, the first federal law imposed on reefer. It placed a prohibitive tax on producing, manufacturing and selling weed. Though this act only placed a federal tax on weed initially, it would lead a destructive path to the downfall of legalized marijuana-use. But this use, though illegal, has not declined at all. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports that, in 2006, an average of 95 citizens per hour were arrested for something marijuana-related. Drugscience.org reports that these arrests cost taxpayers $41.8 billion annually. Every time Malik smokes weed, he runs the risk of becoming a part of these statistics. But he doesn't care. "You got anything?" he says into his phone. "Cool, cool. You at your apartment right now? Alright, I'll be over there in a minute." He makes the short drive to Scarlett Commons Apartments, less than a minute away. When we park, I reach for the door handle. "Naw, dude, don't get out," Malik says. "Just stay here." He gets out of the car. I wait in the cold night for about five minutes. When he returns, I ask why he hasn't been gone for long. "We didn't mess with weed etiquette tonight like I usually do with him," Malik says. "Weed etiquette?" I ask, having never heard such a term. "If a friend plays the roll of middleman in a deal," Malik explains, "or finds the hook-up for an individual looking for bud, it's common courtesy to smoke that person out." He drives to his brother's apartment complex, far from campus. His brother wished to be called Rusty. Two of Malik's friends, a man and a woman, are already hanging out at the apartment. The scene looks like a drug-induced, collegiate stereotype. Empty beer bottles and half-full ashtrays lie on a glass table in the middle of the room. Malik walks to the restroom and closes the door behind him. Behind the sealed door, I hear the plea of desperate lungs. "Cough, cough," they cry. The door opens a few minutes later, and Malik emerges with an army of smoke stalking his path. He removes a cigar from his pocket, puts it in his mouth and lights it. "Anyone wanna partake in a general session with me?" Malik asks the group. No one responds. "What's a general session?" I ask. Malik laughs. "Just smokin' weed, man." He got high alone that night. He walks into the bathroom four more times. Each time, I hear coughs from behind the door. Each time, he emerges with the same cloud billowing behind him. Malik isn't the only member of the MTSU's marijuana scene. Last school year, 135 violations involving drugs and drug paraphernalia were filed. That was 14.6 percent of all violations filed on campus, according to the most recent TBI Crime on Campus Report. But one national organization that has a chapter on campus believes that there should be no violations concerning marijuana. NORML says its mission is to "move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use of cannabis by adults is no longer subject to penalty." As I followed Malik three more times on his quest for "highness," I realized that potential penalties were no deterrent for him in usingmarijuana. I followed him on campus with a man referred to as "Top Dog." The second time was with a young, female student in the same place Malik had smoked with Pickles. The third time, Malik ventured far from MTSU. So far, in fact, that, for as far as the eye could see, there were fields of livestock, rusting machinery and low lying hills identifying where one farm ended and another starts. We were going to Memaw's house, a 92-year-old woman with Alzheimer's. Malik is a good friend of her caregiver, who wanted to be called Angel. Angel and Memaw live on a farm that Memaw and her deceased husband purchased many decades ago. Angel was hired by Memaw's son to live at the house with her to assist with what most would call "simple tasks." When we arrive at the house, Angel pops his head out of the door and whispers, "Memaw isn't sleepin' yet. Wait like 30 minutes." Memaw doesn't know what goes on in her living room while she sleeps. So we wait, talking and staring over the fields of cows on the front porch. Angel pops his head out again. "Alright, guys. Come on in." The two get right to business. Malik takes out a bag with a greenish-brown substance in it. "Here, smell this," he says, handing the bag to Angel. "Man, smells good," Angel says. "You mind if I grind it with my grinder?" Angel poured the contents of the bag into his "grinder," and begins to crush it like pepper. "This is my last time smoking," Malik says. "Well, that is until 4-20." They laugh. "Do you think that'll get us both high?" he asks Angel. "Just as much as anything else will," Angel replies. They both laugh again. He stops grinding and pours the substance into his pipe. "Let's go outside for this," Angel says. Once outside, they began lighting, inhaling and passing. With no provocation, Angel pours out his feelings about marijuana use. "I'm a proud stoner since 1998, and I'll probably be one for my whole life," he says. "Everyone in my life knows I'm one. But what most of them don't know is that I acknowledge weed is the enemy. There is one benefit weed has to offer, though. And that is it allows me to view life from an altered state. Weed gives you a reference point outside of your own perspective. If you can get a different perspective on reality, you can really see life for how it really is. After all, black wouldn't be black without white." "Why have you never told it to me like that before?" Malik asks. "I've tried to tell you that many times. But after five minutes of smoking, we always end up watching cartoons." They laugh again. Then they laugh more and more, and smoke more and more, until all of it was gone. Malik says goodbye to his friend and, as we drive away, goodbye to rural America. Each time Malik smokes, he says, a sense of calm comes over him. A calm that, some might say, is too calm. "Weed causes people to be calm, yes, but it causes them to be too calm," warns Kevin Brown, program coordinator for Arms of Grace Alcohol and Drug Counseling Center. "Pot smokers lose all motivation. It doesn't sound like big deal, but when you're supposed to be going to school or work, it becomes a big deal." He says that even though pot-smokers may not see immediate consequences, memory loss begins to set in after a while, especially for those truly addicted to weed. "It's addictive because it changes your perspective on life," Brown says. "When you smoke it, chemical reactions happen within the brain that cause a euphoric way of seeing things." So why do people do it knowing that it's addictive and illegal? "People do it for the first time mostly because of peer pressure," Brown says. "And once they have that first experience, they'll spend their time chasing that first high. Each high is different, so they'll never get it again, but that doesn't mean they won't try." And maybe, for Malik, that's true. Maybe he is still chasing that high. Or maybe he's trying to get a different perspective on life. "When I smoke, my mind is released into deeper levels of imaginative thoughts and experiences," he says. "I sincerely believe it has contributed to my open-mindedness toward my beliefs regarding the questionable existence that we live in." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake