HarlemLIVE

The sound of dutches and glass bottles served as a soundtrack to my adolescence. I remember the first time I smoked, as I look at the corner littered with 40 oz bottle caps. Malt liquor was always present as my friends and I cracked jokes and laid back with the TV on. I marked my time by the cannabis like seasons as I learned the rhythm of what was available and when. You should have seen the rain dances we performed trying to get through the dry seasons. We don’t have 4H where I’m from but, I learned a lot about agriculture as I separated the sticks and seeds. I enjoyed the warm consistency of intoxication and a lot of people were shocked when I quit several months ago.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with altered states of consciousness in themselves. Historically, people have always sought different methods of manipulating their perceptions or emotions. However, we live in a world where there are oppressive conditions and we can only transform them on the basis of what we know to be true. Weed and alcohol dilute the critical thought it takes to get to that truth and engage reality in all its instability.

Weed makes the time pass, but opportunities pass with it. You can’t identify or take advantage of good situations when your vision is blurred with intoxication. Its hard to make good decisions because everything looks distorted through the Hennessey bottle-especially time. I can’t count how many times I have spent hours just talking and laughing about nothing. There is nothing really to talk about when you’re high all the time because you end up wasting so much time getting high.

In the end, I think people have to make their own decisions. My advice is don’t believe what they teach in school or advertise on anti-drug commercials. Do your own research and talk to people about their own experiences. No one can make decisions for you but you should at least make informed ones.