“You smoke Marlboro Reds. You can do this too,” my friend Justin wheezed, passing me his glass pipe.
I groped around in the dark under the bleachers until I found the lighter, then took a deep breath. At 17, I had finally decided I was ready to get high for the first time. My friends had begun experimenting with weed well before me, but I was a slow starter. It wasn’t that I believed the D.A.R.E. programs we had been forced to sit through in school. I just didn’t know much about marijuana.
My parents’ drug of choice was strictly alcohol, and I hadn’t learned to like that yet. But I had watched my friends roll around laughing while we camped along the rivers of Montana, and nothing dangerous ever seemed to happen. I felt ready to try it.
A Plan Under the Bleachers
Despite my cigarette habit, I was otherwise your basic hippie environmentalist in high school. I recycled, ate organic, conserved water, and shunned corporate beauty products. I loved the earth, I loved nature, and I really loved animals.
Thanks to a cool babysitter named Jessica, I learned about animal-rights organizations and became a vegetarian in eighth grade. By 16, I was a card-carrying PETA member, with bumper stickers screaming “Rats Have Rights!” and “Boycott Procter & Gamble!” from the back of my 1983 Honda Accord.
As far as I knew, my brief consumption of marijuana would cause no harm to Mother Earth. So, along with two of my trusted, more experienced friends, Jamie and Justin, I decided to make a night of it. They would pick me up in Justin’s tan 4Runner. I requested that he not blare Snoop Dogg or Nirvana for once, and we agreed on Phish. Then we would cruise …
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Author: Katie Thomas / High Times
