I’m in college and I’ve never smoked weed

Well, it’s true.  All my life, I have never smoked the Devil’s Lettuce. And that isn’t because I have lived a very sheltered life or because I’m prude, or because it’s illegal. I would say the majority of my friends smoke weed and I’ve been in attendance for SO many freaking parties, concerts, and get-togethers where it was present. I’ve even sat in pot circles, but instead of doing “puff, puff, pass”, I did just the “pass” part.

And no, I don’t judge if that’s your thing. My friends are all highly functioning members of society who do great things. Just because they recreationally smoke pot doesn’t make them bad people.

But, I do judge if that’s all your life has become. I’ve overheard conversations where people admitted they skipped class to get high, get high countless times a day, get their fix in a bathroom stall, do just about everything when they’re high, have gotten fired for smoking on the job, wreak of it constantly, integrate pot leaf apparel into their everyday ensembles, begin to have that weird, slow, gravelly voice that are only possessed by potheads with no self-control.

And if I’m being honest, I think it’s those type of people that have made me not want to try it in the first place. I have an addictive personality so I’m sure that if I got hooked I’d soon turn into one of them.  I’ve seen firsthand how people who smoke it a lot change. They hang out with a bad crowd, they get unmotivated, start falling behind in school, have increasingly strained relationships with their friends, families, significant others. They promise they will quit and only go for a week before they relapse, they steal money or misallocate their savings and burn through their cash- literally- to sustain their voracious appetites for weed.

Now, I know that marijuana is not a drug that is physically addictive and a lot of people like to think that for this reason, they can smoke all they want. But just because it’s not physically addictive, doesn’t mean that you can’t get addicted to it. Because people who are total burnouts are addicts. They don’t want to admit it to themselves, but it’s a serious issue. Marijuana becomes so integral in their life that trying to quit becomes virtually impossible. Their best friends are in the same predicament, their daily schedule revolves around getting high, their academics and extracurriculars suffer terribly, so trying to get clean means changing everything in your life: ditching your old friends to find new ones who don’t smoke all day, breaking the habits that have been formed, and getting the rest of their shit together. It’s really hard to do, which is why I think things often remain the same.

Now I know that the above example is an extreme case, and a lot of people only get high a few times a month, or a few times a week, and they don’t suffer these damaging side effects of pot. Believe me, I know. But when I asked my pro-pot friends how smoking weed makes you feel, they mostly say the same thing: “it makes me really sleepy, it makes time flow differently, sometimes it makes me dizzy, it makes me relax, or in bad cases, it makes me really anxious or paranoid.” Honestly? I’m tired enough as it is by my grind and can fall asleep on command, I don’t need a substance to get me there. The rest of those effects don’t really seem fun or exciting, so I guess I’m honestly confused why it’s such a big hit – no pun intended. Some of my friends have felt strange side effects from pot when they’re not high, like marijuana induced depersonalization or derealization, pixelated vision, weird disconnect from their hands and limbs, and that stuff is freaky.

And that horrific smell? Don’t even get me started. Not to mention, I’m strapped for cash enough as it is. I can’t be dropping cash for dime-bags left and right when I have many long-term goals I’m saving up for. I can also think of about a million other hobbies one can have that are probably way more rewarding than smoking pot.

Does this mean that I’ll never smoke pot for as long as I live? Probably not. But for right now, I’m really happy with the pot-free life I’ve chosen for myself and don’t feel like I’m missing out on the fun by not lighting up.