420 and Getting High

Do you remember your first time?

Older woman smoking — RDNE on Pexels

The origin stories of 420 as code for getting high by smoking marijuana is that a group of Marin County, California, high schoolers would meet after school at 4:20 pm. Since these were the old days (the 60s) and one of those California high schoolers supposedly became a roadie for the Grateful Dead, and 420 was celebrated, I give the story 50% credibility.

April 20 became the unofficial date of celebrating getting high from marijuana.

The first time I got high was in December 1971, maybe New Year’s Eve. I was at a party of the old gang from high school, and the bakers had made Alice B. Toklas brownies. Since they guessed at how much marijuana to use, I guessed at how high I was.

We went out ice skating. This was North Dakota, so it was cold, and stars were splattered across the sky, and maybe there were frost crystals. I realized I wasn’t just skating, I was soaring. I twirled around the rink with a boy, maybe the last time I saw him. We weren’t romantically linked, just growing up together linked, and this was the final time we would all be together in one place.

I went into the house to use the toilet. I was fascinated by water swirling and swirling around the porcelain bowl, twisting down into the pipes. I was about to announce the wonders of the toilet, but then realized I was really stoned.

Another celebratory good-bye I remember is when I went out to a stream in the woods at the end of college, with a friend who had saved his hash for a special occasion. He took a long toke from a pipe, and I stood up to take the pipe, and fell, dropping the pipe into the tumbling and fast-moving stream.

Truth to tell, I liked drinking more than smoking, because I learned, sorta, how much to drink and was less clear about getting high. Then I threw out my rollers and papers and became an adult with a career and children. I was appropriately indignant when I discovered my teen’s own stash. I was concerned about the toll of marijuana on the developing brain.

When the aches and pains of arthritis started creeping in, my teen was an adult. He showed me how to visit now-legal cannabis dispensaries. It seemed odd to me that the pierced and tattooed salesperson should advise me on pain relief, and that the transaction happened across the counter and not in a back alley.

Now I take more prescription drugs than any I took illegally, years ago, and I avoid anything that could make my balance more precarious.

So it goes.

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