Expressing what remains unspoken. - Lynbrook Aletheia

Controlled Substances March 2012
Hip hop made me do it. Well, hip hop and
just about every single one of my lunchtime
friends. Marijuana first entered my life when I was biking
past Rainbow Park with my friends during freshman
year; the pungent smell of an indigestive skunk
and the—at the time—unfamiliar sight of a bunch of
people sitting around passing around a homemade
cigarette. What I didn't know at the time though was
that within a matter of months, I would be doing the
same exact thing only with a different group of people.
What made me go back upon my firm beliefs against
drugs was a mixture of peer influence (not really pressure),
the widespread availability of weed in San Jose,
and the idea that weed was more of a benefit than a
detriment to society and individuals—an idea instilled
upon me by today's pop-culture and rap music.
It's really hard to avoid using drugs, especially when
all of your friends at school begin to use it and constantly
talk about it during brunch and lunch. It began
with only one person out of our group who had used
it and slowly expanded until I was the only one who
hadn't taken a hit before. The more they talked about
it, the more idealized it seemed, but in my heart, I still
believed that it was wrong and that it would be better
for me to avoid trying it at all costs. But as school
got harder and as I became increasingly stressed and
frustrated with school grades and the workload of my
extracurriculars, it began to dawn on me that it might
actually be worth it to try. Deep into the second semester
of my sophomore year is when I first started smoking
weed and what began as a "once a month" ordeal
slowly evolved into a "once a week", "twice a week",
and on rare, but existent occasions, "twice a day" rituals.
It was a way for me to slip away from my stresses
and worries and let me enjoy life like any other partying
American teenager. Life was good for then, but it
was only a matter of time before reality caught back up
with me.
What made me decide to quit smoking marijuana
was that it became too much of a crutch of mine.
Whenever something went wrong, simply wait for the
parents to leave or ask, "Mom, I'm gonna go on a jog,
2
“Drugs are a bet with your mind.”
- Jim Morrison
be back in 20!" and secretly smoke a few bowls from a
DIY apple pipe, or from a tightly packed joint of weed.
When weed wasn't available to me, I simply wasn't able
to cope with much by my own willpower anymore. I
would be all depressed and mopey unless I had a good
dime bag hidden in my sock drawer.
In addition to my difficulty with living without a
stash, I lost many of my friends to disappointment and
sorrow that I wasn't able to rise above the influence.
Between the loss of friends and my personal troubles,
it became painfully obvious that the effect that marijuana
began having on me was one that was benefiting
myself, but not of many of those who were around me
which was what lead me to the decision to set aside
smoking pot for good. Despite everything that happened
however, one thing is certain for me: I do not
regret my brief tango with Mary Jane. It certainly did
help me and hurt me during my period of usage, there
was a lot of lessons that I took from it that will undoubtedly
follow me for the rest of my life.
~ ~ ~
Puff puff pass, puff puff pass, puff puff pass. A
symbolic drug of our generation, and any generation
that's been born in America for the past century
or so. The green sticky herb with that pungent
smell, also known as marijuana. It's not really something
that the law looks out for, unless you're part of
the drug cartel, but it's been becoming a bigger and
bigger epidemic as of late. For me, it was hard to avoid
getting into the whole drug scene because of how it
surrounded me in all aspects of my life. Movies (Pineapple
Express, Dazed and Confused, etc.), music (Mac
Miller, Wiz Khalifa, Kendrick Lamar), and teenage
Californian-American culture. Weed is mentioned in
basically everything I do or partake in and available in
all of the parties that I go to so it only becomes natural
for me to try it out once or twice… or thrice… or so
many times that I can't even remember.
But honest to God, my usage of weed stems purely
from my addictive and extremist way of living. Once I
start something that I find is beneficial to me, I won't
bother stopping or trying to moderate it. I mean, if
it's good for me, why would I stop, right? That's how I
see my usage of weed or any other drug for that matter.
My goal for my usage isn't as much as to get hella
stoned or tweaked at parties so much as it is to find