My journey, such as it is, begins around Nancy Naps dining room table. It’s a hot summer afternoon in 1974, her mom’s passed out drunk on the couch and Nancy’s big sister has gathered a group of rising 8th graders, showing them how to make a pipe out of a tampon. Tampon, foil, tape, knife. Make a hole in the tube, tape the foil over it, poke some holes in the foil. She takes a baggie of ditchweed and fills the bowl and fires it up. I am shaking from nerves and anticipation. I will admit that when they showed those PSA’s on drugs I thought, that looks like fun! This is your brain onLSD…yeah baby!! As the pipe gets to me, my close friend Dave, always the good one (stinking mommas boy), leans over and whispers “you’re going to regret this.” Instead I found the magic that would calm my ever rushing brain. I went from routinely getting tossed from classes for being disruptive and getting my face punched in for a mouth faster than the ability to think, to a calm, decent student and thoughtful human who still occasionally pops off at the worst moment. ;),
I was never at ease being part of the drug trade. Post college I was buying mostly from the Westies, a Hells Kitchen, um, social club. After that, continuing with the Hell tradition, my main dude was a former roomie and Hells Angel pledge (3rd St. represent!). That scared me more than the Westies.
Not wanting to be part of a nefarious plot to capitalize on weakness, when I ended up in Ohio, I sought out dealers with grow connections. The hippy with the Humboldt connection who would say stuff like “Charlie never killed anyone” (mkay). The slightly crazed dude in Yellowsprings with the guns and grow near WrightPat AFB who insisted I get in his homemade sweatlodge in my underwear with his wife (people and guns make me uncomfortable, I was freaked.) That worked fine till about 2015 when my then dealer, a nice old lady in her 70’s who had a Columbus indoor connection, was shot in the leg during a home invasion. Apparently the bullet was to encourage her to give up her cash and stash. She did not. She’s in jail with a bad leg.
Time to make a change. No big spiritual awakening or quest other than to get high with as little negative impact as possible ( I got Wellbutrin now for my since diagnosed depression/ADHD). I’m a decent gardener and one time student of biodynamic gardening (basically permaculture with extra magic), LED was now a thing, so I learned to grow (sorta) and most importantly, always always always share my bounty with nice people who don’t live violence.
and thanks for sharing 
glad u did ur own thing and got peace 