Before vape pens, chocolatey edibles, and cannabis tea, college co-eds fashioned makeshift bongs out of empty cola bottles and cored apples. When I was 22, dating a burgeoning pothead who tried unsuccessfully to grow a brittle marijuana plant with a heat lamp, my only drug experience was drinking cough-syrup-flavored wine coolers and domestic beer. That year, however, I smoked a joint twice, the sensation of burning coals scorching my throat. An involuntary cough was met with no payoff; I felt nothing else. Then one night I hit the homemade bong, and my body plummeted 30 imaginary feet through my boyfriend’s couch cushions as I heard a nearby friend speak the same sentence 10 times in a row—my first and last auditory hallucination.
“A match made in heaven,” one of my boyfriend’s sober roommates said, as he watched us devour day-old grocery-store apple pie, potato chips, and Butterfinger BB’s. I only left the couch to stare at my sweaty, abstract face in the bathroom mirror. That night I slept hard and awakened with a lead belly. My foggy brain struggled through the aftermath. I wasn’t impressed.
For years after, marijuana was everywhere. Subsequent lovers smoked it; smelly clouds filled concert stadiums; a neighbor grew six-foot-high plants below my patio; joints were passed freely, but I never partook again, until one night when I was 37 and already drunk. A handsome party host thrust a scent-less vaporizer in my face. I took two hits without thinking. Immediately, the house got hot; voices receded, and I started to spin. I puked and woke up with a top-three hangover. It’s true: Mixing booze and weed is bad.
Eight years later, I purchased avocado-oil-infused Indica tincture from the local legal dispensary, hoping it would lessen my lifelong anxiety and tame my tense stomach, like others who’d professed benefits of small doses sans alcohol. I’d heard, “I smoke weed because I can’t afford therapy,” and “THC did more for my stomach pain than CBD alone.” I was convinced.
I took less than half a dose. Within a half-hour, I couldn’t finish dinner. By 6:30 p.m. I lay in a spiral on my daybed. My heart thumped in my ears. My hands shook. My back muscles seized. My neck stiffened. An imaginary knife stabbed under my rib cage, and I was nauseous. I thought I hope no one texts me because I won’t be able to respond.
Sleep was fitful. Awake from 2:30 a.m. on, relieved the ordeal was over, I thought never again. Recollecting my ex’s glassy eyes, I marveled at how people function on marijuana. Even its scent is now stress-inducing.
Indica is used to lessen anxiety, curb insomnia, and promote a robust appetite, but for us outliers, the opposite is true. It’s official: I’m not a stoner.
One doesn’t have to be a stoner, however, to benefit from CBD. It’s found in the same plant as THC, but it doesn’t produce a high. Perfect for people who want to manage pain and anxiety and still function, right? Acquaintances call it their favorite natural antidepressant without the side effects. CBD is promoted for low energy levels, pain, stress, mood disorders, insomnia, and lack of appetite. It is an anti-inflammatory agent that comes in oils, creams, capsules, gummies, e-cigs, and even mascara. (What does that do?) It has been incorporated into bath salts, hair pomade, toothpaste, coffee, suppositories (yikes!), and even dog treats. I recently saw prominent CBD displays at CVS and the local mall, and August 8 is now National CBD Day. It’s hyped, but does it work?
Two years ago, I spritzed a low dose of peppermint-flavored CBD oil on my tongue for six days. The results were frustrating: nausea, insomnia, and a headache in the center of my forehead, none of which subsided. CBD gave me the energy of a teenager and eradicated my lower back pain, but, after minimal sleep and a compromised appetite, I returned to my go-to stress-reduction combination of pinot noir and the gym’s elliptical machine. I felt gypped.
Marijuana is now fully legal in DC and 11 states, including two in which I’ve lived: California and Washington. The rest of the country is mixed, with several states offering legal medicinal marijuana or CBD only. Cannabis makes me miserable, but I can’t deny it benefits others and disagree with the hesitation to make it legal nationwide. Joe Biden recently said he’d have to see much more evidence to suggest marijuana isn’t a “gateway drug,” a term I thought we rightly left in the ‘80s. To not allow people to choose the form of stress and pain relief that works without the threat of incarceration is malarkey. I will avoid THC and CBD but support anyone who finds either an ameliorant in this unpredictable, volatile time. I’m grateful cannabis is available, even if I can’t enjoy it. At least now I know.