My college days were largely spent in a pot haze. This was the early ’90s, in upstate New York. Very good pot was regularly available, but although smoking was increasingly socially acceptable, we still faced fines or worse.

During this time, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and was on chemotherapy after surgery. Her doctor recommended that she smoke pot to help her deal with the nausea that was a side effect. She would not do it in the legal situation at the time.

My friends and I decided to start a chapter of a pro-legalization organization on our campus to advocate for legal medical use. We posted signs and chalked the sidewalks before our first meeting. Easily 200 students showed up. We garnered the support of faculty who believed in the potential of marijuana for medical purposes and of hemp for industrial applications. Our goal was to get the ball rolling to advance decriminalization and then legalization for medical use, which would set the stage for legal recreational use as it became clear that marijuana was benign — pretty much the way things have been playing out.

It was a good time for all. Mostly.

My friend shared a room in an on-canpus dorm. As our organization grew, we noticed odd clicking sounds on our telephone. After hanging up from a call, the phone would immediately ring, but there was never anyone on the other end of the line. Were we just paranoid? Imagining things?

We were watching Gamera and Godzilla movies one night, smoking pot out of a hookah that an industrious acquaintance had made for us out of a 5-gallon glass carboy. I had dropped some plastic army men and Monopoly houses and other doodads into the water to bounce around in the water.

While pulling another hit, I looked at my buddy on the other end of the couch. He was staring out the window, slowing waving hello. I turned and stared out the window.

Across the alley, three floors up, directly across from our room, on an outdoor terrace of the school’s performing arts center building, a man was dressed all in black, with his face covered. Upon seeing our two faces staring back at him through the window, he fled.

It has never been clear whether he was campus police or from the city police. If the sounds from our phone were in fact the result of a phone tap, he was probably city police. In any case, we never saw him again.

I continued to smoke with my friends. T typically was part of another hanging out experience, usually listening to music. Much of my musical taste was shaped by the records and CDs and live bands that I enjoyed while high. All sorts of music. Rock, blues, jazz, roots music.

That brings me around to a personally significant moment where pot and music interacted.

It was a cold night in February. I had gone to a house party with friends, where we had smoked some Northern Lights and had dropped some acid. As the party petered out, we returned to a safe place to ride out the rest of the trip.

We were passing around a 3-foot Graffix when a guy named Jersey Joe started whooping. Someone had put in a video, attached to a nice audio system. The words on the screen: “This Film Should Be Played Loud.”

As I watched The Last Waltz for the first time, heard the music from the concert for the first time, I was awash in joy. Ronnie Hawkins. Dr John. Neil Young. Bob Dylan.

The music kept coming. The pot kept coming. The happiness kept coming. When it was over, the night had still just begun.

And that’s what smoking pot and listening to music is all about, Charlie Brown.

I haven’t had much experience with weed. I’ve just had an edible here and there. But recently I went with a friend to the Beck concert. I thought I’d double down on the edibles for double the fun. There were three bands that night. I don’t remember saying more than 20 words to my friend all night and I couldn’t stop thinking about how cold my hands felt.

I took an edible and was doing laundry. I was folding a t-shirt and was looking for the neck hole opening to put under my chin and cross the arms and do a semi-decent fold. I could find the bottom of the tee, but kept flipping it and couldn’t find the neck or the sleeves. I kept flipping the shirt over and over and could not figure it out.

Then I realized I had been folding a pillow-case.

Had a wild experience with weed at a Sleep show. It was an outdoor venue in good ole Maquoketa Iowa! Very cool little venue (and an amazing show). I’ll try and make it quick- It was a solo mission. I arrived at the venue and first things first I rolled up a couple doobers. Smoked one and then had a pretty cool idea of smoking the other one. All is going well. Time to get to the venue. They have an option that you can take a hay rack ride to the venue from the parking lot or you can walk about a half mile or so. I decided to walk as it was nice out. I walked up to the pummeling sounds from Big Business and enjoyed their show. Once they were done I scoped out a spot for Sleep. I weaved through the crowd and happened to see someone in a wheel chair. I decided he was gonna be my perfect concert mate and posted behind him. I knew I’d have a great view and no one was gonna be rowdy around us. lol yes I know that sounds horrible but I’m always stuck behind the 9’ behemoth at the show! Anyway it was awesome because Matt Pike kept smiling and nodding at the dude in the wheel chair and looked psyched that he was havin a great time. More about the marijauna consumption- I had my vape pen in my pocket that helped me on my journey into orbit. I’m no stranger to the sweet leaf as I’ve been smoking longer than I’ve been able to drive, but my continuous puffin on the pen and the hypnotic sounds of Sleep gave me a feeling like I was tripping. Almost like a mild dose of acid. I’ve never experienced anything like it or have since. Actually kinda freaked me out. It was an amazing time and cool to see Matt at times focusing his attention to the wheel chaired homie in front of me. Thanks guys!

Back in the day when we were running the green from CO to other locations so we could experience freedom before it was legal there, we had an adopted a starved out, lonely Boxer dog named Joe Boxer. Joe Boxer loved to get smoked out and it became evident when she was always hounding around when anyone was partaking. She would sniff out your stash so always had to be careful to lock it up. She had a paper towel cardboard roll that she carried around that she used for her “pipe”. After making a large amount of edible cookies, we left for a short while after placing the cookies on top of the refrigerator. We came back to our beloved Joe feeling the effect after eating all of the cookies and half of the packaging. She was definitely high, bloodshot eyes, laying around, not interested in getting up to great her favorite people. I wanted to call the vet, to make sure Joe would recover and no long term damage remained, but he was a childhood friend’s dad and a straight arrow named Dr. Green.🤣She just twitched and drank a lot of water and recovered in a day or so, after some major munchies. That was my personal record of not being able to overdose on mother natures gift. Joe lived 10 years, well past this incident and was absolutely the best dog, as they are all! She was a stoner for life❤️

We used to have this place we would go smoke that was right on Clear Creek in League City, TX, 30 mins south of Houston where i grew up. It was an old bait camp apparently but all that was left was a big concrete slab that was once part of the pier. This was right across the street from a very old cemetery we would walk sometimes as well….I promise im not making this up lol Back then we used to smoke way too much, being that high and checking out headstones of people who died 150 years before you existed provided much perspective. Perhaps too much perspective. Pretty Rad spot.

Anyways, we would get high and enjoy the water or we would sometimes walk around in the woods right behind this spot. We never really saw much wildlife but were always expecting to.

One evening we were out there smoking a rather potent blunt, and as we go to leave we notice a deer laid out on a piece of plywood right at the tree line. We go check it out and concluded it was obviously dead but hadn’t been that way for very long…it was so weird…someone had obviously placed the poor thing there but no clues as to why. It wasn’t obviously injured, no bullet wound or injury from a vehicle. Wtf was the deal here? As im sitting there looking the animal over and a little too deeply thinking about the story of its demise…my friend grabs a stick and begins poking the animal.

“Its definitely dead bud, cant really tell what from but its definitely dead.”

“You think someone poached it and is hiding the evidence or something?’

“Who knows, but we should probably leave it be and stop poking at-”

“…it just blinked its eye…”

“shut up lol”

“No I’m Serious, look…”

as we both leaned in closer to the animal, intently focused looking for any faint sign of life still left in the poor thing…

The beast lifted its head and let out the most absolutely blood curdling scream I had ever heard in my life. Scared the actual shit out of both of us. Kinda sounded like one of those goats on youtube.

So we scream and take off running to the truck. once in there we decided we needed to alert animal control which was just a few blocks up the road.

At this point you may have already guessed why the animal was put where it was.

So, the two very obviously stoned 18 year olds bust into the animal control building frantically telling the story about the screaming deer they found, were then told the story of how it was found stuck in a deep muddy ditch too exhausted to get out. So they got it out and laid it out by the woods to recover without the stress of people fucking with it.

They then asked what the hell we were doing back there as it was city property. A question they already knew the answer to tho…

Trespassing and smoking dope. Fuck I miss those days…

One summer, two friends and I were hiking in the Mission Mountains of Montana. We had just hiked from Turquoise Lake to Lake Of The Clouds. To celebrate our accomplishment, we got extremely baked after setting up camp at nearly 9000 feet.
We left to go pump some water, and upon or return we has a mountain goat family in our campsite. There was a great big billy, a mom, and a young kid. As it happened, they had helped themselves to not only our Strawberry Newtons (great for the munchies) but also the bag of weed we had inadvertently left out with them.
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching them bounce around the cliffs like they had pogo-sticks in their legs. They do that anyway, but I like to think they were extra-inspired right then. Fortunately that wasn’t our only stash.
Funny thing was, we stayed at that spot for a couple days, and although we never gave them any more anything, they kept coming back. Not sure if it was the weed or cookies they were intrigued by, but they were awesome neighbors to have hanging around.

A few years ago I was working in Reno. I walked by a cannabis store and thought “it would be cool if it was recreational here”. I walked to dinner and on my way back to the hotel I stopped and it was recreational! Wooo hooo! I was about 58 years old and hadn’t been high since college. I bought some gummy’s and while walking back to my hotel I ate 6. I texted my daughter and told her I bought them and she texted back “be careful dad, those things are strong”. I answered that I ate 6 and she told me to get to my hotel and get in bed now. Holy crap. They are not like gummi bears at all!! I was sooo high!!! I did not sleep at all as I was hyper aware and counting breaths and heart beats while tripping balls. They are now here in Utah, I have a card and I cut a 10 mg gummy in half. lol. I never want to be that high again.

Where is Alfred E. Newman when you need him?

Quick story: went to Amsterdam for our 25th wedding anniversary. Bought a “space pop” that was suppose to be a beginner level. I’m Canadian and it’s legal here but their beginner level ended up being somewhere around 50-75mg. For me not so bad but my wife is use to about 2mg dosage. Needless to say was a great nite but she was still pretty high boarding the plane home the next day. Cheers