Thurman Levere
Philadelphia, PA

^{"I am educated by the experiences I have encountered."}

M y  L e s s o n s  F r o m  W e e d

     Weed has been around forever and we would be liars if we said that we didn’t know someone who smoked it. For some, we have smoked it ourselves, including me. I used to smoke weed heavy, back in my second year at college. My friends and I call those days the “Dark Ages” because when we talk about that time, all we can remember is how much weed we smoked and playing Madden ’05, the video game. In my time of smoking weed, I learned about things that I wouldn’t have known unless I had gone through the “Dark Ages.”

     Then there was the art of rolling blunts. Rolling a blunt was a very special job that not just anyone could do. If you messed up that blunt, it would lead to problems, like a blunt burning too fast, weed getting in your mouth, or it just looking ugly. It was funny; there was a pecking order when it came to blunt rolling. The people that were there determined who would roll. Sometimes there would be competition amongst my friends on who was the better roller, like a changing of the guard in the pecking order. I could not roll a blunt, so I was last in the pecking order. If I wanted to smoke, I would have to wait for someone else, which didn’t take long in the “Dark Ages.” I didn’t care, though, because not knowing how to roll a blunt prevented me from smoking when no one else was around. It also seemed as if I didn’t smoke as much. Deep down inside, though, I wanted to know how to roll. It seemed like a respect came when you were the best roller out of the group. I wanted that respect.

     During the “Dark Ages,” all three of my roommates smoked weed. With that said, in the morning there was always someone smoking weed in the living room, sometimes with someone who didn’t even live there. I would usually pass on the invite; I wasn’t the wake and bake type, which means waking up and smoking before you even take that morning piss that most guys and girls do. The funny thing about my friends waking up and smoking was that they would never think about class until after they were finished. My one roommate never remembered his schedule for class. Some thought it was because of the weed; I just thought he was stupid. But whatever the reason, when he would see me leave for class, he would always ask me what day it was. Usually when people ask that, they want to know the date. He wanted to know the actual day. I would tell him, and he would think about it. I knew his schedule better than he did but loved to mess with his head. Finally, he would figure out that he had class the same time as me, run upstairs, and get ready. That was only if weed wasn’t being smoked, because if it was, depending on how important the class, it was being skipped.

     The more you smoke, the more you find out all the people who smoke too. It was like a secret society of smokers. During the “Dark Ages,” most guys who smoked didn’t have any shame when it came to smoking. They would talk about it in front of anybody, and pretty much anywhere. But it was the girls who were funny. They were so private about the fact that they smoked weed. Some of the girls smoked more than we did. But that wasn’t anybody’s business, so they said. Sometimes I would walk into my house and see a girl sitting there. It was obvious that she was high, but when I walked in, all of a sudden she had to leave. Let’s get serious. If there was smoking allowed at parties, most of the time guys would smoke right there and then, unless they didn’t feel like sharing. This could happen if you are at a party full of people who smoke. But none the less, no matter what type of crowd was at the party, for some reason girls would always want to go upstairs to smoke. If they couldn’t go upstairs, they would rather go to their car, or just leave the party all together. Why go through all of that? Maybe because it’s not cute for girls to smoke or maybe girls never felt like sharing. For whatever reason, they were private when it came to smoking, until you smoked enough times with them. Then they just didn’t care.

     If a robot is walking in one direction, but if a human changes the robot’s course, the robot will keep walking as if nothing happened. In my last days of the “Dark Ages,” I began to smoke less, and the less I smoked, the more I noticed that my friends were literally becoming robots. One day I walked into my house and saw that my roommates had Madden set up in the living room. Everyone was sitting around playing the game but I was the only one to notice we didn’t have a television in the living room until that day. One by one, more of my friends would come over and not even bother to ask where the television came from, they would just sit down and start playing like nothing changed. Was I the only one who noticed that we had a television? The next day, I purposely took Madden out of the living room and moved it to my roommate’s room, just to see what would happen. One of my roommates walked in and noticed that the game was gone. I told him it was upstairs and instead of asking why, he just went upstairs and began playing. Then, one by one, all my friends would go upstairs and play Madden and nobody asked why it was moved or who moved it. They would keep playing as if they were robots. I would move the game to each of my roommates’ rooms, and not once did they ever bother to ask why it kept being moved. It wasn’t just the game either; I would move furniture or food, and not once would they notice. That is when I realized that I didn’t want to smoke anymore. To be considered a pot head was one thing, but a robot?

     The “Dark Ages” to me will always be considered a “head shaker,” a memory in a person’s life that, when thought about, always leads to that person shaking their head. I shake my head for many reasons. For humor because, honestly, there were some funny times back then. For disgust, when thinking about all the smoking I really did. And, most importantly, for disagreement, because contrary to what some people say, smoking weed is addictive. Before you know it, you can find yourself failing out of school, losing track of what’s important, and simply becoming a robot. I was able to make it out of the “Dark Ages” with a new sense of motivation and drive. I realized it wasn’t the life for me, and I would be better off making a difference in the world than smoking it. So even though I learned some interesting things from weed, none of them will help me find a career, and to college students, that’s way more important than knowing how to roll a blunt. Don’t you think?