Five ways weed has changed someone's life
On the prospect of New Zealand legalising marijuana, many people have already established which side they will cast their vote on. There’s the pro-cannabis club, fighting for a world where a Saturday sesh is as normal as a night out in town; then there’s the Say Nope To Dope crew, arguing against legal recreational use of marijuana in New Zealand. Like most things in life, there are ups and downs with any outcome, and in the end not everyone is going to be happy. For the sake of this article I’ll take neither a positive nor negative stance regarding the referendum, and instead hope to make your decision a lot harder by outlining five ways weed has changed someone’s life both for the better… and the worse.
“I was addicted to weed”
The title of this piece is bound to get some eye rolls. Saying you’re addicted to weed is one of the most instantaneous ways to get socially ridiculed and look like a square. Drug addiction (according to the cool kids who’ve all ‘done their research’) is only legit if it’s related to the hard stuff. If you can’t shoot it, it ain’t shit. The almighty cancer curing, pain relieving, sweet sweet marijuana couldn’t possibly be addictive.
Amy’s story doesn’t involve sunken cheekbones and severe itching, but chain smoking joints in musty pyjamas.
“I was obsessed with weed. I would go into a massive panic when I was running low and do literally anything to get my hands on more. I lied, stole, begged. My work suffered, I was constantly high. I wouldn’t leave the house on weekends and could barely ever find the energy to walk to the supermarket on the corner of my street. I knew my life was a mess but I couldn’t stop. Smoking was the only thing that made me feel happy and satisfied, without it I always felt like something was missing.
Marijuana is meant to be a gentle, middle class medicine that keeps you healthy and de-stressed. Looking at my life - the mess of joint papers and weed strewn about my kitchen table and how quickly my life was spiralling downhill – I looked and felt like an addict. I knew I had to change. This is where the “pot isn’t addictive” argument comes into play. For a few days I fought against my willpower to smoke a joint and decided to detox, and actually felt much better for it! The worst side effect I got was night sweats, but apart from that I began feeling a lot more energetic. I didn’t physically suffer like most people coming off drugs do. My addiction stemmed from the fact that I couldn’t imagine another way of living. My addiction was so embedded in my daily routine that I felt like my life had no purpose when I wasn’t completing this cycle, and that I had no other effective methods of calming the chaos inside my head.
My addiction ended with a fizzle not a bang. I slowly weaned myself off the joint and into the normal world, and today I feel so much better for it.”
“Weed unlocked my passion for art”
“I’m an artist. I like drawing and creating paintings. I would say without a doubt, my art is cannabis inspired. It allows me to melt away all the distractions, to get in the zone quicker, to be in the zone longer and to help me think and focus on what I love doing, and to feel at ease with everything. I used to be so self-conscious with showing people my art, and so afraid of judgement. I would struggle to find things to paint, and when I did, I would struggle to find the motivation to paint it. Weed offered me a different perspective to all that, and has allowed me not only to be more imaginative, expressive and proud of my art, but to also sit back and enjoy the process of watching my paintings come alive.
I’ve now set up an art studio which has surprisingly become super popular in my area, and whenever someone picks up a piece to buy, I’ll explain to them what it means and they’re always super amazed at how I can capture not only what I was feeling, but something that they can also relate to as well. If you smoke weed, you enjoy visual art - they go hand in hand together. The biggest support I get as an artist is from the cannabis community. Cannabis is an outlet that I know appeals to many people in my area, and if it wasn’t for cannabis and the cannabis community, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am now and I wouldn’t be a full time artist living out my dream. I owe my career to cannabis. If it wasn’t for smoking, I know I wouldn’t have anywhere near as much inspiration, concentration, motivation and success as I do now.”
“I thought my life was over”
“Weed really affected my health. A couple of years ago I would spend every evening in bed with my bowl of weed, packing bong after bong. I always felt so in control of my body, and because of the common assumption that ‘weed isn’t addictive’, my mind was telling me that I could quit any time I wanted to. That I didn’t have a problem. It wasn’t until a friend challenged me to a week without weed that I realised this wasn’t the case.
I knew the first evening without smoking weed would be the hardest. It was like I lost a friend, and I wasn’t myself until I had my daily cones. Still, I pushed through it and played video games and tried to do all the same things I would normally do but without the weed. The next day though, I started getting really bad headaches. I never usually get headaches, but when I did I would just smoke some weed and it would disappear almost immediately. Of course, I couldn’t smoke any weed so I tried panadol and aspirins which didn’t help in the slightest. Still I pushed through it. Over the course of the week I began having difficulty sleeping, and there were a couple of nights when I didn’t sleep at all. My temperature would fluctuate from really hot to really cold, and I would get these intense stomach pains followed by intense cravings for just one hit. My mood started to change, I became a lot more irritable. I knew then that I was screwed, and that I really was hooked on the drug. I thought my life was over. That was the wake up call I needed though, and I ultimately sought help and ended up working through it with a great support network and quitting once and for all.”
“Weed saved me”
Anxiety always seems to manifest in teenagers and adults. It’s such a common part of life and almost the entirety of mine has been shaped by it.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from severe panic attacks to the point that I am unable to leave my home. Social situations freak me out. The outdoors freaks me out. Anything I can’t quite understand freaks me out.
Of course, I’ve been to see an uncountable amount of doctors, and have been prescribed an even bigger amount of antidepressants and long term mood-stabilising regimes. I’ve taken a huge variety of doses and combinations of medicine over the course of four years in hope of finding a good balance between relief from my anxiety and minimising the amount of side effects they have, such as insomnia and rapid weight gain. Often though, the side effects would get too unbearable and I would drop my doses or stop taking the medications entirely, and then of course, I would fall apart again.
Eventually I was offered cannabis. Not from a doctor but from a friend that came to visit me one evening. We smoked a joint out on my balcony and suddenly everything changed for me. I had no idea why I hadn’t tried it before or thought of it sooner, but as soon as I took a puff I relaxed and all my anxiety seemed to just melt away.
Eventually I stopped all my other medications and began using marijuana as my sole medication. I talked to my doctors about it, who at first were less enthusiastic about the idea, but after explaining my struggle with pharmaceutical drugs and all the positive effects that smoking marijuana has had on my life, I was able to get a prescription for it. Now it has been just over a year since I first smoked marijuana, and I am able to go outside and attend social events and do all the things I used to wish I was able to do. Weed has definitely allowed me to live a normal life, and I am forever in its debt!
“It almost killed me”
“I’ve abused my lungs quite a bit in the past. I’m an avid weed smoker - have been since my teens - and now I’m almost 77. It’s always been weed, never cigarettes, can’t stand the taste of ‘em, but weed is the good stuff.
I’m a singer/songwriter, and am actually quite popular in my town. I’ve played at all the local festivals, and when I was in my twenties I went on a tour to other towns in the country to play. Like every person that thinks they’re a rockstar, I relied heavily on drugs to keep me buzzing and motivated – but weed was always the only thing I smoked. It’s just something that comes naturally with music.
Now I’m in my old age, I’m definitely suffering from those choices. I started having breathing problems over ten years ago, and a couple of times I had to cancel a gig or stop halfway through a song because I just couldn’t breathe. Now I’ve been officially diagnosed with lung cancer. The thing with being young (and being human) is that it’s all about living in the moment. We do things that are bad for us, not caring about our future selves because it’s in the future. If I could go back now though, I’d cut back on the smoking. I’d sit my young self down and explain how shit it feels to have a machine breathing for you, or having to wheel an oxygen tank around with you everywhere you go, and if I could just send everyone one message, it would be to look after yourself.”