- Growing up I was terrified of weed after D.A.R.E officers visited my school.
- I now live in Maine, where cannabis is legal, and I consume it regularly.
I was 10 years old when I met my first D.A.R.E. officer. I vividly remember his imposing, portly stature, black cop boots, and a close-to-the-scalp buzz cut that screamed, "I peaked in middle school."
"Smoking one of these," he said, pulling a prop joint from his pocket, "is the equivalent of smoking 10 whole packs of cigarettes. You start on this, and you're heading down a bad path in life." His message was clear: weed made you dumb; weed was a gateway drug; weed shaved years off your life and flattened you out like a cartoon steamroller.
Officer Tim was one of many D.A.R.E. "officers" around the country who spread their propaganda to impressionable young kids like me, instilling in them a decadeslong disdain and fear for a plant that I can now legally order to my door, like pizza.
Twenty-six years later, I am a proud consumer of marijuana and father of two kids. Here's what happened.
Baby steps
I wasn't one of those cool, straight-edge guys, but one who'd constantly question and mock people who smoked weed or drank beer. In college, I succumbed to the peer pressure I'd skirted my whole life and found weed to be underwhelming.
Maine legalized medicinal cannabis back in 1999, becoming only the fifth US state to embrace the controversial plant. It would be another 17 years before a Maine resident over 21 could enjoy weed recreationally. I moved to Vacationland with my wife in 2020, following the birth of our beautiful pandemic baby.
Moving to a new town in a new state with a new child is a trying enough experience for any person, let alone a new family amid a pandemic. While I wouldn't understand the extent of the psychological fallout from the isolation, fear, and uncertainty of COVID-19 with a colicky infant and healing wife, weed allowed me to look at my life differently.
It helped with my anxiety
Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug with heroin, acid, peyote, and methaqualone. This puritanical stance on weed puts it in a category unlike typical pharmaceuticals like Lexapro or Wellbutrin, meaning it can't go used for medication on a federal level.
I'd hit a wall with SSRIs, feeling the all-too-typical vague numbness punctuated by moments of extreme anxiety. Serendipity struck when I wandered into my first dispensary, a treasure trove of concentrates, edibles, flowers, and tinctures.
Weed helps in ways prescribed drugs don't
There are no Lexapro dispensaries where you can chat up the pill tender while purchasing SSRI-laced cupcakes. Pharmaceuticals work behind the scenes in ways people without depression, anxiety, or ADHD — or, in my case, all three — have a hard time imagining. The side effects can be crushing; zombification is a common complaint in which the world just becomes less interesting.
One puff of a sativa-dominant strain can scratch that itch in a way that invigorates my mind and boost my mood without any side effects. I treat my cannabis like the prescriptions I keep in my medicine cabinet. Out of reach from children and never in a place to disrupt their lives. I try to stick to low-THC drinks, pills, gummies, and strains that won't cloud my judgment.
I love playing with my daughter. I've stacked Magna-Tiles with her while drinking a beer, I've stacked Magna-Tiles with her after my morning coffee and Adderall, and I've stacked the very same Magna-Tiles with her while drinking a weed-infused drink.
The clarity and calm I feel from the buzz of THC (or, again, any other legal substance) help me appreciate the girl in front of me without ruminating on the intrusive thoughts that have followed me around since childhood. Now, I know where to find the strains I can tolerate in a form that won't disrupt the lives of my family.