Spoiler: Cannabis Use Didn’t Lead Me to Heroin Addiction or Worse

Anxiety used to keep me from trying marijuana and now I use marijuana for anxiety and chronic pain

Content Warning: Discussion of medical marijuana. Medical Disclosure: I am not a doctor. Consult a doctor before making any health changes.

I don’t remember the first time I smoked a cigarette but I do remember that it was in my last year of high school when I was a hybrid junior and senior. I finagled my way into “skipping” my junior year by taking junior English the previous summer.

It was a swisher sweet or a clove. I’m sure I wore dark red lipstick and felt cool as I inhaled the cancerous nicotine stick at 17 years old. Dying was for old people anyway.

You know the type of person who draws an arbitrary line in the sand and declares on one side is right and on the other side is wrong? I spent a lot of my life up until my recent middle-age drawing lines like this.

Smoking was okay because I’d quit eventually. Alcohol could result in a DUI or questionable behavior. It’d be harder to hide if I got drunk. I didn’t drink in high school. Weed was for the losers. It was a gateway to meth and heroin and crack and whatever else had been drilled into my head in the 1990s during The War on Drugs. I didn’t want to scramble my brains. No thank you. Smoking pot would be the worst decision ever.

I decided to reserve the idea of sex and drugs for college. I believed I’d magically know how to handle these experiences by then. I didn’t. Now, in my 40s, I’ve never tried meth, mushrooms, heroin, cocaine, or any other drug of the sort, but I use marijuana. It's something that was demonized in my youth and is seen as healing by many today.

Marijuana wasn’t the worst thing that happened in my life. Far from it. In the grand scheme of things, it goes a long way to alleviate my anxiety and chronic pain.

I deal with an abundance of anxiety and overthinking. I also live with clinical bouts of depression, clinical generalized anxiety disorder, and clinical OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I didn’t have a full understanding of all of these diagnoses until my 40s.

As a teen, I knew something was wrong with my mental health, but I didn’t know how to describe it, explain it, or fix it. I was uptight and self-conscious. I craved a carefree, worry-free frame of mind but accepted that was out of my reach.

“Quack, quack, quack!” I giggled as I climbed into my best friend’s Suburban. I’d asked her to drive me to my crush’s basketball game at some small college of which we’d never heard.

“Seriously?! You’re that high off a few drags of a joint?” Zena laughed at me, shook her head, and started the car.

“Yes! I feel so good!” I laughed and crawled around the suburban floorboard. I sound like a duck! “Quack, quack, quack!”

“Okay, my little duckie. Come up here and put your seatbelt on. Are you sure you want to see Sam while you’re like this?”

Sam and I met at the pool hall a few weeks prior and went outside to make out in his car. He was tall and handsome in that nondescript way. He had brown hair, big boots, a big belt buckle, a big boner when pressed into me, and he looked sexy playing pool and smoking cigarettes. I never gave him my number, but I always hoped he’d be at the pool hall. Over the last week, he’d become aloof and I didn’t understand why.

“Yes, Zena! I wanna see Sam. He’s so hot! Let’s go!” I laughed and smiled and loved the world.

Touch felt touchier. My mind felt lighter. Things were gonna be alright.

I don’t remember if we went into the game or not. I do remember being weirded out that it was at a small Christian college. Why was my pool hall stud studying there? Later at the pool hall, Sam told me we couldn’t make out anymore. I was disappointed. I didn’t understand why.

Then he showed up with his fiance. I was annoyed with her for getting in the way of my crush but accepted my fate.

While having my makeout partner drop me sucked, being high felt scintillating. I wanted to smoke more joints with my friends. I felt silly, free, sans anxiety, and horny af after my first few drags. It was a great feeling. I wanted this feeling all the time. I was too scared to buy weed so only smoked it when my friends felt like sharing. They were generous and I was a lightweight.

My friends were very protective of me. Although they were experimenting with drugs like mushrooms and cocaine, they never offered any to me. When I expressed interest in trying mushrooms, they steered me away, worried that with my anxiety, a bad trip could be really bad.

While I’d spent my formative years believing that all drugs were evil, my college years were spent enjoying the freedom of weed highs.

In Oklahoma, in the 1990s, the legal age to smoke cigarettes was 18, the legal age to purchase and consume alcohol was 21, and marijuana was highly illegal.

I mostly smoked weed when I was at Zena’s house out in the country and I spent the night. That’s what a big gaggle of us did. It was Zena, me, and Zena’s slightly younger brother and his friends, who became our friends.

For a while, it was a raucous, freewheeling, fun time. There were consequences to the heavy partying though. I scored a 1.0 GPA my first semester of college. I also kissed a different guy who I met in my Political Science class. He gave me mono.

On our two road trips from Norman to Las Cruces, New Mexico, we got high and listened to music as we drove through the mountains. I was paranoid about getting caught but the peaceful mountains soothed my anxiety a bit and I relaxed into the sounds of Sublime and Pink Floyd as we drove on.

Zena was busted while driving her family’s used limo, cruising around town, blasting music, and being intoxicated with a couple of friends. She was put in jail for a night and given a DUI. It cramped her style for about a year.

For me, college was a place of social experimentation. I finally got to explore altered states and my sexuality. I saw the damage smoking weed could do though. When I smoked it too much, it was all I wanted. I chased the high. I was already lost and listless, without ambition. I didn’t have the self-esteem to figure out what kind of career I could make. I’d given up on myself and smoking weed was a salve to all of this.

In 2018, medical marijuana was legalized in Oklahoma. We’d had our son and our daughter at this point. They were elementary school-aged. Dispensaries popped up all over the city.

When I became a mom, I decided good moms don’t smoke pot. Judgy. I know. I knew it’d come up eventually, but I was determined to say something like, “Yes, I smoked weed in college, but haven’t had any since before you were born.” I assumed this discussion would occur when they were teenagers.

My plan changed when medical marijuana was legalized. Suddenly, dispensaries were practically on every street corner. We pass one on the way to school every school day. I often have awkward talks with our children in the car. It’s easier when no one is looking directly at anyone else. We had some debates about whether or not marijuana is a drug. I explained it helps people in pain.

Privately, I worried cannabis gummies would make their way into our kid’s backpacks somehow. CBD tinctures could be purchased by anyone as long as they had fulfilled certain requirements. I hid my experimentation from the kids but tried CBD oil for chronic pain and anxiety in the summer of 2019.

Life carried on. I felt the CBD oil helped relax me. I became less secretive about it with the kids, but still felt inhibited. Was I now a bad mom?

Then my doctor told me it could make people with mental health issues more anxious and when she signed my order for the generic of the benzodiazepine, Ativan, she informed me that I could be subjected to a urine test any time I came in for a doctor’s visit. I quit the CBD oil. I felt the stigma. Even though medical marijuana was legal, I was prohibited from using it. Even CBD oil wasn’t an option.

In 2020, I suffered a mental breakdown. I received a diagnosis of OCD on top of anxiety and depression. I started a new medication for OCD. I found myself relying less on my benzos. I’d been using the benzos to relieve chronic pain, but hadn’t disclosed that information to doctors. I was too worried they’d stop my prescription.

I finally revealed this line of thinking to my husband. He suggested I try medical marijuana. I liked the idea. I decided if I failed a urine test, I’d come clean with my doctor and give up the benzos. So what anyway? Feeling better makes me a better mom; not a bad mom. I remembered how much I liked getting high 15 years ago. If I could take a tincture that would relieve anxiety and pain and trade in my benzos for that, I’d be game.

My concerns about work subsided. I work from home now.

In the prior years I’d gotten pretty scared when after taking benzos, I’d wake up and not remember where I was or our kid’s names. Medical marijuana felt like an appealing alternative.

I’m getting more comfortable with the topic of cannabis around the kids. When family visited earlier this summer, I openly discussed my use of medical marijuana with them and in front of the kids. I’m embracing the medicinal power of marijuana. That feels good.

I started trying out cannabinoid tincture in the spring of 2021. It helped with pain and anxiety. I tried smoking one joint. It killed my lungs. I was glad I’d quit smoking all those years ago. I was also glad there are different ways to take medical marijuana now.

Over the last few months, I’ve gone out dancing a few times with friends. In the moment, it’s wonderful. It’s freeing and fun. I shake my groove thing, drink a beer, talk with friends, and laugh a lot.

The next couple of days, I hurt. After seeing bounce musician Big Freedia at PRIDE this past weekend my hips, ankles, and shoulders screamed as I tried to rest. I took Tylenol. I laid down. I drank water. Finally, my husband brought me an Indica gummy.

I lay on my back and let it rest on my tongue. The sweet gelatin began to dissolve. I hoped the high would hit me in waves. More than anything I wanted relief from the excruciating pain.

My hips began to relax. The pain wasn’t searing anymore. My ankles felt better. My shoulders snuggled into the mattress. I stroked my hair softly. My mind slowed down enough to know Bengay ointment would help my hips. I rose from the bed and applied the ointment. The menthol heat soothing my aching joints. As the pain continued to recede, my mind began to relax. I was thankful, so thankful for the availability and legalization of medical marijuana.

Our son popped his head in our bedroom. “What?” I said, “I take gummies for pain sometimes, okay?!” He nodded and walked out of the room.

I realized I still feel guilty. I don’t have my medical marijuana card so taking medical marijuana is technically illegal and I don’t want to model that behavior to our children.

Today, my husband walked back into the bedroom with a handful of fruit snacks. “Did you get into Mom’s gummies?” our son joked.

“No, they’re real gummies — just fruit snacks,” he said.

My husband closed the door and we laughed. I asked him to find out the cheapest online place for me to secure a medical marijuana card. He shot me a text. I made the appointment.

As a teen, I believed the hype about marijuana being a gateway drug to hardcore drug abuse.

It turns out medical marijuana is healing, pain-relieving, and anxiety-freeing for thralls of people. I’m glad to count myself among the people who get relief when using medical marijuana.