My Cannabis Experience

A few days ago I was effected by cannabis for the first time in my life. Yes, my eighteen year old daughter has been stoned before her father was, much to her amusement! I don’t know why I never experienced cannabis before, I’ve smoked a few cannabis joints in my time, but it turns out all the while I was breathing wrong when I did it. I learned this from a friend Ustane and I went to visit a few days ago who taught me how to take it properly. Soon after I turned up at their house, my friend handed me an ornately-carved wooden pipe and instructed me to inhale from it deeply and to hold my breath for as long as I could. It was difficult for me not to splutter because I’m a non-smoker and my lungs are very sensitive, but I managed it. The smoke from the bowl of the pipe was sweet-smelling and formed beautiful shapes in the air.

Cannabis, aka “marijuana”, “pot”, “dope”, “weed”, “spliff”, “grass”, “blow” and many other names, depending on your location and the nature of its preparation which are many, is a psychoactive drug extracted from the female flowers of the hemp plant. Despite the fact that it’s been in use since prehistoric times, it’s a criminal offence to take or possesses cannabis in many countries, including my own, the UK. However this hasn't stopped it being used by most people at some point, including almost everybody I know. Somehow, I never did myself, even though I’ve been very interested in mind-expanding drugs for some time, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/programme-40-podcast-niall-murphy.html. As soon as I’d had a drag on the pipe I expected to feel slightly drunk; because I’ve never experienced it before, I assumed that’s what being stoned was like, just a different kind of drunkeness, but I was completely wrong. Nothing at all happened for about five to ten minutes and I felt completely normal, then I found myself starting to chuckle at things people were saying; it was odd because what they were saying wasn’t necessarily what I’d normally find funny. My chuckling soon dissolved into an uncontrollable state of mirth. My companions told me afterwards that I laughed hysterically non-stop for over an hour; in the morning I had abdominal muscle strain as a result. There were four other people in the room who were trying to have a conversation over my raucous merriment and every single thing they said sounded to me like the funniest joke in the world. I couldn’t help it; I’ve never laughed so much in all my life. It took several hours for me to reach a point where I could even talk properly, but there were other effects of the drug too. When I was finally able to string a sentence together between giggles I found I could only speak very slowly. It wasn’t the aphasic slurring of drunkenness, but just that my vocal organs were stiff and my mental speech processes very slow. And it was strange because at the same time my thoughts were very intense and clear. Memory especially was extremely vivid and recall of events long past was far easier than normal. I remember talking about one of the early David Icke Forum meet-ups which some of us had attended, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-glastenbury-affair.html, and it felt like a much more recent memory. I was careful to steer my train of thought away from less pleasant recollections, which I found surprisingly easy; I enjoyed enormous self-control. At the same time as being under the influence of cannabis I was drinking wine. I was a bit worried about the effect mixing the two narcotics together might have, but I couldn’t help it because the wine tasted so good, and it wasn’t a fancy vintage either, as if I could afford that! It was just a cheap bottle of screw-top red from my local corner shop. When we ate some food, that tasted wonderful too; in fact my sense of taste was supercharged. The same went for my other senses too, apart from touch. My skin felt numb and tingling. Eventually I had to get up and I found movement very difficult at first. Again, it was not like being drunk; there was no dizziness, it was just that I could only move very slowly. When I stood up I felt very steady on my feet, even more so than usual, but I had to take my time with every muscle contraction. As I rose from the comfortable settee I was on I felt I was floating up, as if I were standing up from the bottom of a swimming pool. In fact being underwater is a perfect analogy; the air around me felt very dense, almost like water. When I waved my hand in the air it was like waving it under the surface of a bath. As I trudged labouriously through the house I felt like I was on the seabed in one of those old-fashioned diving suits with lead boots. I had to lean forward to propel myself though what felt like very viscous liquid. My feet and arms felt weighed down but the rest of me was light and floaty. Some people have reported psychedelic effects with cannabis, including out-of-body experiences; I didn’t, although at one point in the evening there was a blackout and we lit some candles. As we sat in a circle with candles on the carpet between us I suddenly got the feeling we were outdoors, sitting on a hillside, instead of in the lounge of my friend’s house. I did however get the sense of strange presences in the vicinity, even though I couldn’t see or hear anybody. At one point I could have sworn somebody was standing in the kitchen through the open door; I looked around at my companions and realized they were all there. At one point I ceased to be able to recognize people; I looked around me wondering where Ustane was when she was sitting right beside me. I went to bed after what felt like days because my passage of notional time was also slowed down considerably by the drug; in reality it was only about six hours after my initial dose. I had a normal night’s sleep with average dreams and when I woke up I realized that the effects of the drug were still lingering, a “stoneover” my friend called it. This is very different from an alcoholic hangover; there was no illness at all, no nausea or headache etc, just the same effects I’d experienced the previous evening but far weaker. In the afternoon we went for a walk in the forest near her home and I felt that strange presence again; I kept looking over my shoulder thinking somebody was following us right behind in our footsteps. In fact I don’t think I returned to “Channel Normal” as Graham Hancock calls it, for the entire rest of the day.

I’m very grateful to my friend for giving me this experience; it was very powerful and pleasurable, far stronger and very different from alcohol intoxication. I feel no urge to do the same again right away, but I’m very glad indeed that I did it this time. I’ve always been opposed to the legal prohibition of drugs. Cannabis when taken properly is not only completely harmless, but it can be very beneficial. It has enormous medical potential and is used by doctors in all countries where it’s not banned to treat all kinds of ailments; many British doctors will recommend it, strictly off the record of course. I think any drug can be abused and can be harmful in some instances, but cannabis has far less potential to do harm than most others, and is certainly far less deadly than the two most commonly-permitted drugs: booze and tobacco. Used sensibly by mature adults, cannabis can give much goodness to humanity… could that be the reason it is banned?