It was exactly 25 years ago this month that I began my career as a daily cannabis smoker.

I didn’t first try it then; my first experience with weed was around 2 years before that. I smoked it once, or rather tried to and didn’t get even slightly high. While I count this experience as my first, it is practically unrelated to my continued use of my beloved dope.

In June 2001, at the age of 18, I properly smoked it for the first time, getting that sweet smoke deep into my lungs and getting righteously stoned to the gills! I was at a party and a friend of mine took the time to teach me how to smoke.

That may sound silly, but I wasn’t a smoker at the time. I didn’t really know how to get the smoke into my lungs without coughing it back up. If it weren’t for my friend’s patience, I might never have discovered how wonderful weed could be!

Getting high for the first time was a revelation to me; it opened my mind up to all sorts of thoughts and feelings. More than that; it was as if I discovered a part of me that was missing for my entire life.

Marijuana made me feel complete.

I know that’s a bold statement, but I genuinely believe it is true. I’ve often joked that I was missing a gland to secrete THC into my bloodstream and my constant dope smoking was simply me filling that gap.

Some people might say it’s a form of self-medication and I don’t know that I would disagree. At various times in my life, weed has helped me with depression, anxiety and a host of other neurosis that percolate in my brain.

Yes, I’m biased when it comes to cannabis.

After that first night at the party, when I got properly stoned, I knew I needed to learn more about dope. I started hanging around with heavy-duty dope smokers and I got to know some dealers.

Back then, the weed I was getting came from Colombia; it was brown and compressed and tasted like shit. It was also cheap, a whole ounce costing less than an 1/8th of an ounce of skunk weed does today.

We called it dirt weed, but it got you high. It was loaded with seeds and stems and cleaning them out on a double-album cover took ages.

I smoked nothing but dirt weed for a couple of years and then I met a brand new dealer who had something he called “indica”, which we now know as skunk. It had been grown hydroponically and looked liked bright green stalks of cauliflower, the size of baby’s fists.

This was the first time I ever saw proper buds and it would have been 1983 I think.

This “indica” was in a different class from the dirt weed I was used to; it tasted sweet and pungent and was much stronger. It took my dope smoking to a different level and this new guy had it all the time.

At one point, around the same period, he had something he called “chocolate Thai weed”, which had a slight taste of chocolate about it and produced a different high to the “indica”.

The “Thai weed” was more of a body high and it glued you to the sofa in front of the tv for hours. The “indica” was more cerebral and you could function and get on with your life.

Naturally, I enjoyed both.

At one point, I decided I would try to deal a bit myself; the only time I’ve ever attempted this. I bought a quarter pound of the “chocolate Thai”, with the clever idea of selling three ounces, thus making the fourth one free. This is a common pricing plan with drugs.

Except I didn’t sell any of it, I smoked it all myself. And I never bought that much in one go ever again. I learned my lesson; some people can deal with dealing and some people can’t. I can’t; I love the stuff too much.

When I moved away from that area to the big city, my dope habit moved right along with me. The big city was NYC and the year was 1985.

I started out by buying my dope in a local park that I passed through every day. Not the smartest way to score, but being new in town and going to university, it was the done thing.

At first scoring weed on the street was easy; dealers were scattered all over the park, hissing the word “sensi” at all passers-by.

It was simply matter of swapping ten dollars for a small bag of weed as quickly as possible, then walking away. My grandmother could have done it.

And then it all changed.

You can’t mention drugs on the streets of NYC in the mid-to-late 80’s without talking about the arrival of crack cocaine. Crack changed everything.

The first change was that the guys who used to say “sensi” changed their mantra to “crack it up”. Then the “sensi” changed; I got ripped off for the first time. I was sold “wack weed”.

“Wack weed” was fake herbal cannabis, purchased in a headshop for significantly less than actual weed. It was meant to be a substitute for the real thing, much like today’s herbal smoking mixtures. The main difference being that “wack weed” was shaped like buds and visually you couldn’t tell the difference.

The only distinction between the two could be discerned by smelling them, which is a time consuming and very telling thing to do when trying to do a quick and dirty drug deal on the street. But needs must, so now everyone was smelling the little baggy to make sure it had the real thing inside.

The crackheads got wise to this quickly and adapted their game. They began to put a tiny pinch of skunk on top of the “wack weed”, so that when you smelled it, you really thought you were getting what you needed. It was only when you got home and went to roll a spliff that you’d discover you’d been ripped off, again!

It was time to take my business elsewhere; luckily my younger brother was having better luck than I was and he hooked me up with a middled-aged European woman who quietly dealt from her Manhattan flat. I shopped with her for around 6 years, until I moved to London.

During that time, other sources would occasionally become available and they were anything from a storefront in lower Manhattan that sold it over the counter, until the queues of stockbroker-types on a Friday night got so long that the cops got hip to it, right through to a high-end delivery service, stocking gourmet varieties at a premium price. Now those were the good old days!

My European friend was very regular as well and droughts with her were few and very far between. I was well-served with decent weed until I arrived in London in the early 90s.

Back then, all you could get in London was hash; black rocky or sometimes Lebanese red. Neither was particularly pleasant to smoke, but it was better than nothing. Rocky has an especially deserved reputation for being nasty and is rumoured to contain anything from shoe polish to camel shit. Yum.

My semi-regular visits to Amsterdam were the only times I got to enjoy decent weed for the first few years I lived in London and some of the weed I had there was the best I’d ever smoked…until I grew my own.

About 13 years ago, I had a small indoor garden along with 2 friends of mine. We split the costs, the work and the weed and that freshly grown skunk was unbelievably good! We only turned 2 crops around before we had to give it up due to the loss of the location.

The main problem with growing skunk weed is the stench, if you think it smelly badly sitting in a plastic bag, imagine what its like when its alive and breathing on the vine!

I haven’t had the opportunity to grow any myself since then, but do dream of the day when I have the space and can be fully self-sufficient.

Lucky for me, other people all over London took up the mantle and fresh skunky weed has never been more plentiful. I had a mate who was particularly helpful on that score for many, many years, but he’s now retired and hung up his hydroponics.

These days, I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, so it’s not as straight forward as I would like it to be, but still I’m nearly never without, touch wood.

For most people, cannabis is a bit of recreational fun, but for others, like me, it’s a lifestyle, a religion, and a reason to feel good all the time.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t psychologically dependent on marijuana, but I’m not addicted to it.

I am addicted to tobacco, so I can tell the difference. I can go without weed and do whenever I travel, whereas I can’t go more than a couple of hours without a cigarette.

I’m not saying that being dependent on it is a good thing for everyone, but it is certainly a good thing for me.

If it weren’t for smoking dope every day, I can’t honestly say to you I would be sitting here right now, spewing my special brand of drivel to an ever-increasing audience of appreciative hippyfans.

I can’t say that I would be here at all.

I do mean that. Weed has saved my life more than once and probably will again in the future.

With the exception of a couple of brief gaps, I’ve been employed fulltime for most of my adult life, I’m conscientious and hard working. I pay my taxes and mainly break only one law; I’m exceptionally responsible and moral and in all of my actions. Even my car is environmentally friendly.

I’m a good person, I just choose to smoke marijuana in the privacy of my own home; a choice that as an adult, should be mine to make.

Remember, I speak from experience, twenty-five years of it. Maybe its time someone should listen to me!

Decriminalise cannabis now! We’re doing nothing wrong!