"And then I got high."

I was watching Joan Of Arcadia last week and they had one of the main characters smoke marijuana for the first time, and get incredibly high and paranoid. Other loyal viewers were critical of his experience, and I was surprised to see the “you don’t get high the first time” argument was the thrust of their criticism. I would like to dispel this myth, once and for all.

I encountered pot for the first time in 11^th grade (I could, and no doubt will, write a whole other post that it wasn’t until attending a private school that I was exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sexual exploration) and I got high.

It was the night of the “Sadie Hawkins”-style dance, and my friend T* and I had invited two of the most popular boys in school (we had actually plotted out asking them down to the minute, to be the first to ensnare them – we weren’t cool, but we had balls). Luckily we had drawn in another girl, one who was privileged and unsupervised (P&U*), for a triple-date.

Dressed in our finery, we attended dinner and took pictures with Santa. We then headed to P&U’s house (parent-free for the weekend) for a little pre-dance entertainment. At this point, T’s date pulled out his secret weapon, a bong the boys affectionately called “The Twister”. The name was indicative of its shape, but in retrospect, it was a double entendre.

Not being familiar with such things, yet capable of following direction, when it came to my turn, my date gallantly lit the bowl and instructed me to “suck”, which I did. After what seemed like an eternity to my oxygen-deprived lungs, he lifted the bowl, releasing the “carb” and a torrent of thick smoke into the vacuum of my respiratory system. And that’s when the trouble started.

What trouble, you ask? Stay tuned, reader!

* names have been changed to protect the "ahem" innocent