Community: Real Life

Stoners


Helen is rants editor at TheSite.org and penned this with her fair hand back in 2003. She was going to leave it lost in the internet ether and then realised she still pretty much agrees that stoners suck.

Helen has tragic memories of hanging out with sorry stoners. She has tolerated them for the last three years but refuses to endure their incessant giggling any longer.

It always starts the same way. It begins with smoking weed occasionally at friends' houses, then taking some home, then working out who the dealers are, and before long it has become the priority for all social events. Soon there are stoner-only groups. 'Straight' people are not banned, but if they join them then they are made to feel like outcasts. They are isolated for wanting to see life with clarity. 

At first it seems like fun being part of a gang who spend their weekends getting high. The effects are quite humorous and it can feel like a stress reliever. But once you've got past discovering the unknown, hanging out with stoned or high people is either as dull as Channel Five or highly embarrassing.

The other day I was on the train going home and a lad was verbally abusing his girlfriend. He was screaming: "You're a bitch," at her repeatedly. Then he said: "Sorry darlin' I can't help it. I'm in an aggin' mood because of that weed." Some of my friends say they smoke hash to help them chill out, I'm assuming they don't smoke the same type as him.     

And as for the dull, when I stay in with stoners to watch movies they either drivel on all the way through them about completely meaningless nonsense, or fall into a drowsy stupor so that I may as well be by myself. Conversations become frustrating as they lose the ability to articulate and repeat themselves constantly. They become rude, aggressive and uncaring.

There is a more worrying problem though. After hanging around with stoners for a while it began to dawn on me that I could hardly tell when my friends were stoned and when they were straight. They seemed to be permanently in la-la land and the side effects of the drug were taking longer and longer to wear off.
 
I admit that alcohol can have some of the same effects as weed, but there is a good reason why I am specifically bothered by cannabis. Most people don't harp on about being drunk as if it's the greatest thing ever (unless they're too young to drink legally). They might brag about funny incidences where they have been drunk, but in my experience they don't wax lyrical about the benefits of alcohol as if it could solve all the world's problems. I'm shocked by the number of people I've met who seriously think that if everybody were stoners then the world would be a better place. People who get stoned regularly bizarrely seem to think that they have an authority over people who don't.
 
So when I go out this Saturday night, no doubt there will be some stoners around. I'm sure I will get on with them fine at first, but as soon as they disappear out into the cold to smoke their gear I can rest assured that I'm not missing out.  

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Updated: 15/01/2009


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