Cannabis: How I’m Treated Now
Fort Collins- I was born and raised in Fort Collins Colorado, and grew up with the liberal views, that many of this town’s population seem to hold. I grew up in a city that supports biking and hiking, and Saturday afternoons in local town squares surrounded by sunshine and beer. Every year we would ride our bikes for tour de fat, and jammed at New West Fest. More to the point, I grew up in a city that eventually supported the legalization of cannabis. We even have the state’s first registered dispensary right here, on Mulberry (technically just outside of FOCO).
Despite growing up here and knowing that a hefty majority of this towns voter population supports cannabis use, I chose to not be open about my cannabis use. I feared that being open about my cannabis consumption would lead people to look at me, and treat me different. I feared that despite the fact that I was now knowingly using cannabis for medicinal reasons more than recreational, people would only see my medical card as a way I justify being high all the time.
I also think to my upbringing and reminisce on being taught to have an acceptable societal façade for people to look to and find comfort. Being someone who graduated high school at the age of 16 (and was 16 her first week in college), you could say that people from that time of my life were extremely shocked to find I use cannabis.
Now, technically speaking I have only been a medical patient for a year, and as someone who consumed THC prior to my medical card, I realized that the need for open discussion regarding cannabis is very prevalent as many of us are still very closeted about our consumption.
There are of course, a number of people who feel extremely open and confident, wearing their activism on their sleeve, hoping to normalize the presence of cannabis in the community, but they are just the minority within the community. Many adults, like some in my life who asked to remain nameless, grew up with cannabis consumption having to be a completely private matter or else their livelihood was at risk.
When I first ever posted any cannabis related content, it was on an Instagram story. Numerous people in similar situations of hiding their consumption decided to reach out to me in solidarity; and I also happened to lose 16 followers. Now I didn’t have much activity on that account regularly as my posts are infrequent and I’m a fairly shy person, so it was quiet clearly linked to my new posts. I was fine with this (losing 16 followers) and completely understand people want to see the content the agree with!
I started having people who previously liked me, openly like me a lot less. I of course gained many more friends from these situations, as many of us today are using cannabis, but it still made me upset because I felt the issue stemmed from the stigma of cannabis rather than just disagreeing. I didn’t change who I was, I just showed them part of me that I had previously kept on the DL.
The friends I began making were finally on the same wave length as me; hustling to get my life together and going, but also doing so while being medicated. People who used cannabis as a means to get through the shit that otherwise puts a startling halt on life; such as chronic pain that makes most everything you do much more difficult.
Just this semester, I started being open about my cannabis use with students and peers and that has been interesting too. I think some students see it as a way I am trying to come off as cool and chill, when in reality cannabis is the one thing that has helped my body function more regularly. Between chronic pain, anxiety, chronic nausea related to food allergies, chronic illness, PCOS, migraines, and honestly so many other diagnosed issues, cannabis is the only way I’ve maintained.
I began using cannabis on a regular basis, the second semester of my sophomore year in college. In college, a lot of focus is directed towards peoples accumulated grade point averages, or GPA’s. My GPA from the past three semesters was a whopping 2.3 (something I have been making up for since let me tell you), and if you only factor in my semesters where I was medicated, my accumulative GPA was nearly a 3.1. I had the same thing happen to me in high school; my senior year second semester I had quite a bit of anxiety and senioritis, I began smoking every weekend and my GPA reached its highest point in high school, a 3.82.
My point here, is that for me personally, cannabis had no negative effects on my daily routine or the goals I was trying to accomplish. This is really important to me because even here in this article, I find myself defending my choices (that I made regarding my health) out of fear placed on me because of the stigma.
My other point with giving you far too many details about my academic history, is that these strides were made without my professors having any ideas about my cannabis use.
As you can guess, living and functioning with the array of health issues can be rather difficult and results in far too many sick days. Since being open regarding my cannabis use with professors, this means that I have to even further prove to them that I am actually sick and not just someone trying to get a day off to stay home and get high.
Being chronically ill already comes with a HEAP of judgment regarding how I live and have lived my life previously, so I am very sensitive to having to defend myself constantly, and now having to do so with professors as well is extremely difficult. I am learning how to manage this new stress of professors knowing my personal business, but I must say I don’t know if I will continue being open with professors specifically in the future.
Okay, so how does my personal history of cannabis use, and the clear stigmatization of cannabis relate to Fort Collins? Well it is my personal theory that if these closeted, successful, adults who use cannabis regularly weren’t so secretive about their use, the stigmatization of cannabis could finally dissolve. This would mean people could medicate freely, without fear of condemnation from surrounding community members.
This is a community built on great food, local beer, and up and coming music so the likelihood of one of these community leaders using cannabis is not far fetched; the strides this community could make in removing the ‘stoner’ stereotype could greatly help remove the stigmatization of cannabis.
I live for the day when my medicinal, and recreational, choices are not one the public can openly feel a right to criticize and judge me on unfairly.
