To My Parents Who Don’t Think Marijuana Should Be Legalized

Dear Mom and Dad,

You’ll probably never read these words — I sure hope you don’t, anyway. But then again why should I hope that? I guess there’s just a lot of reluctance from me to share them with you.

I’m here to talk (or write) about something important..something you don’t like very much.

Weed.

For some reason marijuana is a big deal to you. I used to be on your side. I used to always turn down weed. I never wanted any part of it until after senior year of high school when my girlfriend dumped me. That was great, by the way.

I was at a party and I just said screw it. I smoked the ganja. In an instant I became a spawn of Satan, believe me. Just like they tell you in those old propoganda films, weed honestly invokes absolute hysteria.

But on a serious note I felt like someone blew on my eyes and forgot to rub the condensation off. I became the center of everyone’s universe too — or so I thought…I don’t know, I was paranoid.

I blacked out. But that was only because I had been drinking, too. My goodness, I don’t know if I want you guys to read this.

From that point on I felt like a veil was ripped from my eyelids (after the condensation cleared off, of course). Weed was hardly much different from alcohol. It made me quiet, happy, and extremely intuitive.

I felt like there were 100 voices in my head all at once, except they weren’t yelling over one another at all. In fact it was as if they were seamlessly chiming in and out politely, one comment quickly building on the basis of the last until the original point was way out of sight.

I found it was an incredible intellectual stimulant for me. I’m an introvert and live mostly in my own mind — the weed magnified that by 1,000. I found I couldn’t even have conversations with people because my brain was so internally focused.

Back then weed was just fun for me. I would smoke every now and then (every few weeks or so), but that was it.

Soon, however, I was diagnosed with something called Crohn’s disease. Every night I would have intense bursts of pain in my stomach that would last anywhere from 30–60 seconds. I was absolutely bedridden.

The Doctor’s gave me steroids for a while, but what I lost in some side effects, I gained in others. I couldn’t sleep at all anymore. With class at 8 AM, many times I’d find I couldn’t fall asleep until 4. I was miserable. I was a zombie. And most of all the pain didn’t stop completely.

Mom and Dad, you don’t know this, but marijuana absolutely saved me during these times. Most of the time I would smoke around 10 PM just so I could fall asleep at a decent time. Before the steroids and after I would smoke to ease the pain.

While high, pain would always manifest itself in the feeling of a warm blanket over my stomach. That’s right, marijuana actually helped ease your sons pain in one of the hardest times of his life. And you’ll never know. You’ll never know because it would hurt your feelings too much to hear your son was a pothead or something.

Because, for whatever reason, marijuana is as good as a heart attack to ya’ll.

It sucks we can’t have this conversation. I don’t know if anything I could ever tell you would change your mind.

You’ve managed to conjure an opinion on something you’ve never tried. And that’s kind of heartbreaking.

I do it too, I know, but I wish you could bend a little on this one.

I don’t want to smoke with you or something. I don’t want you to pick up signs and protest about legalizing either. I just want you to free me from the guilt I shouldn’t have.

I told you three years ago about my past with marijuana. I was very conflicted about it, but it felt good to be honest. Ever since then I don’t want to bring it up for fear that it will re-awaken bad memories and thoughts.

I feel like there’s a black stain on my record or something. I feel like you’re so upset with me for smoking that you steer clear of any mention of weed in common conversation.

I’ll close with this.

I remember being carted out of the operating room after getting five feet of my small intestine removed. You both were crying. You were crying because I should’ve only had one foot removed. It was much worse than you and the doctor thought. I think then you realized just how bad I had it.

Weed helped me through the roughest time of my life. Whether you want to accept that or not is up to you, but it did.

Marijuana helped your son, and it can help so many others in the world suffering from chronic pain. In a sentence, that’s why legalization is so important.