No one should be congratulated for smoking marijuana, or for taking any other drug, or alcohol. Everything under the sun, if used or handled to excess, can produce negative effects. Drugs and alcohol and medicines, far more than regular food and drinks, bring negatives to the table.

Some scientists believe that they have established proof of an association between marijuana and paranoia. But science doesn’t know if it is that people who smoke weed become paranoid, or it is that people who tend to be paranoid are inclined to like marijuana. Of course, that suspicion of all human beings and human systems only becomes a concern if it is extreme.

Congratulations are due the GoB, and the group led by Doug Singh, for the sensible first step of decriminalizing marijuana. When the decriminalization is signed by the GG, a segment of the population that ordinarily wouldn’t try smoking marijuana just because it is against the law, might be tempted to give it a little try. I have little first-hand knowledge to pass on to such persons.

I will not become a weed smoker because my little experience with it, which I wrote about some time back, showed that it wasn’t for me. I can’t be sure that the first smoke I took was the pure stuff. I could ask the school friend who gave it to me, the friend who asked me to share his peace pipe after our high school graduation, but I doubt he’d remember.

There was one week of school remaining, after I took that smoke. I remember feeling strange much of the first part of that week. It was a feeling of not being where I was. Maybe if you are in the business of escaping reality for long spells, weed is a good thing. But if you’re in that business of being fully conscious most of the time, the first choice for you might not be that holy herb.

I smoked weed to deal with mosquitoes, once. No prejudiced person will tell me how addictive marijuana is because I know too many people who just walked away from it. And they didn’t move on to harder drugs either! I’d consider a lot of things to slow down mosquito disturbance of my sleep. I’d be wary, very, of trying cocaine or one of those hard drugs, because the only people I’m aware of who do such drugs are zombies or near there, and all the literature says addiction goes with those territories. But I’ll consider them to defend my night’s rest.

Get the good sense that sleepless nights are far worse than any drug you could take. Sleepless nights da haraz. You don’t need a medical doctor to tell you that. You’ve heard of the thing called hangover. Well, sometimes that is more to do with bleaching, than imbibing alcohol. Sleep is a human essential. Ain’t nothing nice about waking up in the morning with a broken-down feeling.

I don’t know much, but a good friend of mine, one who used to smoke weed in his youth, has an important bit of advice for those who want to feel like Peter Tosh did before he was murdered, if just for a day. My friend advises, very strongly, that one doesn’t treat marijuana like cigarettes. A couple draws, he says, then walk away and see how it makes you feel. If you haven’t found your-where-you-want-to- go, go back for a couple more puffs. The sense here is gradualism. When you find your-where-you-want-to- go, take your medication even more slowly.

People who are bad drinkers might consider making the switch. If you are a hyper drinker, the kind who wants to fight people when they have a few drinks in them, by all means, try marijuana. If you are an idiotic drinker, the kind who thinks they are better drivers when they drink, by all means, try marijuana.
I am told that this decriminalization does not allow home gardeners to grow a little weed, so it will achieve one thing and one thing only. That one thing is: people who smoke a little weed will be under far less pressure from the state. That, for sure, is nothing to sneeze at.

There are a couple critical things that decriminalization will not achieve. The trade of marijuana remains illegal, so people who engage in the sale of it will still be criminals. We shouldn’t expect decriminalization to slow down the turf wars. Also, decriminalization will not protect weed smokers from unscrupulous drug dealers.

There are different grades of marijuana. It would be unfair that a young adult who is trying marijuana for the first time, be exposed to a high potency grade of weed. There are some jaded people in the world, people so dead in their heads that they need quadruple doses of whatever they are using to make them feel alive. Jadedness is not necessarily the result of drug use. Life is harsh on some people. The most terrible drug is like aspirin, when compared with the terrible scourge called stress. Some people can handle that. Bully for them. They should thank their lucky stars, instead of condemning others.

There are people who worry that the minute the marijuana trade is made legal (decriminalization is only step one), the people who get a little end from it right now, will lose out to bigger players. The truth is that big players already control the trade. Every person in this country who is paying attention knows that the fellows who are murdering, and being murdered in the streets, are not the ones raking in the big profits.

We must pray to God that when legalization day comes, our leaders don’t do to the trade what they did to boledo. Someone pointed out to me what happened with that. Our government knew that skulduggery was going on, that much of the revenues derived from boledo sales were not reaching the national treasury, so they gave it up to private hands. And many small sellers got left by the wayside. If their handling of the boledo trade is any example, daag will finish eating wi supper. Was it laziness, was it lack of creativity to find solutions, or was it corruption?

It is written: when your leaders have little vision, or are greedy or seek to satisfy greedy people, the people perish. But today they earned a point. Those adults who need a little smoke to perk up their day will soon not have to fear incarceration.