When the pandemic came, I moved back in with my parents in Los Angeles. It was extremely boring. One night we had completely run out of things to do so they decided to go to a local dispensary and pick up. Obviously weed is legal in California, and they’d never tried it before, so they were like: “Well, why not!”
They came back with some pre-rolled joints, which I found really endearing. I come from a Reform Jewish California family, so it almost felt cultural for all of us to be smoking weed together. It’s what I imagine Seth Rogen does when he goes home to visit his parents.
Smoking with them in the pandemic turned me into a habitual user. Things escalated when I was in a job where I wasn’t getting paid that much and the company was being shitty. I started smoking at the start of each day. I think that I should get to be my most comfortable at all times, and weed makes me feel like that. I honestly think a lot of other people would be more pleasant if they did the same.
Now every morning I wake up, I get a fresh pot of coffee brewing and I finish the joint I was smoking last night before bed, which is sitting on my bedside table. When I’ve finished that, I roll another and continue. Last week my therapist asked me what it’s like being this kind of low-level stoned all day, and honestly I just feel more appreciative of details that are beautiful, and less affected by details that are petty and unimportant. It makes me feel less anxious, and I don’t get frustrated at people in traffic, which is a useful skill when you live in LA.
I rarely let myself run low on weed, opting to buy in bulk from a trap shop in Hollywood where I don’t have to pay taxes and there’s a promotion where they give you a free 10g if you spend $70. It’s usually an indica or an indica hybrid, which is perfect for smoking pretty much continuously throughout the day. I just want to have the edge taken off in a very baseline way to go through life.
Smoking weed is also part of my self-medication for my depression and my terrible appetite. My mom and I both have stomach problems that make us feel really nauseous all the time – weed helps me feel like I can eat.
Am I addicted to it? Probably, but it works for me and I’m functional. Maybe it makes me less motivated, but I don’t really want to be more motivated. I consider wanting to be more productive very lame, like you’ve been cucked by the patriarchy and capitalism. I have goals like everyone else, but I feel like achieving them quicker or more efficiently is less important than my overall enjoyment of life.
We all have habits, and some of them are worse than others. I’m not causing drama. I’m not yelling at people online. There are a lot of ways that people deal with their anxiety that are more socially acceptable than being an addict, but I personally find those to be worse. As far as addictions that I would tackle before my weed addiction, it would be my phone.
I smoke behind the wheel, using my car’s coin tray as an ashtray. Personally, I think weed just doesn’t do what alcohol does to you, especially in slow LA traffic. Obviously it is dangerous, but the only road accidents I’ve been in were from before I smoked weed – like driving past an ex-boyfriend’s place and being so in my head that I drove straight into a stationary car.
Last week, my dad called me while I was driving to work and smoking a joint. I made the mistake of picking up and he told me off for driving while I’m high. I found it pretty funny because I find everything funny because I’m always stoned.
Obviously this means my car smells powerfully of weed, which is not really a problem until I have to use valet parking, but the valets usually find it funny and ask me if they can hotbox it.
Do people judge me? Not really. I once got kicked out of the parking lot at work for smoking weed and listening to fast jazz too loudly – a security guard came over and simply said: “You need to leave.” I almost explained that I worked there and I couldn’t leave, but instead I just drove two floors up the parking structure to continue.
People often have some sort of idea in mind of what a male stoner is like, and I think sometimes they can be a bit surprised that girls also smoke weed alone. Women are encouraged to act in ways where we see ourselves more as objects – like if we’re going to spend money on something it should be on makeup, or clothes, or a diet, something that “benefits” the people around us in some way. But I’m spending my money on weed and not only I am enjoying it, it also makes me care even less about being presentable in public.
There is a certain lack of respect for institutions on the west coast. Normies will always be normies, and they don’t necessarily like it when you’re smoking weed all the time, but I also think there’s less institutional pressure on bohemians to conform because we don’t really have any old institutions over here. All these fucking studios were bought out by tech companies – none of these institutions have respect, so it’s like, why should you not smoke outside a building or vape in Zara? The last time I was smoking a joint on my work break, a city janitor came along rolling cleaning supplies and asked me for a light. “Smells good,” he smiled.
As told to Niloufar Haidari