The Drug Years

I first tried marijuana when I was a Freshman in High School. It was Christmas vacation in the basement of my friend Chris' house. Chris got some grass (marijuana) from a friend of his brother, and being novices we decided to mix it with tobacco and stuff it in filtered cigarettes. We hung over his fireplace with the fire lit so that his parents wouldn't smell the odor when they came home. We quickly inhaled and exhaled the cigarettes rapidly, not knowing how real tokers held in the smoke for as long as possible thus becoming world record breath holders.

My friends were whimps. They each gave me what they couldn't finish. I sat by the fireplace long after everybody else had quit, not realizing how high I was getting, until it was time for me to go visit the High School guidance counselor because I was flunking a class.

As I walked to school the street curb by my feet didn't seem normal; the curb and the street seemed much farther away than usual. In fact, nothing seemed normal, I was stoned out of my mind. When I got to school I pretended to listen to my counselor, but had no idea what he was saying. I sat in a chair across from his desk while my mind wandered; turning totally inward. While I heard blah blah blah I wondered if he could tell I was stoned. He must have noticed. I thought about it over and over, but in the end, he said nothing and I concluded that he didn't have a clue.

Six months later my friend Al held out a hand full of Mescaline (the stuff that makes peyote do what it does). I took a pill and nothing happened for several hours.

At the time I worked as a bus boy at a famous Milwaukee restaurant and that night I went in to my shift. Unfortunately, just as I was about ready to start work, the mescaline hit me with full affect. For the next few hours, I did my best to hold my life together, unable to stop grinning, and hoping nobody would notice.

During Easter vacation of my Sophomore year, I and my friends met some others and decided to break into and party in the house of a vacationing friend. We found the door unlocked, so we went in, stole liquor, smoked pot and partied. The next night still working as a bus boy, I got a call from my parents saying there was an emergency in the family.

My dad picked me up saying nothing. We picked up my mom and went to the local police station. Somebody had turned me and my friends into the police for what we did the night before.

In the police station I made up a story about what I did the night before, but they seemed to know everything already, so bit by bit my alibi fell apart and bit by bit I admitted to everything that happened the night before.

When that was all said and done, they asked me about how I got the marijuanna. I told them everything, still thinking that alibis were useless. I told them how my other friend's brother sold it to me. It never occured to me that there were no other witnesses at the selling of marijuana. I also had no idea that my friend and his brother were scrambling around their house, looking for stashes of drugs to throw away and vacuuming the entire house to dispose of any drugs. Their mom hired the best lawyer in the state and they were preparing for the worst.

Weeks later I was taken out of class by the local police and driven downtown Milwaukee to a judge. It was a small room that looked more like an office in some federal building. The police were in the room as was the D.A., the judge and my friend's lawyer.

The D.A. tried to convince the judge that we should go to trial to convict my friend's brother, but the D.A. wasn't convinced that anything could happen without a witness. That's when the D.A. responded, "But we do have a witness, someone who was there when the marijuanna was sold."

At the time I was caught, marijuanna was a Felony second only to murder. I was up to some serious stuff and the state was looking for some solid news worthy drug breaking case.

When I heard the lawyers talk it dawned on me for the first time. A light went off in my head - When I bought the pot I was the only person who was there who could testify! Nobody else was there except my friend and his brother!

The judged cleared the room for my testimony. It was just me and the lawyers and the judge in a very small room that looked like it may be the judge's office. The judge looked at me and told me to let him know what I had to say about the night I bought marijuanna from my friend's brother.

Without even a second to breath I said, "Well, I don't really remember." The D.A. was irate. "We have your written testimony!" That was easy to answer for me, "I was under pressure from the police that night." The judge threw out the case, and because the D.A. spent so much time on the pusher, he lost his opportunity with the rest of us, or maybe he just decided it wasn't worth it. Whatever the case may be, I was scared for about a year that I might end up in some sort of juvinile prison.

I heard that several of the guys from the older grades found the guy who turned us in and beat him quite badly.

I got superstitious during that part of my life. I seemed to get caught a lot during Holy Days. This event happened during Easter vacation, and during a previous Christmas vacation I got caught stealing toys I was going to give as presents from a local store. I decided to tone down during Christmasses and Easters after awhile.