Breakin' the Law, Breakin' the Law

Alan at 18

In 1968 I smoked marijuana for the first time in an apartment above a head shop, on Wells Street, in Old Town, Chicago. I was eighteen years old. My memory of that evening was that my cousin and I visited a friend of his in that apartment and we all smoked some weed. I did not let on that it was my first time and I also didn't think it affected me at all. It didn't, not until we left and I stepped out onto the street. The fresh air brought it all together and I was high. I was convinced that every tourist wandering up and down Wells Street knew I was a filthy pot head. When we had parked the car, it was only a block from that apartment. Now we were walking and walking, yet the car never seemed to get any closer. That was the first time, my virgin high. Over the years I had many experiences with pot. We grew some out in Iowa. I brought some back from California in a Karman Ghia, speeding across the country on Interstate 80. And I smoked a lot of it. All the time that I smoked it and became a party to dealing it, I was an outlaw. But I didn't fear the law. I was a dumb white guy and nothing ever seemed to affect me. By 1979 I decided that I shouldn't smoke marijuana anymore. I realized it made me lazy and stupid. So I kind of quit. Well, not really quit, but made it more rare. Now I never smoke pot. I have had a couple of laced brownies in the last year, but I actually prefer vodka over marijuana now. And besides, Illinois has now decriminalized marijuana. What the hell, they took all the fun out of it.