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Confessions of a Reformed Pot Smoker - Jane's Story |
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Written by D.L. McCracken
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Thursday, 23 March 2006 |
 On March 20, I published the first part of a what is evolving into a series of articles about marijuana use in young people and the fact that not everyone is receiving the full truth about this particular drug and its dangers. Not in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the backlash that ensued following the article's publication. The experience taught me a great deal about the magnitude and proliferation of organized groups in Canada who will stop at almost nothing to drown out and discredit the few voices of opposition to the legalization of cannabis. After being inundated, browbeaten, ridiculed and denigrated by some of the loudest and ofttimes malevolent marijuana activists across this nation, I quickly came to one glaring conclusion. These people are scared. They fear those who publically oppose marijuana decrim and legalization - people who not only oppose legalization but who have the absolute audacity to even suggest that marijuana use in some people can culminate in serious health issues including but not limited to, psychosis and addiction.
From that glaring conclusion came Jane's story. "Jane" is a pseudonym but the woman is very real. She lives in the Halifax Regional Municipality and to protect her privacy for these articles, she became simply Jane. There is nothing simple however, about the woman you are about to meet..
Growing up, Jane could have been anyone's daughter. She was a dark-haired beauty with the voice of an angel. She and her parents knew very early on that Jane was destined to perform, to share with the world the gift that had been bestowed upon her...the gift of singing. From the time she could talk Jane would repeat over and over again to everyone who asked, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Jane would solemnly state that she would to be a famous singer.
Jane's parents, with a desire to help their daughter attain her lofty goal, provided the funds and personal support needed for lessons and experience by placing Jane in choirs, a local music conservatory and onto private voice lessons. The more Jane learned and sang, the sweeter her voice became. It was obvious to all that Jane would go far.
But then one day, something happened to Jane that would set the wheels in motion for the girl that was supposed to be a beautiful talented songbird to disappear and be replaced by someone so different and opposite to Jane that at times her parents would wonder who this new young woman was standing before them. At 16 Jane had met a boy. As with most 16 year-old girls, Jane was in love and fantisized about someday marrying her prince, living in a magic kingdom and knowing nothing but love and happiness for ever and ever..
Of course for everyone reading this you know what happens next. They broke up and Jane's prince moved far away. Her heart was broken way more than her parents realized. Jane was broken. She began to blame herself for the break-up and quickly convinced herself that it was 'something' about her that drove her prince away.
She quickly stumbled into a depression but she knew how to hide it from her parents and from those who loved her. She continued on with high school and graduated when she was 17. She applied to and was accepted to a post-secondary school in the area and would begin courses in September.
According to her parents, Jane was doing fine. She was going to continue her education and pursue a secondary career in singing. Everyone was happy. Everyone that is but Jane. Years later Jane would tell her parents that she pretended to be happy because she believed that it would hurt the parents if she told them the truth. She feared they would be disappointed in her.
So Jane played along for a time. She began her college courses but it was already destined to not work out. Shortly into her first semester Jane dropped out. The day that Jane dropped out of school was also the day that Jane dropped out of life as she knew it.
She suddenly began hanging out with the proverbial "wrong crowd". Everything that her parents had taught her about truth, honesty, morality, and street drugs went out the window and Jane embraced with a fervour the exact opposite of the life in which she had been reared. She learned how to be street-wise from her new street-wise friends. She had a new boyfriend - a young man from a completely different and foreign familial demographic. This new boyfriend also became her tormentor. He was abusive both physically and emotionally. She tried to end the relationshp many times but she kept going back. He brainwashed her into believing that she could not survive without him.
Her parents adamantly disapproved of the relationship not knowing that their daughter was being hit, punched and brainwashed. They saw this young man for what he was - a loser and a user. The more her parents railed against the relationship the more Jane defended it. The more Jane defended it, the more he had her convinced that her parents didn't care about her.
By this time Jane was smoking marijuana daily. Much later she admitted to her parents that she had to keep high just so she could cope with the boyfriend. What Jane didn't realize then was that she had begun a freefall down the rabbit hole and she would continue in this way for the next five years.
Jane's life over the next several years was filled with chaos but blunted with the never-ending haze of marijuana. She moved out of parent's home and took an apartment in town. The people she surrounded herself with were drug-users, drug dealers and criminals. In a fleeting moment of clarity Jane once admitted to her parents that she felt she was living the life she deserved. When asked why she felt that way, Jane couldn't answer. She knew she deserved to be miserable but she didn't know why.
Jane had been arrested several times for petty theft. Every time she appeared in front of a judge she was let go with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. To this day, Jane has never spent time behind bars. The leniency of the justice system eventually emboldened Jane who became convinced that she was invincible. She continued her life of petty theft, visiting pawn shops, selling stolen items and using the money to purchase more and more marijuana. In a life of chaos and uncertainty there was always one dependable constant - the presence and accessibility of drug dealers. They can be found literally on every street corner in the HRM.
Jane's parents began to suspect early on that she was heading for trouble in the form of a dependence on marijuana. They did not realize that cannabis-use can lead to addiction. Neither did Jane. The information that is readily available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection doesn't say anything about addiction problems for drug users whose drug of choice is marijuana. But if one looks deeper, it's there. The average person when researching marijuana will not use the word "addiction" as a keyword. Basically if you don't ask the right questions, you won't be provided with the right answers.
The truth is that in some people, marijuana is addictive. Jane turned out to be one of those people. It took three more long, painful and destructive years before Jane was ready to admit that she was addicted to marijuana.
Stayed tuned for the continuation of Jane's Story.. |
