Happy 4/20!

PHYSICAL EFFECTS

The first mild sensations may be felt instantly after smoking half a joint, or an hour after having eaten some. Usually you creep slowly into a stoned condition, inch by inch sliding upward, but if you’ve eaten it, it may come on you suddenly, and strike you full force in the middle of a word. If the latter happens, it may sound like this: “So while I was shopping in the market I saw this fantastically beautiful chick, and I wanted to meet her. I was just about to use the ‘drop the jar of mustard on her foot’ ploy, when she…uh…what? What were we talking about?” And if the people you’re talking to are stoned, they won’t remember either.

Getting stoned suddenly and with full force most often is typical of having eaten rather than having smoked the grass. The reason is probably that an hour after you’ve eaten the grass, you’ve partially forgotten about it, and are therefore unconscious of the early barely perceptible signposts of being stoned.

The first sensation you will feel will be physical; a new tingling of some sort, a band of light pressure around your temples or in your shoulders or back. You become aware of your knees or your instep, or your head seems heavy and filled with chopped brown paper, or it might feel empty and floating farther above your shoulders than it’s supposed to. You might also become aware of your anus or genitalia. (If this happens, concentrate on it. Get to know it. Make it your friend.)

Your body might become warm or cold, but rarely enough to cause any real discomfort. And you will relax. This relaxation almost instantly melts into a quiet contemplative euphoria, and a soft muting of everything from the corners in your room to the texture of your chair. Suddenly you’re through the looking glass. It’s your bedroom or living room all right, and everything is exactly the same, but everything is exactly different than it ever was before you were stoned. And suddenly you don’t care about your arthritis, or that you have to appear in court the next day because of a speeding ticket, or that you’ve got a mid-term paper due in two days, or that you’ve only got one ear. Because suddenly you’ve discovered that the grain in the wood in the paneling on the door looks like the ripples of water when a rock is lobbed into a calm pond. And the photograph with the black border is suddenly given an interpretation because of the black border which now signifies something. And there’s a feeling going through your entire body that is sensual and exciting and you start to dig it. And everything is great and you just want to sit there and enjoy it.

You’ll also discover that grass is an analgesic, and will reduce pain considerably. As a matter of fact, many women use it for dysmenorrhea or menorrhagia when they’re out of Pamprin or Midol. So if you have an upset stomach, or suffer from pains of neuritis or neuralgia, smoke grass. If pains persist, smoke more grass.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS
Sometimes the early psychological changes coincide with the early physical changes experienced while stoned, but the famous mind-expansion (defined by us as pushed out of shape) comes after the first physical sensations.

One of the important things to remember when stoned is that grass distorts and heightens your awareness of both the outside world and your own psyche. This heightening and distortion sometimes work together, often resulting in confusion because you’re not sure of whether you’re seeing something more clearly than before or just differently.

Profound Revelations

Here comes another one of those conclusions that will send a lot of people into fits of pique: there is not such thing as a profound revelation while stoned! At the time of the thought, you may think that when you reveal it the universe will shake, but if you can recall it later when you’re straight, you’ll laugh at its insignificance.

The definitive story of false profundity concerns a well-known writer who, one evening while stoned (on something other than grass - but the principal is the same) was struck by a revelation of universal truth. He was overwhelmed by its significance and managed to bring himself back to reality long enough to scramble to his writing desk and frantically scribble his new-found wisdom on a scratch pad. The next morning our hero awoke, remembered that he had had some kind of vision and leaped out of bed to read what he had written. He picked up the piece of paper and read: “There’s a funny smell in the room.”

For those of you who still disagree with us, ask yourself this: In all the thousands of hours you have spent stoned out of your mind, have you ever once conceived of or invented something, or combined things in a new way, that had permanent substance and meaning? Oh, you’ve probably found a new way to interpret Dylan’s “115th Dream,” or you may have discovered a hitherto invisible burst capillary just beneath the skin on an inner thigh of a friend, or you may have drawn a groovy flower - but really profound, never. Ginsberg is right. Grass is fun. (That’s Allen Ginsberg. Ralph Ginzburg is also right.)

The fact that Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw a vision of the fragmented “Kubla Khan” while under the influence of laudanum (a liquid opiate), was shaken from the vision by a knock on the door, and, when he returned to write, the vision was there no more, weakens our argument not at all. Coleridge was a phenomenally gifted poet when he wasn’t stoned on opiates; “Kubla Khan” is one of his least important poems; laudanum isn‘t grass; and who knocked on the door?

Here are two “profound” revelations revealed to our friend Ernie while he was stoned: “Survival of the species is everybody’s business,” and “No matter how much you dislike pickles, it is, after all, the only thing that you can do with cucumbers.” At the time, Ernie was quite excited with these revelations and made an attempt to call the President to tell him about them.

What may cause this magnification of the importance of certain things is that your mind seems to be racing along, and, sometimes, operating on a number of levels at once. Coupled with the fact that you often have a tendency to forget everything almost as it happens, certain thoughts take on secondary and even tertiary meanings, and the whole thing can become very confusing.

Let’s listen in on a quiet scene in the house down the street. Andy and Virginia are very stoned, and spending the evening listening to their collection of old records and giggling a lot. Right now “The Syncopated Clock” is on the gramophone. Shhh, Virginia is going to speak:

VIRGINIA: Are you hungry?
ANDY: No. (Long reflective pause.) Wait a minute. Did you mean am I hungry for food, or am I hungry in the abstract, like hungry for knowledge or adventure?
VIRGINIA: What were we talking about?
ANDY: You asked if I were hungry.
VIRGINIA: Did I?
ANDY: Yes.
VIRGINIA: Well, are you?
ANDY: Am I what?

 

Time and Space

Your awareness of time and space also becomes confused. Things seem to take an unearthly long time, although sometimes, much less often, things which should take a long time, seem to have zipped by in an instant. Zipping slips by in an instant. Unzipping seems to take forever.

Our friend Ernie says he’ll never forget his first experience at a rock music concert while stoned. The group playing was the Doors and the first number was an eleven minute song called, “When The Music’s Over.” Two minutes into the song, Ernie leaned over to his girl friend and asked, “How many songs have they played?” “This is the first one,” she replied. “Oh,” Ernie said, but two minutes later he leaned over again and asked, “How many now?” “How many what?” she asked. “How many songs have they played now?” “One. Just one,” she said. “Come on!” Ernie said, in disbelief. “No, really.” “Oh,” Ernie said, unsatisfied. Two minutes later, Ernie leaned the other way and asked the stranger next to him, “Say, how many songs have they played?” The stranger answered, “Uh, wow, uh, you got a cigarette?” A minute later the stranger leaned over behind Ernie and began talking to Ernie’s girl friend, and before the song was over the two of them split.

Space alteration is totally unpredictable. Sometimes the room looks longer or shorter. The ceiling is three floors above you or an inch from your head. Maybe there will be no space alteration in your room whatever, but get up and walk down a flight of stairs and that flight of stairs becomes infinite.

It should be obvious that things which require good judgment of time and space should be scrupulously avoided when stoned. Things to especially avoid are cooking an egg, driving a car, and tightrope walking.

Time disorientation can sometimes cause you needless concern. Who hasn’t experienced having his girl friend say that she is going to the kitchen for some Tab, and then not see her again for two days? After concern that she has accidentally locked herself in the refrigerator, or been spirited away by Caryl Chessman, you run into the kitchen and yell, “What’s the matter?” only to realize that she’s been gone a minute and a quarter.

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