I don’t think I am that different from the average person walking around this blue-and-green space projectile with respect to my mentality. I tend to reach beyond my established boundaries. I want to learn more, know more, be more.
It is a mindset that serves me well most of the time, but it does have a current of dissatisfaction that runs through it. When the balance tips, and I lean fully into that dissatisfaction, my mood can sprint quickly from annoyed to, “Where are the goddamn matches? I’m going to burn this entire planet to the ground!!!”
This rage brings a few kicks with it, but it is not that fun. I know that waking up late, or another shithead in traffic, or a decent stack of bills are no excuse for my anger meter to tack to 11, but when that part of me takes over, it usually drops logic off in a desperate hellhole without a map, and then goes to work on my blood pressure, my adrenaline, the veins around my temples, and the rest of the Spazz Package. That can go on for a while, until the situation around me has (please picture air quotes being made through this next section) “improved” enough to “allow me” to “calm down” and “conduct myself like a ‘normal human being’ instead of a lunatic,” or until I remember that it is, every last bit of it, unimportant in the end. There are a few passageways to return to satisfaction, and gratitude is among the most direct.
In that mindset, here are some of the top things about cannabis that I am grateful for.
Number 1: She is just so damn simpatico. Seriously, what other substance do we have available to us that makes the world better by taking away some of our physical pain and some of our mental stress, and replacing it with relief and the added bonus of opening a channel to the spiritual side of existence? I have tried, and have watched others try, to balance a cocktail containing pharmaceutical and illegal drugs and booze. It fails miserably at keeping the balance that a few puffs of weed allows access to.
Number 2: Cannabis is not only safe, but actually healthy. A lot of the chemicals that have been herded under the banner of “drugs” (as opposed to those the FDA would simply call “herbs”) in our society are there for safety’s sake. Heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, tranquilizers, alcohol (despite its over-the-counter status) – all these things, taken in too large a dose or for too long, will mess you up. Hell, even too much Advil or Tylenol will jack up your liver.
And, number 3: Percent possibility of death from a marijuana “overdose”? Exactly zero (unless you are going to become the first person to rifle down 1500 or so pounds of it in an hour. If that is your mission, I applaud you and wish you well). Yes, you can get really high – too high, so high you might wish you were dead – but you will not die, so, there’s that.
Information on the health benefits of cannabis has been spread far and wide over the past decade or so, and will continue to be, especially as the ridiculous legal roadblocks to research continue to fall by the wayside. I truly look forward to the expanded use of cannabis as medicine for everyone. Baby steps.
There, DGO, is a partial list of why cannabis fills me with gratitude. The full list is the content of every Seeing Through the Smoke column that I have composed. I love this space, I love this topic, and I love you. I am going to go spin one up. Have a great week.
Christopher Gallagher lives with his wife and their four dogs and two horses. Life is pretty darn good. Contact him at [email protected].
