To Use Pot or Not to Use Pot?

I don’t know what first made me wonder about using pot. It suddenly occurred to me one day when I was in church, of all places. A little thought bubble formed in my head and, written in my neat little cursive handwriting was, “I wonder what pot is like?”

I would never actually use marijuana. I’m too smart for that. I have too much going for me. Besides, according to health class, it’s the gateway drug. One minute, you’re smoking a little weed, and the next, you’re Lindsay Lohan.

But the question wouldn’t go away. Pot seemed to be the word of the day.
And that’s when I talked to Matt Kemper.

Matt Kemper, my older sister’s middle-school boyfriend, is my friend on Facebook, even though I haven’t actually talked to him in years, since I moved to a different state. But he’s always posting statuses about whom he’s been smoking pot with and how high he got on the weekend. I took a chance and asked him on Facebook chat: “Can I ask you a question?” Once I got the go-ahead, I said, “Just out of idle curiosity, what’s it like to smoke pot?”

Matt was pretty helpful. All of my juvenile pot questions were answered, such as: how often do you smoke it? (Not too often, and not in large amounts.)
How do you not get caught? (It’s hard for police to bust you using pot, if you’re with a bunch of smokers you can smoke pot and people won’t look twice, you just claim the smell was there when you got there. You can also have pot brownies. I once brought pot brownies in my carryon bag on an airplane and no one suspected a thing.)
Pot brownies?? (Sure. You can put pot in almost everything.)
What about your parents? (They know about it, and they don’t much like it, but it’s generally okay as long as I don’t bring it into the house. And there’s not much they can do, since I’m away at college.)
How do you get it in the first place? (I have a friend who grows it.)

And the number one question: What’s it like?

Because from what everyone’s said, pot is great—other than all of the negative health consequences about killing your brain cells until you’re a walking brain soup. People joke about pot all the time. On That 70’s Show, it’s featured in nearly every episode, the kids lighting up in a circle. Pot is everywhere.

According to Matt, pot generally makes you at ease, makes your brain think in a different way, causes you to speculate about things differently. It’s different for everyone, and some people are even not affected at all by pot, or else allergic. It just depends on the person.

And I would never, ever, ever use it.

Would I?

Of course not!

But maybe…

Pot was on my brain for the next couple of weeks, and I began talking to my friends about it. Would you ever use pot? Of course not, it’s bad for you and you’d get in trouble. Simple as that. Case closed.

But still, there was something alluring about the idea of it. Maybe just once, then you’d have no problem because you’d know what it was like and get it over with. Matt says that pot isn’t some big drastic measure that will ultimately change your life forever. It’s no big deal, right? You try it once and decide if it’s right for you. And the health consequences aren’t as bad as they’re made to seem like. I mean, Matt’s been smoking pot since he was fourteen, and he got into college, didn’t he?

I asked my older sister Clare, who’s also in college, if she’d ever tried it. She said no, but she’d talked to our cousin about it. Oh, and if I’ve considered to try it, let her know what it’s like.

Wait, what? Our cousin uses pot? And my sister’s okay with me trying it? Shouldn’t she be concerned? Why does everyone have this laid-back attitude? Shouldn’t this be something to freak out about. It’s not pot. It’s POT! P-O-T, POT! MARIJUANA! WEED! ILLEGAL! BAD FOR YOU! RUIN YOUR LIFE!

And yet…

No, Helena, I told myself. Pot is out of the question.

And I really wouldn’t have the guts to do it. I’d be a wimp. Maybe my friend Raleigh would smoke a little pot. She has smoked cigarettes, after all. But me? Straight-A kid with everything going for her? Sister who’s in an Ivy League school? Preacher’s kid? No. I wouldn’t go near pot. In fact, I have no idea where I’d get it. I don’t have pothead friends who grow it in their basements. Heck, I don’t even have money to buy the pot with. I don’t even know how I’d use it.

But the idea of pot was so alluring and suddenly so fascinating to me, for reasons I couldn’t explain. And that’s when it hit me:

It was the rebellion factor.

Sure, people use drugs to fit in, but what about to stand out? To revolt against what I know is right and expected?

Because that little thought that perseverated in my head that day in church was my conscience, fueled by my teenage hormones, telling me, “Experiment. Experiment, Helena. Be a rebel. Be someone you’re not. Do something dangerous. Do something crazy. Be that girl.”

And you know what I learned, in the end, after lots of contemplation and an ultimate realization over my fear of getting caught up in the world of drugs?

I’m not that girl.