by Blake A.

(London, Ontario, Canada)

It was the beginning of grade 9 and I met new people, and fell into a group of marijuana users. They were great people but had terrible addictions to marijuana(weed).

In October 2010 I was in a forest with my friends and they rolled a joint packed with marijuana. As it was passed around the group of us it eventually came to me. And the pressure broke me so I took a drag of the joint. But I wasn’t high and had no intent on doing it again.

In late November I brought money to school for lunch at a restaurant, but one of my friends who was a marijuana abuser suggested to me that I should buy 10 dollars worth of marijuana so I did.

After I smoked it I went into a mall and I knew right away that I was high. I was extremely sad and upset at myself for falling into this drug trap. That day I spent the rest of my school day sleeping on a desk, hoping I wouldn’t throw up. I was relieved when I felt better.

December 2010, by this time I was using marijuana about 3-5 times a week and was very used to the feeling and started to like it. And this continued throughout December.

January came and I was no longer interested in smoking marijuana. But In my mind there was a voice saying “Do it! You have a great time and it feels good!” and another voice that wasn’t as vivid and wasn’t nearly as powerful saying “Stop, you are ruining yourself and hurting your family(They didn’t have knowledge about my usage)”.

It must have been February 3, 2011 or around there that I had my final date with marijuana. I took just one “toke” and I greened out(got green and ready to puke). I held myself together through the rest of the school day and made it.

It is March the 24th, 2011 and I have been clean for almost 2 whole months straight. But since the day I almost puked the smaller voice telling me not to smoke weed has gotten louder and more powerful and that has been my weapon and my strength in winning this battle in my mind against this now weaker voice telling me to go back to weed.

If you have felt the way I did and still do. Listen to yourself and fight that desire for weed. Marijuana doesn’t help you in any way. Fighting it and not smoking weed will make you proud, happy and emotionally, and physically stronger and after your friends have finished smoking that joint, they will be high, hurting themselves and you won’t be because you chose to fight marijuana and you won.