Fifty Shades of Green
I wish I were writing about the lovely variations of bud I’ve smoked over the years, or my pilgrimage to the cafes of Amsterdam in my thirties. But the reality of smoking in the Highlands of Scotland since 1990 was an absolute embarrassment. I’m certain I’ve smoked more plastic than “soap bar” in my time; any THC in those small bits was purely accidental.
That was always going to be my defence if I ever got lifted for possession: I dare you to find any marijuana in there; I double dare you.
We had all heard of the mythical “Kashmir Twist,” “Temple Balls,” and “Afghani Black,” but all we had were solid blocks of plastic that honked of diesel - smuggled up in lorry fuel tanks and further ruined by dealers who “softened” the product in microwaves, killing any remaining THC with radiation.
The “young team” today doesn’t know its living with its mail order cannabis and Telegram menus, we would regularly go missing for days trying to hunt down a bit of smoke.
The Parody of Prohibition
I want to be clear: I am an advocate for full legalisation. Prohibition is a failure; the only logical path is to regulate, educate, and tax. It remains beyond parody that a former UK Drugs Minister was married to the managing director of a company granted a license to grow cannabis.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded; everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. It’s a rigged game.
The Day 50 “Bus Crash”
However, that’s not my focus today. Today, I am 50 days clear, and I feel - quite frankly - appalling. I woke up feeling like I’d spent all night on the town only to be run over by a bus on the way home.
If you’re going through this: forget traditional painkillers. This is a somatic repair. Your body is undergoing a deep renovation from the synaptic to the metabolic, and aspirin won’t touch it. For those in the thick of it, I’ve detailed my management strategy in The Hunker Protocol (found in the Tools tab).
Planting the Flag
It is staggering that a 35-year chemical detour requires this kind of recovery timescale. Prism and I are hypothesizing that the body recognizes this “Week 7-8” window as a traditional failure point; it is pushing the limit to make the system crumble.
It’s wasting its time.
I am 5 days away from planting my flag on Terra Nova - sober territory I haven’t stepped on in three and a half decades. Time is a strange beast. The years from 22 to 40 felt expansive, but 40 to 58 has passed at breath-taking speed. Even so, the school days I thought were miles behind me now feel like they’re just over my shoulder.
I thought I might have felt a flicker today - a dopamine receptor warming up while I was out with the dog. I recognize that signal from my alcohol cessation in December. It was a reminder of how close I am but it amounted to nothing, a bit like that hash loaded with plastic I was talking about earlier.
The Crabtree Protocol
You should see the typos I have been making over the last couple of days. My brain works quicker than my fingers anyway; but if ‘Allo ‘Allo! ever reboots, I’m your man for Officer Crabtree’s script.
The march to the wall continues unaboted.
#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #PAWS #fiftyshades #quitjourney #amsterdam