My (Brief) Career As A Pot Head

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 2, 2018] ©2018 

My husband and I may be among the few people who went to college in the late 1960s and never dabbled in pot - then or since. We’ve both always preferred things we could sip.

But then came medical marijuana. My older son Rory had mentioned to me that medical marijuana might help the chronic pain I have from childhood polio, a serious auto accident several years ago, and just plain decrepitude of increasing age.  When he was visiting San Diego a year ago, he suggested a field trip to a local marijuana dispensary to get a “prescription.” Actually, it’s not a prescription at all, but a “Physicians Statement & Recommendation.” The physician is alleged to live in San Diego but when I met him on a computer screen for my evaluation, the background looked distinctly like Barbados.  

Rory thought that if nothing else, this could be a nice mother-son bonding experience. (The problem with sons is that they’re just not that interested in lunch and shopping.)  Once I had my “Recommendation” in hand, we were off to the actual dispensary.

Do not try to break into this place.  Seriously. Fort Knox is less fortified. 

Once in the inner sanctum, it looked like a candy store – except, of course, that the display cases were filled with every kind of marijuana one could imagine – smokable, ingestible, sublingual.  

I had already done some research so I knew that pharmaceuticals of the marijuanal persuasion have two properties in different ratios:  CBD offers medicinal properties without a high. THC is the compound that supplies the high.  What I ended up buying was a sublingual product – you spray it under your tongue - that was 18:1 CBD:THC.  The least hallucinogenic product they had.

I wrote in a column just before Christmas last December that my most successful gift at Christmas 2016 had been a lava lamp and two pre-rolled ready-for-action marijuana cigarettes scored from my very knowledgeable and obliging young neighbor. 

We always have a huge crowd at my son’s house in L.A. on Christmas day: our relatives, his wife’s whole family, my ex-husband’s family.  I couldn’t help but notice that after gifts were unwrapped (the lava lamp duo when the grandkids were playing with their stash upstairs) that all of a sudden lots of people seem to have decamped to the patio despite the cool temperatures.  Initially, I couldn’t figure out where they’d all gone. #clueless.

So it occurred to me last December that since I had a medical marijuana card, maybe this could be a source of some successful Christmas shopping even though marijuana was about to become legal.  I called the dispensary and a very nice young man made suggestions to me about products and I ordered up a bunch. And as it turned out, they even deliver!  The driver would let me know when he was arriving at my house. I was to meet him at the door for the exchange.

It was 5:30 p.m. and dark when I got the text.  I duly opened the front door, took the small package the smiling gentleman handed to me, and handed him five 20 dollar bills. The guy at the door looked startled.  “What’s this for?” he said.  

“I thought you only took cash,” I replied equally confused.  Right at that moment, I realized this guy is wearing a brown UPS uniform and that the box he has handed me is pet meds. I peered out to the street and didn’t see a UPS truck.  

UPS man points down the block and says, “Your house is very hard to find.”  And as if in an echo, our front gate opens, and another guy walks up my front walkway toting a small paper bag, announcing, “Wow, your house is really hard to find!” 

OK, it was the week before Christmas and we were ordering a lot of stuff on line.  But seriously, what were the odds?  

“Whoops,” I said apologetically to the UPS man (fortunately a sub), “wrong delivery guy!” I quickly took back my $100 and handed it to Dave, the drug dropper who gave me my bag.  The UPS guy made a very hasty exit down the steps leaving me holding flea meds and weed.  (Definitely don’t want to get those mixed up!) “It was my first buy,” I explained to Dave, sheepishly.  “Clearly,” he replied, pleasantly.  I guess now that we oldies are getting into the market, this kind of stuff happens more and more.  

So, I’m not sure I’m sold on the medicinal properties of marijuana just yet.  Frankly, the stuff I bought for myself just makes me feel really tired. Maybe need to try another product.

But regardless, it was indeed a truly fun bonding experience with Rory, and I now know how to do drug drops to my home.  And once again, I was everyone’s favorite non-so-secret Santa.