Chapter 1 from my novel Dungeons and Dispensaries. I discover the joy of smoking cannabis for the first time.

I can remember asking girls in school if they were Dominant or submissive and receiving a puzzled look before creeping them out further with an explanation. I would not describe myself as a lady's man in school, but I did have regular dates, girlfriends or "love interests" majority of the time. The first person to respond positively to my kinky questions was a girl I met in school named Sara. Sara was one of those punk rock alternative dressing chicks that dyed her hair funky

Trent “Dyno Mutt” Dade was the group mooch. His mother passed away when he was very young, and his dad worked a full-time job as a plumber. He was mostly raised by his older sisters. We had one main rule at the garage. If you showed up on a night when we were drinking and smoking and expected to drink or smoke you needed to contribute. You needed to bring money, weed, or drinks. Dyno never had any money. Or weed. Or Drinks. Most days he would earn bong rips and alcohol by doi

Dash Manor was Jason and Lil Ron’s friend growing up. They had all played basketball together. Unlike Jason and Lil Ron, Dash was serious about basketball and played for the Mira Costa High School team. Dash also had a love for Xanax which is something Lil Ron and he bonded over. The first time I met Dash he was with a friend of his whose parents were out of town for the week. Dash had convinced his friend to take the keys and drive a car his parents had left behind. His frie

Lil Ron got sent to a Juvenile detention camp somewhere outside Los Angeles. Several people had told us it was one of the easiest Juvenile centers in the country. It was a minimum-security facility reserved for nonviolent offenders. A rehab center with bars. Lil Ron made it sound like he was Miklo from the movie Blood in Blood out. There were many rumors around the neighborhood that Lil Ron had turned police informant and narked on a few of the other drug dealers in the neigh

Jason ended up getting in his own serious trouble. One day when I was at work during the day, Jason met up with one of his regular customers to sell them a sack in a nearby park. The park was empty, so they decided to pack a bowl in a pipe Jason was carrying on him. Someone must have seen them and called the police. About twenty squad cars pulled up in the park parking lot. It was complete over kill. Jason and his friend decided to try and run. Jason found a good spot to hide

Jason was living on the East Coast. His grandmother owned a large estate on an acreage outside a small town in rural New Jersey. Jason was born and raised in Los Angeles. To say this was a culture shock would be an understatement. The worst thing about living on the East Coast was he had no way to get weed. Jason’s grandmother was older and not the easiest person to live with or the kindest to Jason. She often lectured him about the bad decisions he had made that led to him l

I was working for my dad painting houses five days a week. It was a steady paycheck but truth be told I hated it. I saved up enough money to buy a ticket and bring spending money for a trip to New York to visit Jason. We planned my visit right around his next harvest. I flew out to New York and my mom arranged for one of her friends who lived there to pick me up from the airport and drop me off at Jason’s house. I remember it being really cold standing outside at the airport

One night Sara suggested we go to a local bar called Pitcher Place for some drinks with a few friends from high school. The night went by pretty calmly. I had invited John Ripley, and Sara had invited Mandy, and they were hitting it off. They were both alcoholics, so they had that in common. I was excited at the prospects of us potentially double dating in the future. I shared a pitcher of bud light with John while Sara drank Cactus Cooler shots with a few girls. We were all

After a few months together I paid for Sara and I to get our medical marijuana prescriptions at a shady doctor's office in Venice Beach. This allowed us to bypass any shady street dealers or middlemen and buy our weed from legal shops called dispensaries. In the earlier days of Legal Medical Marijuana in California it was difficult to get a medical card. Nowadays you could go to these shops on the Venice boardwalk and get a year prescription for $100. You waited in line. Fill

Carson was only in town every year for four months or so. When he went back up North, we had to rely on getting weed from dispensaries. One year right before Carson headed back North, he asked me to come over to his house. Since his house was near the beach, I rode my bike and planned to go for a beach cruise afterwards. When I got to Carson’s house, he tells me he is leaving to go back North in a few hours. He has been growing this special weed plant in his back patio. It's