January 17th, 2019 I was sentenced to serve 60 months in federal prison for trafficking marijuana. This is the story of my relationship with marijuana and the belief I have in it. I feel like a lot of people don’t truly think about the effects that marijuana prohibition has on society as a whole. I will point out aspects of my story that I feel relate to others as well. There are two sides to every story, and I’m sure someone will try to rip this apart, but this is my truth that resulted in the beliefs that I have acquired through my own life experience.
I started smoking cannabis later in life than most. I was 19-years-old and in between my freshman and sophomore years in college. Right after the first time I smoked, I went to my baseball game high and hit a home run farther than I ever had in my life. Freshman year had been really hard on me emotionally. I had struggled with crippling anxiety and depression. I had never drank alcohol or even smoked a cigarette, but I immediately fell in love with marijuana. It helped calm me down and see the world through a new lens. I suffered a torn labrum later that summer and was prescribed Percocet for the pain. I barely took any, and I wasn’t a fan when I did. I used marijuana to get over the pain. I had a job at Starbucks and another gig helping children with autism. I made little money, so I couldn’t really afford weed. I started selling some so I could smoke it for free.
About a year later I had moved into a new house with friends. My best friend was in a fraternity, and our house was right down the street from his school. At the last minute I decided to enroll in the junior college right down the street. Their coach had known me from high school, so I sent him an email and asked if I could join the baseball team. My freshman year had been so rough playing baseball that I had lost my love for the game. I was finally becoming confident again. I didn’t feel like an outcast; I was actually popular on the team. I was selling a little weed, but not enough to really matter. One day I went and picked up $1,500 worth of weed with a kid I barely knew. We got pulled over on the way home, and the cop knew who he was. He immediately asked to search my car and found the weed in the back seat. As I sat in the cop car, I knew my baseball career was over.
I finished the semester of school with a 3.75 GPA and was doing everything to avoid going to jail. I had a drug class I went to in order to look good for court. They drug tested there, so I definitely couldn’t smoke weed. This is where my life took a turn for the worse. Despite the fact I ended up with a plea deal that didn’t include jail, I can honestly now say that the experience of attending those drug classes shed light on a whole new perspective that I hadn’t previously been aware of. During the time I was being drug tested, something new was introduced: if I took pills on the weekend, I would be clean by my drug test. Pills can’t be that bad right? They are prescribed by a doctor! Given to us by the reliable Federal Drug Administration.
I know that I wasn’t prescribed these pills, so there was a difference. My justification, I feel, is far from uncommon. Part of my plea was that I was put on probation. What anyone on probation learns is that there is only one drug you absolutely can’t do. Marijuana stays in your system for weeks while other drugs are gone in hours. As my probation progressed, so did my prescription drug abuse. The darkest days of my life were upon me and I had no idea. My addiction grew more extreme, and the people around me started down the same path. Eventually my probation officer stopped caring, so I started smoking weed again, too. At this point I was a server and making decent money, but I needed more income to support such an expensive habit. I started selling again, but this time pills, too. The kind of people I dealt with were sickening to look back on. Straight fiends with no hope, falling down paths straight to heroin. I justified what I was doing because I was still making money, but the person I became was absolutely horrific.
July 28th, 2010. This was the day my life changed forever. My house was raided by the police. I was in bed with my girlfriend at the time, who I had gotten on pills, too. We both got arrested, as well as a roommate who was home at the time. Fortunately for me, I had been attempting to stop pills, so what they found at my house was only about a quarter pound of weed. This date is one of the most important days in my life because it was the day I got clean off of opiates. For awhile I started going to Narcotics Anonymous and was all in on sobriety. Over a year later I was clean. Not even a single drink jeopardized my sobriety. Part of the plea deal I made was to get away from Baltimore and leave all my friends behind, to start a new life away from influences that weren’t good for me. Looking back, it was the best thing to happen to me. My friends who remained behind fell victims to addiction and homelessness. And, as is true with the sad stories you hear about pills and where they can take you, some of my friends died.
Opiate addiction is truly horrendous. Don’t let anyone tell you it does anything except destroy people’s lives.
I moved to South Carolina in the beginning of 2011. I knew absolutely no one, but I quickly made friends and got back into baseball. I had joy in my life again, a joy that I had lost to addiction. My life was fun and exciting, and eventually I decided that if I had a drink or smoked weed again, it wouldn’t cause me to relapse into opiates. I love N.A. and what it provides to those who need it, but I do believe it’s possible for some people not to go back to their drug of choice. Despite being clean, complete sobriety had brought back my anxiety and depression. Social awkwardness and feeling left out were also factors in my decision. Smoking cannabis brought me back to feeling good about myself and being happy. I became a confident, good-looking, and hard-working young man. I didn’t sell weed for years after I started smoking. I made enough money to buy it and conserve. For all intents and purposes, I had my happy ending.
The thing with stories is knowing when to end them, because if you keep telling a story long enough, you find out that there are no true happy endings.
October 10th, 2013. My grandmother passed away. I feel like everyone has “that” grandmother. My other grandmother had been a great woman. too, but the one that passed was the one whose death hit me like a sledgehammer. I went back to Maryland for the funeral and met up with my best friend. His story with marijuana is similar to mine. He has incredible back problems and has had quite a few surgeries. He was prescribed all kinds of pain pills, and for a short time he took them. Way before the rest of us, he saw there was a problem. His family lines were full of addiction, and he wanted no part of it. He made the decision to use cannabis as his medicine, to ease the physical pain with something natural as opposed to asking for a prescription for pain management. So both of us knew how bad prescription medication was, and we both believed in cannabis to be a better alternative. He was moving to California and needed someone to drive his girlfriend’s car. I had nothing holding me back, so I jumped at the chance. My grandmother had left me a little money, so I figured—fuck it—here’s my chance. I bought a plane ticket for October 27th. I would fly back to Maryland and follow them in his girlfriend’s car. I spent what I thought would be my last few days in Greenville saying goodbye. I had a few women I had been seeing regularly at that time. I wanted one last night with each of them before I embarked on my new life.
Four days before I left for California, right before the start of my new life on the west coast, I was in a car accident on the way to Charleston with a girl I was seeing. It was then that I found out my insurance had lapsed, so I had no coverage for the accident. I was devastated, but I needed to make a responsible decision. I decided to stay in South Carolina so I could pay for damage caused by the car accident. Instead of getting on the flight to Maryland on the morning of the October 27th, I decided to go to a festival in Asheville… a festival where my daughter was conceived.
When we found out she was pregnant, her mother and I were in complete shock. We were relatively young, but I felt like we were old enough. We decided to keep her and attempt to be a family. I was working two jobs and my daughter’s mother was also working. We were doing pretty good, but were still really worried. So my friend in California gave me an option: he could send me a pound of medical marijuana, and I could see if I could sell it. That single decision is what started me down the winding path to where I am now.
Lots of people smoke weed, but a lot of people don’t want anyone to know that they do. I find this mind-boggling. The public perception of marijuana is rapidly changing, but there are still people who are just uninformed. Marijuana has transformed the places where it has become legal. The revenue it brings in alone is a justifiable reason to make it legal. Yes, I made money selling marijuana, but not nearly as much as you would assume. I gave people good prices, and that’s why I grew. Going out west changed my perception on marijuana. To see it so accepted was truly amazing. When you come down to it: MARIJUANA HELPS PEOPLE. This is just reality.
There was a girl that I considered my work wife at one point, one who I bartended with for years. This girl’s father was diagnosed with cancer. He had been a preacher for years. She convinced him to try weed while he was going through chemotherapy. Him and his wife would hit the cartridges so that he could gain an appetite and laugh. I would give them to her free of charge because no one in that situation should have to pay to feel better.
You could ask anyone that I sold to, and I know what they would tell you: I was the friendly pot dealer who would never hurt a soul. Because of legalization, the buying and selling of marijuana has almost no violence. The cartels have stopped selling weed because there really isn’t any money to be made anymore. Marijuana is more than just a way to get high; it has many known health benefits and is unquestionably less dangerous than drugs we already have. A lot of people reading this are already pro-weed. I don’t have to convince you it should be legal, but there is one thing I want to ask: If you smoke marijuana in a place where it’s still illegal, how do you think you got a hold of that weed? That guy you know who faithfully answers the phone, gets you your weed, and probably smokes you up, too? You think you are giving him all your money, but he has to pay for the weed as well. At some point someone is catching a package, putting the money into accounts, and risking prison time so you can rip your bong. Weed doesn’t magically appear. It takes people who take risks to get it to you, and we need people who smoke weed to simply stand up for what you do!
I’m in federal prison because I sold marijuana. No one I got weed from or sold weed to is in prison with me. My story really sucks, but I am not alone. There are men and women in prison for life over this wonderful plant. What we need from you, reader, is to take a stand, to go out and vote. Many people think this isn’t a big issue anymore, but to those of us in prison or risking prison, it definitely is. Be aware of what your candidate’s stance is on weed, let your senator and congressman know where you stand on this issue. The only way those of us in prison for weed will get out early is for the people we sold to, the people who believe cannabis should be legal, to stand up for us. I’m missing my daughter’s life because of a plant we all smoke. This shit is still real, and I don’t think I’m asking too much. Share my story and the stories of other people going through the same.