When Paris was going to pot

I tried marijuana at a couple of New Year’s Eve parties in the early seventies and became absolutely giddy.  I remember laughing at everything.  About a decade later, I was offered a “joint” before lunching with a friend who owned an ad agency. (In those years, marijuana and ad agencies were synonymous. It was cool to get “high.”)

The” joint” hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like I was hovering in the air and watching myself below.  I would utter a sentence, and by the time I was finished with it, I’d forget what I said. I became frantic and told my friend I had to get home. That blend was obviously more potent than the one I had years before. I couldn’t stand the feeling of being out of control.  Being in control was my modus operandi. When LSD was the talk of the town in the sixties, the thought of experimenting scared the bejeezus out of me.

The “pot” experiences, as well as one attempted fling with cocaine when I was around 31 (it had no affect, whatsoever), constitute the extent of my drug use. Unless you include the Percocet I took after major surgery.

I know I have an addictive personality (I did, at one stage, enjoy more cigarettes, martinis and wine than the law should have allowed), but drugs have never held a great deal of appeal for me. Unfortunately, the increasing accessibility of prescription painkillers, not to mention cocaine and pot, is providing a great escape for many young people today.

I recently witnessed one young woman almost lose her life to drugs. At the urging and intervention of her FOF mother, she entered rehab and is well on her way to resuming a productive–and hopefully, happy–life. It’s not always easy getting to be an FOF woman.