My Source: “Can Ganja Use Lead to ‘Madness’?” in The Jamaica Observer, Thursday, June 19, 2014
Column link: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ess--_16935954
As the ganja seeped into my system the song from the radio (the Chilites) made me feel as if I was in the studio with the singers and the backing band. I felt it inside me, really deep inside. I took another drag on the spliff, gave it to Tom and opened the car and stepped outside. I saw the cars coming up and down Duke Street and told myself that I could walk out in the middle of the road and not a single car could touch me.
At just about the same time that Tom and Tim were inside the car laughing at me and telling me to get back inside there was another voice, one in a small sector of my brain saying to me: "Mark, you are under the influence of a drug which you do not fully understand. Do not give in to it. Fight it!"
For what could have been about two minutes the effects of the weed egging me to walk out into the road and the battle with that voice continued. In the end, the voice won and as I entered the car and sat back in relief, sweating, Tom and Tim were still laughing at me and telling me that: "It lick you hard, hard." That day, that incident made me extremely scared.
Professionals at Jamaica's main mental hospital seem to be at odds with policymakers, who have decided to 'free up' the weed, and the man at street level who believes it is long overdue.
(Continue reading at http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ess--_16935954 )
Column link: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ess--_16935954
As the ganja seeped into my system the song from the radio (the Chilites) made me feel as if I was in the studio with the singers and the backing band. I felt it inside me, really deep inside. I took another drag on the spliff, gave it to Tom and opened the car and stepped outside. I saw the cars coming up and down Duke Street and told myself that I could walk out in the middle of the road and not a single car could touch me.
At just about the same time that Tom and Tim were inside the car laughing at me and telling me to get back inside there was another voice, one in a small sector of my brain saying to me: "Mark, you are under the influence of a drug which you do not fully understand. Do not give in to it. Fight it!"
For what could have been about two minutes the effects of the weed egging me to walk out into the road and the battle with that voice continued. In the end, the voice won and as I entered the car and sat back in relief, sweating, Tom and Tim were still laughing at me and telling me that: "It lick you hard, hard." That day, that incident made me extremely scared.
Professionals at Jamaica's main mental hospital seem to be at odds with policymakers, who have decided to 'free up' the weed, and the man at street level who believes it is long overdue.
(Continue reading at http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ess--_16935954 )
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