'PLEASE, DON'T LET ME BE SICK'

Deborah Ross has tried most things in life but - until this week - she
had never sampled the delights of the wicked weed. Here, she reports
on an eye-opening experience

Last night, I had my first spliff/ joint/reefer/whatever. You may
reasonably wonder how I've got to my advanced age without ever having
even tried grass/weed/ hash/blow/dope/pot/skunk/ganja/puff... Well,
I've always deliberately steered clear. I'm a hopelessly addictive
person. Introduce me to something I like (alcohol, fags, absurdly
exorbitant skin creams, the Lakeland catalogue) and I'll run with it
all the way. I've always sort of known that if I ever got into drugs -
any kind of drugs - I'd run with them, too, and pretty soon I'd be
that old bag lady who sits in the park with the mad Alsatian and
dribble on her whiskery chin. The line between me and that woman, I
have always suspected, is very, very thin.

Still, I kind of want to have a go, and I have a friend known to be
fond of dope, so I invite him round with the sole purpose of allowing
him to take my virginity, so to speak. He arrives with his girlfriend
and "some good, clean Lebanese hashish". Smashing, I say, as if I know
what he is talking about. I'm guessing, though, that good, clean
Lebanese hashish is better than bad, dirty Lebanese hashish.

My friend rolls the joint while we watch I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out
of Here!. (Rubbish telly programmes are not habit-forming. I should
know - I've been watching them for years.) We try to recall the names
of Toyah's hits. We can't. The joint is ready. I go first because this
is all about me, remember. I take a big puff. Ouch! It really hits the
back of your throat, doesn't it? I take two more big puffs. Ouch,
ouch! I can't feel any effects as of yet, so I take three or four
more. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Bloody hell, I'm thinking, give me the
non-throat-abusing Lakeland catalogue any day.

Then the sensation kicks in, and I mean really kicks in, man. I go all
sort of fizzy round the edges. My limbs feel funny, as if the joints
have been replaced by water. I say I still can't think of a Toyah song
but didn't she star in Derek Jameson's The Tempest? I'm aware that my
friend's girlfriend is laughing, and I know I've said something wrong,
but can't work out what it is. On the telly, I think I can see someone
having live maggots put down their pants. I then, for some reason,
launch into a long and, I imagine, excessively tedious tirade against
Lesley Garrett, which is kind of weird, because Lesley Garrett is not
someone I've ever spent a lot of time thinking about. I didn't even
know I had any feelings one way or the other about Lesley Garrett.
"She's just too pleased with herself by half," I can hear myself
saying. I actually feel quite disturbed by this, as I know I'm talking
complete rubbish but cannot stop. I then realise I need the loo, quite
desperately, which is a problem because all my limbs have now turned
to air, to nothing, maybe even to nothingness itself. I am thinking:

1) Can I get up?

2) If I get up, will I be able to stay up?

3) Will I be able to walk?

4) If so, how far?

5) Didn't Toyah have a hit with the word "free" in it
somewhere?

I manage to get to the loo, via a combination of rocking, teetering,
holding on to things and sitting down on every other stair. The world
is swimming. I feel I have been out of the room for hours, but by the
time I return, the ad break is just finishing, so I know it can have
been only a minute or two. I'm now getting strange rushes: prickly,
hot waves that start at my feet and move quickly upward. The same
rushes you get just before you faint. The same rushes you get just
before you are about to be sick. Oh, please, I am thinking, don't let
me be sick, here, in front of my friend and his girlfriend. I guess I
am now well stoned. Man.

Back on the telly, someone is walking across a high bridge and not
liking it. Toyah looks rubbish without her make-up. At some point, my
friend and his girlfriend go. I suspect that they let themselves out.
Then my partner, who has a knee injury and is on crutches, and has had
a few puffs "because it never affects me", gets up from his chair and
falls flat on his face. The crutches fly. This shouldn't be funny, but
it is, wildly. I laugh until the tears run down my face. I laugh until
I have tummy ache. I laugh until my face hurts. The laughter banishes
the nausea, thank God. And then, somehow, I get to bed, where I sleep
very well and dream of neon daffodils.

And this morning? No hangover as such; just a very dry mouth that
tastes as if someone in extremely muddy boots has stamped through it,
and a raging thirst.

Overall, I think I generally quite liked the experience. It's a bit
like getting drunk, only without any of the calories. And Lesley
Garrett is a little too pleased with herself. Oh, hell. Am I a grass
fiend now? Isn't dope simply a crutch for people who cannot cope with
reality? On the other hand, though, maybe reality is simply a crutch
for those who cannot cope with dope.That's my line, and I'm sticking
to it.