Jump to content
  • entries
    35,857
  • comments
    14
  • views
    405,045

Indian Stoners Share Their Lockdown Cannabis Stories As World Celebrates 4/20 Behind Shut Doors


ADMIN

75 views

For stoners all around the world, this month is nothing short of historic. 

April 2020 - itâll be a hundred years before weâll see 4/20 on non-American calendars again, and as Americans in legal states such as California line up outside marijuana dispensaries in socially-distanced queues, pot has been a companion of choice for many to keep up with the boredom and isolation faced behind closed doors.

Things are a little different for Indians, however. With the barely-legal status of cannabis, strict lockdown measures and conservative rules at home, several nashedis have had to drastically change the way they get high - or give up the habit altogether, willingly and otherwise.

The Ones Who Stocked Up

How Indian Stoners Are Celebrating 4/20 Amid Lockdown © Unsplash

Iâm going to be frank here - while I was initially part of this group, the temptation to light one (or three) up during Janta curfew was far too much, and ever since, Iâve dwindled away my rations like a certain rum-greedy pirate.

via GIPHY

For 24-year-old Mumbai-based copywriter SP, things were a little more thought out. âBefore the lockdown. I bought enough to last me a month or two so I haven't gotten back in touch with him yet,â she shares, regarding her dealer. âI hope heâs okay,â she adds.

SPâs solution to keeping the party going at home is to rely on planning and rationing out her smoke sessions through the lockdown. âI hope I don't have to go clean,â she admits, concerned about the potential length of the quarantine period. âI think I can sustain my stash for a while. I've just been smoking less frequently. You can count that as a change of habit.â

Personally, getting high at home is fun but potentially frustrating - if you choose to rely on ganja to spice up your free time, it may get repetitive with limitations on what you can do, and before going clean, my post-puff routine involved rotating through activities such as video games, playing the guitar, meditating and when the boredom got too intense, simply getting chores done with a good playlist in the background. 

Not everyoneâs that fickle, though. âThere isn't much to do with the lockdown on,â continues SP âSo the smoke sessions are now more special than ever. Music pairs well with marijuana. There's no way I'm ever getting bored with the two around.â Despite this, she admits that she misses sharing sessions with friends - although tagging along with the recent upsurge in video calls and live streams, sheâs scheduled sessions with close stoner buddies, some of whom live in distant time zones.

âThere's a stoner song that goes - âSometimes the only way to get by is to get high," she concludes.

Going Undercover

How Indian Stoners Are Celebrating 4/20 Amid Lockdown © Unsplash

While a good deal of us live in solitude or share a home with like-minded roommates, personal freedom is something we take for granted - just ask anyone whoâs stuck with family or in a hostel during the shutdown.

SB, a 21-year-old Mumbaikar has found her own ways to cope with these restrictions and amusingly enough, itâs even legal. âI use weed (bhaang) golis,â she shares, referring to the commonly available cannabis consumables that make a countrywide comeback every Holi. 

âThey're basically edibles. Pretty convenient since I just have to pop it in my mouth and swallow with water like any normal medicine, and nobody suspects anything if I act weird because there's no smell.â 

While this convenient candy-sized option allows SB the freedom to get baked undercover, living with family does pose some unavoidable challenges.

âI think the only downside is that there's limited freedom since there's family around,â she admits. âI sometimes get twitchy/wiggly when I'm high and it's a lot of fun letting loose and let my body go into snake-mode! But since I'm around family, I can only enjoy the mental aspect of the high, I have to suppress the physical sensations, which is a little disappointing and makes the high slightly boring, or rather not as exciting as usual.â

Despite this, SB's seen value in creative and cinematic experiences - particularly in practising her artwork and enjoying the stunning cinematography of Moving Art or animated classics by Hayao Miyazaki. âI always enjoyed these things while stoned but rarely actually did them since I usually stoned with friends before lockdown happened, she shared. 

With the lockdown being her first experience with exploring her own thoughts in relative solitude. âIn fact, even if I'm feeling like a loner stoner, it's still nice zoning out in silence with my friends around, having their chatter as a background to my thoughts. I've also started meditating and realised that very often I used weed as a way to meditate because it was a nice excuse to get lost in my own head without having to make a conscious decision of sitting down to do brain-stuff. It's fascinating.â

No More Nashe

How Indian Stoners Are Celebrating 4/20 Amid Lockdown © Unsplash

And finally, we arrive at a situation thatâs becoming more common day by day - running out of stash, a problem stoners sometimes refer to as âdankruptcyâ. 

While mine was mostly self-imposed, owing to less-than-ideal sleep cycles and a tendency to get too easily distracted, filmmaker MK, 24 has found himself between a rock and a hard place - stuck under lockdown while travelling, with no dealers around.

I usually smoke 2-3 times a day,â he shares. âI am in a unique situation as I got locked down in a country where I have no access to any dealers, and the lockdown happened so fast that I didnât have any time to make the connections to get any sorted.â This dry spell has resulted in a strange change for M.K. - his âneed for weedâ translating into dreams.

âTo tell you the truth it hasnât been that bad. I do have dreams that I am smoking big blunts and others where I try to score but ultimately leads to disappointment⦠reminding me of my current situation when I wake up.â

As a regular stoner, MKâs daily routine usually involved smoking up at regular intervals through the day. âI was getting high often enough that I didnât have a particular activity, but Iâd say going for walks and ***/masturbation were a common pastime while high. One good thing about this lockdown though,â he admits, âis that I have become far more active - those walks have turned into runs now.â

Despite making it a common habit, this unscheduled break revealed to M.K. some of the downfalls of smoking, having taken a step back and completing over a month sober. âIt gets extremely repetitive,â he cautions. 

âI think the only way to keep things fresh is to make sure that you donât make it a habit, which is so hard since itâs so f*cking good.â

Can't argue with that, bud.


View the full article

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...