The Weed

she’s a tempestuous bitch

Dave Balter
4 min readJan 8, 2025

1/8/24

I like The Weed.

And she’s a tempestuous bitch.

(oh great an article about drugs. try threading this needle, pal)

I mean that kindly and with all due respect. One pip’s drug, another tip’s medicine, and all that jazz. I’m not here to croon a drugged-out love song, and won’t be decrying the evils of moderate addictions. Rule of play: no preesh and no preach. We got that?

Let’s start with Willie.

Willie Berkowitz introduced me to The Weed, at my ripe age of thirteen, tucked in between two pole vaulter’s 20' gym mats during gym class. We nestled deep in the high density polyurethane foam, and Willie — an upper-classman with a speckled history — offered a hit from a ‘sneak-a-toke’ brass pipe (you know, the kind with the squeaky screw off top). I can say confidently today that what Willie provided was ‘dirt weed’. Mostly stems and seeds — but enough to make me droopy and giggly, which surely no one noticed because I wasn’t all that good at track and field anyway.

The Weed love affair began, and it would provide me a High School identity. I would be a a soft-handed, silver-spooned hippie. It would afford me loads of creative inspiration.

The Weed would become my friend; Willie, not so much.

In college I was mainly stoned. And also, well, also…ahem…

<scratches toe in dirt, looks away, makes some sort of grunting sound>

I must admit I sold lots of weed. As my Dad fondly recalls, I sent you to college with $30 and you never once asked for money, I couldn’t figure out why. I think at 87, he finds the business proposition of it admirable. Dad smoked weed once, he reminds me, in college himself. A girlfriend offered him a joint and he had a few puffs, and he recalls floating down the Mass Pike, her driving, his arm out the window porpoising, mimicking the glide and jump of a dolphin, wheeeeeeee, he says, making a show of it.

The Weed became my financial education: it taught me how to sell, of what fair looks like, of negotiations, of crisis, of time management — and of fractions, because now I could tell my eighths from my quarters from my ounces.

I called my doctor when The Weed was voted in as medicine in Massachusetts. Whaddya got, he perked up, Anxiety? Insomnia? He noted Cannabis (doc’s official language here) was all well and good because of it’s non-toxicity; he recalled one of his elderly patients accidentally ate an entire tray of THC-infused brownies, stripped off all his clothes and ran outside throwing cheddar cheese goldfish at the neighbors. He ate 100x the recommended dose and didn’t die, doc bragged, so you’ll survive.

The Weed’s legitimacy made it less dramatic. It made me less of a rebel. The Weed wasn’t sticking it to the Man, it was tax income for the State.

The Weed

Gone were the days of second-hand ziplocks chock full of crumpled buds of rumored origin, hello to the days of the paradox of choice: vape pens, edible gum, edible chocolate, edible big-toe-shaped jellyfish (these don’t exist but should), beverages, THC+CBD / EDM+BDSM (you should try it), flower or dab, vape or ointment. Hell, sativa or indica.

The Weed felt complicated and I just wanted simplicity.

My parenting choice around The Weed was to attempt to make it a non-issue, to educate and develop honesty and trust with my children. My ex-wife preferred extolling the dangers of addiction, my current wife offered to stay out of things. My oldest daughter turned to The Weed as a crutch for trauma and crisis moderation during Covid. She began abusing it. She began ‘greening out.’

The Weed became a darkness and a danger. I stressed to her abstinence or gradual reduction, while sneaking off at night to smoke on my own time. The Weed made me a hypocrite. The Weed made me sad. It made me feel guilty.

I used to smoke The Weed in social situations. A three foot Graffix bonghit on most college days, a shared joint at a concert or party in later years. Now The Weed no longer serves as an effective social lubricant. Rather, it’s a provider of awkward conversations and self-consciousness.

The Weed has become a modest adventure. A small single puff at night to relax, maybe just before bed so I can fall asleep.

The Weed is a love affair that’s navigated great distances, comfortable like an old pair of slippers, yet threadbare with holes in the heels and sheepskin lining spilling out in tufts. We’ve grown together, and we’ve grown apart. Sometimes I don’t know what to say to her, or what she is trying to say to me.

I used to love The Weed, now I tolerate it, sometimes need it, and, mainly, have to remind myself to be thankful she’s here at all.

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Dave Balter
Dave Balter

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