Motorboat Not a Rowboat When

¶ … MOTORBOAT NOT a ROWBOAT When I was in high school I smoked marijuana a few times for no other reason than the fact that I was swept away in the stormy sea of peer pressure and the desire for group acceptance. Previously, I had never even been curious about trying marijuana, although I had tried smoking a cigarette once or twice when I was much younger. My parents had gone out for the evening and I knew there was one very old pack of cigarettes in one particular drawer of theirs. The fact that my father's decorative scales of justice sat on display on the bookshelf immediately above that drawer truly made it feel as though I was committing a crime, even apart from how I knew my parents felt about smoking. By my junior year of high school I recognized the odor of burning marijuana and I had been around people who were sharing a joint at parties. I dressed enough like the kids who did smoke pot that one or two people seemed very surprised to find out that I had never tried it. It still wasn't anything I was ever curious about and I tried to just pass the joint to the next person on the couch to demonstrate that it wasn't something I had any kind of "problem" with; I just happened not to smoke... anything. My passing the joint without taking a hit was noticed immediately and the fact that I had never tried pot became the focus of the conversation. The fact that so many people were all encouraging me to do something that I knew was illegal in our state began to feel like a rough sea that carried me along whether I wanted to go in that direction or not. Aside from not really being curious about it, I knew that taking a hit from a joint was a misdemeanor in the eyes of the law, but that was the basis of any reservations I did have about smoking pot or trying any other drugs.

Eventually, I did take a hit from the joint and immediately became doubly annoyed. First, by the applause and the congratulatory responses that seemed so ridiculous; second, by the fact that I'd been swept up by the momentum of this wave of social pressure. I regretted that I had allowed my actions to be determined by a group of other people the same way a rough sea overpowers and carries a rowboat caught in the storm goes wherever the current takes it. In retrospect, I wished that I had been more like a motorboat strong enough to maintain my direction and course through the water, even I the roughest of seas.

Actually, the process of giving in to peer pressure in this regard took place over the course of a few separate interactions, some more subtle than others. Ultimately, I did participate in smoking a joint with some of my classmates two or three times before it began to bother me so much. Besides feeling very guilty for doing something that I knew was illegal, it bothered me that I was doing something I derived no real enjoyment from in the first place.

Yes, it made me laugh a lot, but I also felt very disoriented when I was high and I hated the way that it seemed to change my perception of time and my focus. I remembered trying to find a picture in a magazine and forgetting what I was looking for.