Marijuana grows like a weed almost anywhere—north, south, east, west, in fields and greenhouses, labs and garages, basements and spare bedrooms, closets and crawlspaces, and even in little backyard gardens.
So it should be really easy to score some grass whenever you need it, right?
Wrong, man.
Until it becomes legal all over and corner stores are selling packs of Marlbojuana cigarettes, stoners have to stay crafty and use all means to feed their jones for weed.
The dealer has been the main vein of stoner culture for decades. He gets the stuff in bales from the growers, puts it in bags for the stoners, and often smokes you up as a bonus. He typically stays up late, sleeps in late, and gets you your weed later than promised and usually due to hazy circumstances. But you always let him slide and come back for more—what else can you do? Broken promises, mysterious delays, communication breakdowns, and the occasional shitty shit are all part of the drill. If you’ve been a stoner for a while, you recall being run through the mill yourself.
Phone Call to Dealer Dave
DAVE: Hello?
YOU: Hey man, it’s Hugh.
DAVE: Hugh?
YOU: Yeah, man, Hugh, from the apartment over the bakery.
DAVE: The bakery?
YOU: Yeah, the bakery, near the fire hou—
DAVE: Fire?!!!
YOU: No, man, there’s no fire. I live near the fire house. . .
DAVE: Oh, okay. Right, Hugh! What’s up, man?
YOU: I was just wondering, “Anything going on?”
DAVE: No, man, not really.
YOU: [Muffled curse.]
DAVE: I’m just sitting here watching TV.
YOU: So . . . nothing’s “going on”? You have nothing?
DAVE: Ohhhh. No! I mean, yeah! I mean, I have something. I’m just doing nothing. Whaddya need?
YOU: Cool. I wanna get, uh . . . one.
DAVE: One lid?
YOU: Um, ye-yeah. One lid, I mean, you know, one hat.
DAVE: One hat? [Thinks for a second.] Ohhhh, right. One hat. [Laughs.] Why don’t you come over.
YOU: All right! I’ll be over in a couple hours, at, like, seven.
DAVE: Well hurry up, because I only have one lid—I mean, hat—left [laughs].
YOU: In that case, I’ll be right over. Hold it for me, ok?
DAVE: Sure man, I’ll wear it till you get here. [Laughs hysterically, hanging up.]
You grab your wallet and car keys and run out the door. You drive as fast as you can across town to Dave’s house, over the speed limit the whole way, and get there in twenty minutes.
You park down the block, walk nonchalantly toward Dave’s house (while scanning every car and tree and trash can and window for the man) then turn into the driveway and quickly step to the side door that leads to Dave’s basement apartment.
You knock. You knock again. One more time now. You look through the little door window but can’t see through the tie-dyed curtain. He’s gotta be here! You kneel down and look through the living-room window, and see Dave sitting on the couch watching TV. You tap on the window, and in slow motion, Dave turns and looks at you. He waves, and turns back around. You keep looking at him. Twenty seconds later, you tap again, and Dave turns in slow motion and looks at you. This time, he smiles, stands up, comes to the door and lets you in.
DAVE: Hey man, how you doing?
YOU: What’s up, dude? You got my hat? [You laugh.]
DAVE: Hat? [Looks confused.]
YOU: Yeah man, my lid.
DAVE: Oh, right! [Laughs hysterically.] Your hat! [Continues laughing hysterically.]
YOU: [Smiling, patiently.] That’s right. Is it good stuff?
DAVE: What stuff?
YOU: The stuff. The lid, man.
DAVE: The lid? I only had one lid left, man, and I sold it to a guy like ten minutes ago. You should have come by earlier.
YOU: But I just called you twenty minutes ago!
DAVE: Oh man, that was you? Then who was that other guy?
YOU: [Fuming, patiently.] So . . . you got no more lids?
DAVE: Nah, man. Sorry.
YOU: Fuck! Oh, well, call me when you get some more, ok?
DAVE: Yeah, okay man, I will.
[You walk through the door and Dave closes it; then opens it again.]
DAVE: If you want, man, I can sell you a half a lid. . . .
YOU: You do have some?
DAVE: Sure, yeah. I just don’t have any more full lids. You wanted a lid, right?
YOU: Well, I wanted—
DAVE: A hat, right? [Laughs hysterically.]
YOU: I’ll take anything.
DAVE: Well all I have are a bunch of nickels and dimes and halfs.
YOU: Tell you what, man. Give me two eights, one quarter, and one half.
DAVE: Cool, man. Doin’ your Christmas shopping early, huh? [Laughs.]
YOU: [Exasperated.] Exactly, Dave.
If you’re lucky you’ll have a cool roommate with a two-way understanding that mi ganja es su ganja. So when you’re dry, you’ll know it’s okay to cop a bud from your bud until you can get your own bag to share.
But what if your roomie is out of the house and not answering his phone, text, or email?
If he hasn’t told you his secret stash place, you’ll just have to find it, most likely in one of these popular hiding spots:
1. Guitar case
2. Underwear drawer
3. Fish tank
4. Speakers
5. Amps
6. Under mattress
7. Pillow
8. Shirt pocket
9. Laundry hamper
10. Notebook
11. Fridge
12. Behind poster
13. Cigar box
14. Bible
420 Delivery Services
We never got this kind of service back in the day, but in the last fifteen years or so, stoners in big cities (and some smaller ones) have enjoyed the services of highly professional marijuana delivery companies that seem to operate like corporations.
The way it works is genius. New customers get referred by an existing customer, and then they get a membership number and their contact info goes into the service’s computer database. When you call the service, they know who you are and where you are, and a courier arrives within thirty minutes—typically on a bicycle with a backpack. (If you time it right, you can call the pizza place and have the pot and the pizza get there one after the other.)
When the courier arrives, looking mighty hip and typically blazed, they pull a box out of their backpack containing dozens of little clear acrylic cubes filled with several grams of each kind of bud, with white-tape labels describing the strain. The couriers always know a lot about what they’re holding, and can give you tips and buying advice like any professional sommelier might do with fine wines in a fancy restaurant. The costs are always higher with delivery services than other dealers and friend connections, but the quality is always top-notch and the convenience is unmatched.
Surprisingly, there are several of these delivery services in almost every major city, and they generally operate without getting busted. Except for one of the more famous services—famous because it did get busted and exposed. The “Cartoon Network” (no connection to the TV network!) in New York City had a database of 50,000 customers and got 600 calls per day!
Join a Doobie Session
No one’s a stranger among stoners, since all stoners find themselves in need of a shared doobie sometimes, and have no problem extending their own J to others in need whenever and wherever. But there is an art to getting into the circle, and the different scenarios call for different steps that could lead to new friends—and a whole new outlook on the day.
If you’re seeing a stoner band or musician, like Santana, the Dead, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, the Banana Splits, etc., you may not have to ask anyone to turn you on—the contact buzz from the air in the audience might be enough to get you as high as Neil Young’s falsetto.
But if you’re not catching a contact buzz, you’ll have to do a little pot-reconnaissance to find the direct source of smoke and hopefully join the session.
At most concerts of a certain genre, there will be someone lighting up to your left, or your right, or your front, or your back—or all of the above.
First thing to do is to look around and make a mental note of where the narcs—or rent-a-cops—are standing. The good thing is, they usually wear bright yellow “Security” shirts, and since no one else ever wears yellow, they’re easy to spot.
Next, scan the areas around you on all sides, looking for the telltale signs of a group of stoners in action:
One person’s head in a group is leaning forward and down (they’re trying to keep the lighter flame from being spotted by narcs)
There’s a brief flash of fire from a lighter (a sustained flame of light just means an audience member is requesting that the band play “Freebird”).
Other people outside the session are sneaking looks over at the group and elbowing their friends to look too (notice if these onlookers begin to drool).
When you identify the closest group of 420 friends, you’ve done about 99 percent of the work. You then just have to walk over to the session, stand next to the last person, and when the joint or bowl comes to them, tap their arm and give them a nod along with a pleading, begging, beseeching type of look on your face. If the last person in the group is like ninety-five percent of stoners, the doobie will be in your fingers in a flash.
Just do a quick puff, puff, pass, say “Thanks,” and split.
On a College Campus
This is probably the best place to jump into a smoking session.
Since you will most likely already be drunk, there’s no need to suggest that you act with any discretion. And you don’t even need to identify the stoners. Just walk into any gathering—excluding gatherings like Math Club or the Young Republicans—and blurt out, “Anyone got any weed? Who can spark one up for me? I need to get hiiiighhh! Anybody gonna hook me up? Yeeeoww!!”
At most colleges, you won’t even have to ask twice before someone (or two or three) pulls out a blunt or a bag or a vaporizer and obliges.
What’s better than a nice stroll through a beautiful park on a gorgeous summer afternoon with the breeze blowing, birds chirping, and chippies flaunting their beautiful bodies? How about catching a nice broccoli buzz while strolling through a beautiful park on a gorgeous summer afternoon with the breeze blowing, birds chirping, and chippies flaunting their beautiful bodies?
But if your baggie is empty, the only thing buzzing will be the bees if you don’t find some hip friends, fast.
It’s easy to spot the spliffers in a park. Sitting close together: check. Passing something back and forth: check. Wafts of smoke swirling into the blue sky above them: check. Happy little smiles on their faces: check.
You really don’t want to walk right up to these people. Odds are, they’ll think you’re a narc and all kinds of craziness will ensue. One of them will quickly eat the joint, burning their tongue and esophagus in the process. One of them will get up and run into the woods. And one of them will take two steps to the left, sit down, face the other direction, and before you even speak, will proclaim that they’ve never met the other two in their entire life.
Don’t be a buzzkill.
Instead, ask the guys across the park with the Frisbee or hacky sack if you can join in the game. (But first, ask them if they have any ganja to share. If they don’t, continue reading.) Then gradually start moving the game closer to the tokers. By the time you get close enough to accidentally toss the Frisbee or hacky sack onto their blanket, they’ll already know what you’re doing and will offer you a toke with their left hand while returning your toy with their right.
At a Party
If you are at a mixed party, where some do and some don’t, it’s gonna take a little bit of work to find out who does and who doesn’t. Normally you don’t want to ask just anyone if they’re holding or if they know who is—you don’t want to offend someone who doesn’t do the doob by insinuating that they do do it by asking if they do, do you?
Your best bet is to make some observations, and ask some innocent-sounding questions, to root out the likeminded—and hopefully the likeminded is holding.
Turn to page 115 to get the 4-1-1 on who’s 420-friendly.
Most stoners always stash away a bud or two when they make a score. You just tuck it away somewhere hidden, and when the rest of the stuff gets all used up, you got something to bust out. Problem is, stoners often forget where they stash their stashes! If this happens to you, here are all the places you should look for your forgotten hidden stashes:
1. Guitar case
2. Underwear drawer
3. Fish tank
4. Speakers
5. Amps
6. Under mattress
7. Pillow
8. Shirt pocket
9. Laundry hamper
10. Notebook
11. Fridge
12. Behind poster
13. Cigar box
14. Bible
