My Journey Through Life With Cannabis: How Did I Get Here? Part One: The 70’s- Where It All Began
Art Courtesy of Casey Renteria
I began consuming cannabis at a pretty young age; when I was 14 and in Junior High.
Of course, I started recreationally; it was 1977 and there wasn’t any information on medical cannabis - in Toronto or anywhere else.
Back then, I was considered a wild teen that came from a rocky family background. I was bounced around in the Children’s Aid Society for years and that instability left me rebellious during my youth. With little to no guidance and no permanent living situation, Yonge Street was my playground much of the time. I grew up fast, mostly because I had too.
I developed a seizure condition when I was 12 years old. Doctors diagnosed me with Epilepsy after recurring episodes of grand-mal seizures became more frequent over the course of a year. To control it I was placed on some very heavy pharmaceuticals: Dilantin, and Phenobarbital. The pills left me listless most times and I was always tired. They got stuck in my throat and I just hated taking them!
I was on the heavy meds for just over a year when I started experimenting with cannabis. Usual teenage stuff, with friends from school. (It was the 70’s!) Around the same time, I started rebelling against my guardians about taking the pills.
Meeting friends for a toke became a daily event: when I consumed, I just felt better. I mean yeah, I “got high” but after I came down, I always just “felt better.” Back then, this feeling was attributed to addiction.
My consumption became more and more frequent. I “got caught” several times in the early days! Guardians, school personnel, social workers - I didn’t care. I owned up to it every time.
In early 1978 I went to a neurology appointment at Toronto Western Hospital. I was one of the first 100 people to get a CT scan in the city from the new tech advancing into the hospital. They looked at my brain for the cause of the seizures. A small tumor was found, just a spec, but enough to cause my issues.
During that appointment, my guardian at that time (I refer to her as “Mom” from here on out) jumped on the opportunity to literally tell on me to the doctor!
“Well she stopped taking her pills & she’s smoking that pot!” she said.
I looked at the doctor and said, “Yup that’s right, and I haven’t had a seizure for a month, so I don’t need the pills anymore.”
To my surprise, the doctor sat up and said “Well, there are studies that say marijuana can have an effect on seizure activity….”
I almost fell over; my mom’s eyeballs were poppin’ and I burst into laughter out of sheer joy while the social worker looked dumbfounded!
After a few minutes for us all to digest (and for me, embrace) what the doctor had said, he went on to tell us about studies in the 1940’s and the use of cannabis pre-prohibition. Did I get lucky or what?! I got the Bohemian doc from Switzerland telling my mom & social workers to let me smoke pot!
Now don’t get me wrong- back then I don’t even know if I actually believed it myself. To me, a rebellious teen, it was a great excuse to smoke pot! My mom never hassled me about it again and I could smoke pot in the house. Mom even defended me to friends and family, always saying, “The doctor said it was okay”!
After that appointment with the neurologist, being the rebel that I was, I dove head-first into finding out what I could about cannabis, the medical connections, and prohibition. Now this was in the days before we had any computers, cell phones, or any tech! We had newspapers, magazines, books, microfiche, and the telephone.
I found an organization called NORML, got an address, and signed up, by mail!
NORML is the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws and they are based in the USA. They sent me a large envelope with a petition & pages for people to sign. The petition was to show support to bring NORML to Canada.
There I was, with my newfound freedom and drive, standing on Yonge Street in Toronto asking people walking by to sign my petition and telling them my story with the doctor. I filled all 10 pages that they sent me. I sent them right back with a sense of pride for the first time in my life.
That was my first experience with cannabis activism. I have been vocal about cannabis ever since. And, I never took another pill for seizures again. Even though I didn’t make the connection at the time, the episodes of seizure activity became less and less frequent as my consumption went up. I have been seizure-free now since 1995.
Ahh the 70’s! Where it all began. Next up it’s disco, big hair and a baby. Gotta be the 80’s!
To Be Continued…