Essay by K.A.H. Conway. Photo by Rushay1977.
Content Warning: This essay includes references to substance abuse, grief, and emotional trauma.
He stumbled in reeking of rage and rum. Slurred accusations. Tight jaw. Fists clenched like grief had crawled back inside him. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just sat there, calm, present, inhaling peace between my fingers, one slow pull at a time.
Weed is not the enemy.
That lie—about it being evil, destructive, lazy—is one of the greatest myths ever told. It was never weed that broke homes or ignited fists or turned fathers into ghosts at the dinner table. It wasn’t weed that tore marriages apart or made children tiptoe past tension.
It wasn’t weed that made me fear love.
It was liquor. It was firewater. It was the kind of poison served in fancy glasses at celebrations, on corner stoops, at funerals, and behind closed doors during storms. It was the alcohol that turned men cruel and women silent. It was alcohol that carried the stench of unpredictability into every room I ever had to tiptoe through as a child.
And now, all grown, I see the same rage in the eyes of the man I once thought I could love through anything. But I’ve stopped confusing devotion with endurance.
I don’t flinch anymore. I light up.
Weed is not evil. It’s not some demonic spirit that comes to seduce us into laziness or addiction or madness. Weed is a teacher. A calming balm. A gentle guide inward. A portal to peace when the world is too loud, too sharp, too unrelenting.
When I smoke, I breathe again. I mean really breathe. My jaw unclenches. My shoulders soften. My thoughts move slower, smoother, like honey instead of hail.
I don’t forget the pain—no, cannabis doesn’t erase anything. But it helps me face it. Without the noise.
Without the blame. Without the need to numb myself into a version I won’t recognize in the morning.
People talk about weed like it’s some kind of criminal. Like it wrecks lives, steals futures, ruins potential. But I’ve watched alcohol do all those things and more.
I’ve watched it make people mean. Watched it turn laughter into bitterness. Watched it steal the softness from a man I once believed was good.
Alcohol is abrasive. It’s a brawler. It doesn’t bring you peace—it rips peace apart.
It doesn’t focus you—it spins you in circles until you crash into the people you claim to love. It doesn’t connect. It separates. It throws grenades into rooms where people are just trying to love each other through their flaws.
But cannabis? Cannabis has held my hand through grief. Through heartbreak. Through surgery. Through motherhood. Through menopause. Through the silence of lonely nights when the world was asleep but my thoughts were not.
Cannabis has introduced me to parts of myself I didn’t even know how to reach without it. The tender ones. The introspective ones. The healed ones.
I remember one night in particular—late summer, just after my hysterectomy. The house was quiet, but my body was screaming. Not from physical pain—I had that under control with Tylenol and time.
The ache was spiritual. A deep, echoing hollowness.
A mourning for what was gone, what could never come again.
He came home drunk, again. Loud. Careless. Angry at the world and taking it out on the only person within reach. He blamed everything on everyone but the bottle.
That night, I didn’t argue. I didn’t raise my voice. I lit a joint, sat outside under the stars, and cried—not because I was broken, but because I was finally, fully me.
High. Healing.
Honest.
Weed didn’t disconnect me. It returned me to myself.
You see, we don’t just inherit our parents’ genetics—we inherit their ghosts. And the ghosts in my family line carry bottles and bags. They show up at weddings, funerals, and holidays. They whisper things like just one more drink, don’t be so uptight, you’re no fun.
But I know what that bottle can cost…my father, his father. I know what it stole
from me. I know what it almost convinced me to tolerate.
That’s why I chose differently. That’s why I turned to cannabis instead of pouring myself into a glass I’d never crawl back out of.
That’s why I speak out now—because too many of us have been taught that alcohol is culture, is strength, is a rite of passage. It’s not. It’s a detour away from ourselves.
Cannabis has always been connection.
Every time I share a joint with a friend, we talk deeper. We laugh louder. We remember softer. We listen.
Cannabis slows the room down long enough for our spirits to catch up.
It’s healing in a plant. Clarity in a cloud. For me, it’s not a vice—it’s a vessel.
Not all substances are the same. Some destroy. Some divide. And some, like cannabis, carry the possibility of communion. With ourselves. With others. With the parts of us we’ve been taught to silence.
You don’t have to believe me. Just look around. At the broken homes. At the addiction centers. At the prison pipeline. At the liquor stores on every corner of low-income neighborhoods and, up until now, there was not a single dispensary in the area offering guided, alternative healing whether medicinal or recreational.
Ask yourself: which one of these substances has really caused the most damage?
And then ask why we fear the one that opens hearts, but celebrate the one that closes fists.
We vilify THC, yet we celebrate alcohol on TV.
Weed is not the enemy.
Anger is. Ego is. Denial is. Patriarchy is. Capitalism is. That need to numb ourselves into someone else’s version of acceptable, that’s the real enemy.
Cannabis has never tried to erase my truth. It only asked me to sit with it. To breathe. To process. To feel.
And maybe that’s what terrifies people most is when we finally start feeling again, the world has to change.
So no, I won’t hide it. I won’t be shamed into silence because I chose a plant over a poison. I chose stillness over storm. I chose connection over control. I chose peace.
And every time I light up, I return to that choice. Not to escape but to arrive.
To myself.
To truth.
To a calm this world never taught me how to find.
Weed is not the enemy.
It’s the reminder.
That I am still here.
Still whole.
Still healing.
And never going back.
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