Rarely do I meet someone on the trail and find they do not smoke pot/weed. Just today, sometime bemoaned their last paper getting wet, preventing them from rolling a joint. This sort of conversation is a daily occurrence, which surely shocks many outsiders (who I must note probably drink alcohol several times a week). At first, the ubiquity surprised me too, though less so after learning more.
Early assumptions
The reason I do not smoke is because I avoid addictive substances when possible. I crave control. I protect autonomy. I probably hold these things more tightly than I should. The logic of autonomy persuades me nonetheless to abstain from things like coffee, weed, and excepting rare occasions, alcohol.
People always argue with me that weed isn’t addictive, but actions speak louder than words. Everyone who smokes seems to do so on a daily basis. They say they can stop, but I never someone actually stop without complaining about it. Doing something without being able to stop is addiction according to my understanding. Whatever you cannot take a break from willingly controls you. According to this definition, addiction is universal (common addictions may include work, exercise, substances, food, self promotion, image preservation, and a host of darker things) that it deserves no stigma and instead, the recognition of it being part of the human condition.
Why do hikers smoke weed? Unable to relate, I imagined those who enjoy the transcendence of an adventure would be a similar crowd as those who crave the transcendent experience of a high. Thru-hikers, I thought, are wired to be risk-takers. If you can risk walking the wilderness for months at a time, putting your body on the line, the rewarding individual experience of a high must supercede the risk of loss of control and the financial and logistical burden of procuring weed. Some truth may lie in this assumption. Then I talked to several smokers and found I was mostly wrong.
What I learned from smokers
The strongest appeal of weed seems to be the experience of smoking as a social activity. Weed appeals not because of the individual high one receives but because it brings people together – indistinguishable really from social drinking behavior. Whether weed or alcohol, we partake in risky substances that reduce inhibition, carry physiological risks, especially if overused, and result in increased mortality on a population level, all because it brings us closer together. I think it’s one of the greatest expressions of how deeply social we are as humans and how urgently we must participate in meaningful relationships. In the lonely, distracted 2020s, weed appeals all the more. It brings people together through shared activity. Through losing the autonomy of bodily control, we discover the dependency of mutual incapacity. The risk and rebellion forge essential social bonds.
Weed is not the method I choose to experience meaningful connection with others. We all need something that plays this role in our lives. Recently, I’m convinced that intellectual sociopolitical conversation plays the weed role for me. Along those lines, my take on weed is that it makes no sense for marijuana to be a schedule 1 drug while alcohol is not even a controlled substance. These substances are used similarly, and Congress should act to treat them as such in its regulatory scheme. Not coincidentally, these are risky topics of conversation. Ordinary conversation does not build a meaningful bond. It’s another example of how relationships thrive on mutual risk-taking.
