The First Time I Ever Skinned Up (1/2) By Sean Davey.

(1/2), (2/2).

I was living in Sunderland at the time, reading the first year of a science degree at university. At 18 years old my life up to this point had been characterised by a fanatical love of booze. A common symptom of the group of people I surrounded myself with daily too. Anyway, a few of my older friends had recently indoctrinated me in the ways of the 'jazz woodbine', and my youthful mind had been exploding with curiosity ever since. Imagine the cave man, grown up on raw meat and leaves, secure he's living his life to its fullest, is suddenly shown the miracle works of flame; well, that was me.

I decided that I needed to dabble further in this mysterious new pleasure so I phoned my friend Charles, who I remembered had offered drugs to me in several occasions but I, in my innocence had declined. Incidentally, myself and Charles had many mutual friends in Leeds, but had never once met until a chance encounter in a pub in Sunderland; the first degree of separation is always acute- hence the saying it's a small world. So, I rang Charles and he invited me round to his flat. From him I purchased two lumps of brown boot-polish type substance for £30, and not yet understanding the etiquette of the scene, left instantly to smoke it on my own.

Back at my flat I set about creating my first ever joint. Having never even attempted to roll a cigarette before I knew this was not going to be an easy task. However, I had watched others perform the deed and I did my best to mimic.

First, I crumbled the plasticine type material into the skin, then I added baccy and a roach for the end. I picked up the skin between index fingers and thumbs and tried to copy the rolling-under action I'd seen others do so easily. The entire contents fell out onto one of my textbooks as the skin ripped (bastard). My door knocked and instantly opened. In entered my flatmate Chloe, enquiring to the reason of all the loud profanity. She sat down and watched me struggle for a good fifteen minutes, laughing openly at my frustration and refusing to help. In the end I resorted to laying the skin full of resin and tobacco on the table and rolling it up like a sausage within the palms of my hand.

At last the job was done. An ugly beast it was, but the trouble it caused me forever convinced me that content is infinitely more important than the packaging.

I lit it up instantly, the hard work had really got me in the mood but Chloe wanted me to walk her to her friend's flat round the way. So me, Chloe (who is Welsh) and my big messy spliff set off into the night. We were about halfway there when I was finishing the joint. I was already noticing its effects : light headed - dizziness - brain confusion- numb tongue and stumbling! I hadn't anticipated it being so strong. We rounded a corner and I suddenly stopped stocks, my gut was churning now and my arms and legs felt like lead, my brain was frozen and I suddenly got a strange notion I was in Poland, and that was illegal to be stoned in Poland!

My senses were working overtime, informing me of my impending doom. It took Chloe about 5 minutes to calm me down enough for me to carry on.

Continued .... Next Page (2/2).

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