I was too stoned in Thailand
Notes on weed
Decriminalized in 2022, Marijuana recreational use is legal everywhere in Thailand. 700 meters away from my hotel, a small dispensary cashier asks me to review them on Google and I canāt help but forget. Weed in Thailand is thick and bearing, but clean, and I watch bald old men, ālosers back home,ā walk across the street from the store. My first encounter with marijuana felt similar, drill rap playing loudly in the background. At the dispensary, the consumption room was a couch in the middle of the shop.
Thailand is oddly familiar. I walk across the corner and watch the gentrified old town city of Chiang Mai with intent. It reminds me of Melbourne and smoking with my older relatives. It reminds me of home and the corners of Quezon City that are designed by millennials. Even the colors are similar. But this time I see them. And they are blinding me.
I donāt know if I am stoned as I am saying this. But there is something special about seeing something new in a different city. There is something special about moving all the time. I turn 22 in the summer and I am greeting it with the realization that I need to keep moving. The next time I go to the dispensary I am at the shopping center and I make successful small talk with the woman there. She says she canāt make out my accent. āIām from the Philippines.ā I tell her. āOh I wish I could visit the Philippines, how long are you staying in Thailand?ā She asks. āJust five days.ā I reply.
There is something special about small talk at a dispensary in Chiang Mai. In general, there is something special about interacting with strangers on a trip abroad. But I donāt know if Iām stoned as Iām saying this. I think time away gives me the space to recenter myself with grace. On the flight back I am knocked out asleep by an edible I took 2 hours prior in the hotel. And I wake up in my home country with a brain fog that feels liminal.
I have an interesting relationship with substances. I also have a difficult relationship with shame and pleasure, often both coming from the same source. Smoking weed has felt embarrassing in a strange way. I try to pick and choose special circumstances. When Iām stoned everything is special and happening to me now. It is slow and anxious and sluggish and stupid. And then I feel guilty as I awake. For now, I can find what is happening to me now and what is special even in my brain fog and sobriety.
At leastā¦
Until next timeā¦
Pictures by me!