Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 8 November 2018

A recent experiment ensures I’ll never try it again

issue 10 November 2018

Three years ago we were given a bag of skunk, Catriona and I, provenance Glasgow. It was one gigantic dried bud wrapped in polythene. Cannabis in any shape or form usually renders me paranoid, especially if I smoke it in company and there is conversation. I’ve come to hate it. The delusion is always the same: I become unconvinced by my persona, which seems to have been chosen at random from a number of equally eligible candidates, and now feels like a flimsy, hackneyed mask. If the paranoia intensifies, I fall under the further illusion that everyone in the room’s personas except mine are as ingrained as oak rings, and that the ludicrousness of my papier-mâché one is transparent to all.

The last time I smoked cannabis was three years ago. We had been out to dinner and had arrived home lit up. I put on some ska and we danced around the living room.

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