Please sir... can I have some more?

It was a matter of weeks after my first joint of the good stuff and I found myself outside at night with one of my mates and a tiny one skinner.

"I don't know what happened - I just didn't feel anything at all," I told him, speaking about the first chonging experience.

"After you take a toke, breathe in and fill your lungs full of air," he replied, I did it and it worked.

My first high, I felt dizzy, laughing, lost a bit of balance and spent 10 minutes staring into space, figuring out whether I was looking at a shooting star or a moving plane.

The beauty of weed is also its downfall, I've always said it puts you into a state of regression.

For about an hour it brings you back to your fundamental roots, suddenly things like rest, food, water, humour and companionship come to the forefront.

Things seem a little hazy and you get a glow of wellbeing and happiness.

Downfall

The downfall comes when people use weed as escapism. But you can also say that with any drug, everything from television and sex to alcohol and chocolate.

The answer to most problems when your stoned are "it doesn't matter", which is good for a few minutes but when reality kicks in the problems still remain.

Which is why I guess weed is more of an ideal drug for escapism than alcohol as there's no hangover and it is both less toxic and harmful.

But if managed properly it can be a great way to relax and unwind. Many professionals, I've known of teachers, lawyers, solicitors and doctors, use weed.

I didn't really do much that night after shooting star spotting, apart from smoked another 2 or 3 joints, got near-paraletic with the lads and watched some porn on channel 5.

Harmless compared to many other youngsters who were out downing vodka and smashing up telephone boxes that night.

My first spliff

The media come out with so much rubbish about weed it's untrue, it's a killer, it makes people lose the plot and it turns everyone who comes into contact with it into couch potatoes who live off pot noodles.

The fact is nobody has died from weed and it is an entirely natural substance, people are getting locked up for 20 years just for carrying a plant that gives off fumes that make you laugh and hungry - bizarre.

Much has been written before on the contrast with alcohol, billions of pounds (or dollars) spent on hospital wards throughout the world after drinking too much of the good stuff.

I had my first beer aged 12 at a family party, sneaked it outside and it tasted like shite. I didn't like beer back then and 9 years later not much has changed.

My first spliff however that was another story.

A friend of mine's parents owned a chain of hotel b&bs, it was a Friday night and after playing a bit of playstation in one of the rooms some of the lads disappeared into the bathroom.

It turns out they were chonging white widow, I joined in and we played some toke tennis, where you take a toke and hold it in until it comes back around.

I remember weed had a distinct smell, quite fruity, nice almost, the only thing is that it tended to effect my mates in a big way - but did absolutely nothing to me.

I coughed after my first toke, yeah, infact I couldn't even hold it in because I wasn't inhaling it at all, but I remember that adrenalyn rush, not from the drug, but from doing something naughty and illegal.

The need for that daring adrenalyn rush has shaped the person I am today it has given me some of the most fantastic experiences that most people will never see, do or hear of.

And that's why I will always remember my first spliff.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a journalist for a small local newspaper who played no relatively important part in life but he enjoyed himself and made a positive impression on those around him.

Before the tender age of 21 he had been locked up in Manchester, robbed at gunpoint in Amsterdam, involved in mass brawls with gypsys in Barcelona and got off his face via numerous illegal substances.

Aside from LSD, crack and heroine, this youngster had tried nearly every pleasurable illegal substance known to man and had travelled Europe with many-a-funny-story.

Yeah you've probably guessed it well that youngster is me and I decided to do something productive during a pill red-eyed comedown as I write this on 3rd January 2011, struggling to avoid my potential mother-in-laws gaze across the room at 7am.

You see shagging prostitutes while off your tits on magic mushrooms or snorting coke off first class train carriages aren't the kind of stories you can tell your family and work colleagues.

So I thought I could share this blog with a few like minded people, sandwiching bits of information, philosophical views and anecdotes from the past ten years which have shaped me in to the man I am today.