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Most people have a holiday that they anticipate above all others.

Christmas people love the spirit of it all - the lights, songs, childhood nostalgia, and finding that perfect gift for a loved one. Thanksgiving people appreciate its purity - no expectations of gifts - just a day to enjoy food, family, and maybe some football. And then the Halloween people ... they're their own category entirely. They've been waiting since November 1st to do it again and they will not apologize for putting up spooky decor on Labor Day Weekend.

But if you asked me, genuinely, what my favorite holiday was (for the last twelve years at least)? The honest answer couldn't be given in polite company.

April 20th. AKA 4/20. AKA The Stoner's Super Bowl.

I've never actually said that out loud (I guess I still haven't, since I'm typing). But it was always the one I circled on the calendar, with a smoke ring, metaphorically speaking.

This year is different. This will be the first April 20th since I got to college that I'm sitting out entirely. To understand why, we need to rewind the tape a bit.

~~

My first introduction to drugs came courtesy of the United States government.

Not the way certain communities were introduced to other substances by that same government, but that's a topic for a different newsletter...

It was the early 2000s, and the D.A.R.E. program had arrived at my elementary school like a traveling carnival. Except instead of merry-go-rounds and cotton candy, there was a police officer explaining why trying a single drug would ruin your life and corrupt your soul. Marijuana and heroin were just as bad in the eyes of D.A.R.E.'s weirdly jacked, lewdly pantsless mascot: Daren the Lion.

For those unfamiliar: D.A.R.E. stood for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, and for decades it ran in public schools across the country at Nancy Reagan's behest, behind the popular slogan "Just say no!". Over $1 billion dollars was spent on D.A.R.E. over its existence and research has proven it to have minimal effect during that timeframe. Now D.A.R.E. is primarily seen ironically on t-shirts of music festival goers who are sparking up a joint.

Drugs won the Drug War.

But not before it got to me. That officer put the fear of God in me so effectively that I wrote a second-place winning essay in my fourth-grade D.A.R.E. writing contest, arguing with conviction that I would never do drugs because I didn't want to throw my life away.

Six years later, I would encounter my first counter-evidence.

~~

The first time I tried weed was sophomore year of high school after being selected - somewhat against my will - as the funniest random kid on the baseball team to get high.

My teammate Cameron had put the question to me in the locker room after practice: "Hey yo Rad Tad, you smoke weed?" (Rad Tad was my nickname, a reference to a lisping character from the 90s family football movie Little Giants - a character trait I also shared at that time.)

I gave what I consider a masterclass in cool-sounding ambiguity: "No. Well, I mean, I haven't. Yet. I could. I would."

Cameron chuckled. Apparently I had just won a competition I didn't know I had entered.

"Well you wanna smoke some weed tonight?"

Here it was. The exact moment D.A.R.E. had been training me for. Could I just say no?

I could not. Sorry not sorry, Nancy Reagan.

I got door-to-door service since I only had my learner's permit. Cameron picked up two teammates first and then swung by to grab me and the twenty dollar bill he asked me to procure. I would later learn I had fully subsidized this session (plus a few others I wouldn't be invited to). We then pulled into an abandoned parking lot where he produced a grinder, a rolling tray, and a pack of Swisher Sweets from the center console like it was nothing. Over the Gucci Mane classic Kush is My Cologne, Cameron rolled a blunt, admired it briefly, and handed it to me along with a lighter.

"Alright Rad Tad, you get the greens for your first time." Greens are the honor bestowed upon someone for taking the first hit of a session.

I didn't really get high that night, which I learned was common for first-timers. But that wasn't really the point. What I loved was the ritual of it. The clandestine energy. The strange intimacy of four people crammed in a car in an empty parking lot, passing something lit back and forth over rap music, talking about nothing in particular but having a grand ole time while doing it. I had joined a club and I didn't want out.

~~

Despite that first experience, I didn't smoke much the rest of my time in high school. College is where the relationship really took root.

I was what you would call a successful stoner. A high-functioner, if you will. I got good grades, held down a part-time job, was active in student clubs, maintained a solid social life - and fit weed into the rotation like a scheduling preference rather than a dependency. Yes, I would sometimes smoke alone. But more often than not, it was a social thing shared within Georgetown's small yet mighty stoner circle. I gravitated towards that crowd and that substance. All else equal, that was my preferred vibe over alcohol.

And within that world, 4/20 was the Super Bowl (often calling for a super bowl).

What I loved most about the holiday was how it flattened the hierarchy. On April 20th, the daily tokers and the once-a-year participants showed up at the same service, kinda like regular congregation and the Easter-and-Christmas Christians. The person who smoked every evening after work and the college freshman who had just held a grinder for the first time were equally welcome, equally celebrated. It was genuinely one of the least judgmental communal experiences I can think of - everyone just happy to be there in shared company.

Then there were rituals within the ritual: the group rewatch of Half Baked with people who had seen it a dozen times, the shared playlist of stoner tunes that provided the session's soundtrack, and the outburst of giggles that would occur when a fleeting thought came and went, tickling your brain, just yours, before fading back into oblivion.

In general, weed felt like a warm blanket that kept me cozy through the highs and lows of life. It enhanced concerts, made sporting events more intense, and allowed me space to decompress after an especially long, tiring day.

And then I moved to Baltimore, and eventually found myself at a little company called EcoMap Technologies, working alongside one of the most interesting people I've ever known.

Pava and I smoked together more times than I could ever remember. It was a ritual we built naturally - after the long days of sprints, meetings, and small fires that make up a startup's daily life. We'd grab a joint or a bowl, step outside, and decompress. She could self-admittedly be a lot while high (we had to establish a "no new ventures while stoned" rule fairly quickly), but it gave us a chance to inhale and exhale. Just breathe and take it all in. Some of the best conversations ever had happened in those fleeting moments. I didn't know then how much I would one day miss it.

~~

When Pava died in September 2023, her death broke something open in me that I didn't know how to close. And the ritual lost its luster.

What had mostly been a social thing shifted to an act of solitude. Not to connect, but to disconnect. I stopped reaching for weed to enhance the good moments - there weren't many - and instead to pacify my mind when the weight of the world felt too heavy to carry. Weed became my armor. Something I wore to put padding between myself and whatever the day had waiting for me, because for a long time, I didn't feel like facing whatever was in store.

Slowly, it stopped being a ritual at all. It became a baseline. A morning tax to pay. Something I often felt needed to get going, not something that added to a day well spent. Life felt dull without it, but not really enhanced with it. And the thing that was supposed to quell my anxiety had started manufacturing it.

The problem with this armor is if you're always wearing wearing it, nothing can penetrate it. It keeps the pain and joy out in equal measure. It got to the point where I wasn't feeling much of anything anymore. I was just blunting (often literally) everything - the grief, yes, but also the joy, clarity, and moments worth being fully present for.

This wasn't the relationship I had signed up for.

Earlier this year, I finally decided it was time for a break.

What people in the community call a T-break is traditionally short for "tolerance break" - the practice of stepping away to reset your baseline level of dopamine in your brain. But that's not really what I'm trying to achieve here. For me, the T I'm searching for signifies something bigger. Transformational. If I'm ever going to rediscover a healthy relationship with weed, it needs the space to transform.

I'm not closing the door on cannabis permanently. I've had too many genuinely good years with it, too many memories I'd fold back in if I could. But I do need to take an active step back and examine what's been happening with my habits, rebuild my discipline, and figure out what this relationship looks like when it's working for me instead of controlling me.

And lately, I've been feeling happier and healthier than I have in a while.

So while this may not be a final breakup, Mary Jane and I need some time apart. It's not her, it's me. Well, mostly me.

To everyone marking today the way I used to: a Happy 4/20 Blaze It to you. Your relationship with weed is your own, and everyone's journey looks different. Find the joy in the ritual. And if you can't anymore, it could be time to transform your relationship too.

My April 20th will look very different this year. I'm sober now, I'll be sober at 4:20 pm, and sober when I go to bed. That's more than OK with me this year.

Somehow, after everything, this sober 4/20 might be the one I'm most grateful for yet.
​

Gratefully yours,
Kevin (and Pava)