The story of Eve*’s rocky relationship with marijuana began at the start of her freshman year at Wilson. It was a cold October in the middle of the woods, on a park bench, where a more green-certified classmate showed her the ropes of smoking marijuana. After that, smoking became a very regular habit for Eve.

During her junior year, Eve realized that weed might have been starting to impact her life more negatively than she had initially thought. “I noticed around spring of junior year that I felt a bit slower in the head, after I had been smoking pretty consistently for about two years. I started feeling like I was a little bit less myself,” Eve explained.

Eve describes her relationship with marijuana as similar to someone’s relationship with sweets: she smokes out of habit and can quit when she wants, but finds herself drawn to it in need of a pick-me-up. “When I’m smoking a lot more, I’ve realized I start wanting it a lot more,” she said.

Eve doesn’t define her experience with marijuana as irresponsible, but she admits, “I probably put less effort into my homework here and there.” Eve’s worst experience with marijuana was when she greened out after not having smoked for six months. “I just hit it twice, it wasn’t even that much. I was just not okay. There was this awful ringing in my ear. I felt sick. I needed to lay down… I went to my bed… just passed out,” she said.

Because of Eve’s reputation of being a heavy drug user and the people she surrounds herself with, outsiders will often judge her. “When you say ‘Eve’ to like a group of people, their immediate response will be ‘Oh, crackhead, yes?’” The judgment doesn’t bother her, though; she finds it all quite amusing.

Smoking marijuana has opened both wonderful and harmful doors for Eve. She said she would never change her high-school experience, but is trying to cut back on her marijuana use moving forward. 

*name changed for anonymity