Probably I didn’t start regularly. Again I intermittently used cannabis after that and I probably started regularly smoking around 19 at which point one of my cousins was selling it. So he was, it was a lot more readily available to me from then.

So obviously because it was more readily available it was something I enjoyed doing. I’d buy it and I’d smoke it.

How often were you, I mean?

I’d probably say I was purchasing it once a week. Smoking it every second day perhaps daily. Some weeks it might be every day. Some weeks it would be like every second day or something like that.

Some weeks I might not smoke all through the week and only smoke on a weekend.

In which situations were you likely to smoke?

Social situations.

Social?

Social situations. No I don’t think cannabis is the right drug to smoke on your own because I think it makes you consider things. It makes you think about things a lot and I think if you sat on your own you’re not having that social interaction.

I mean I don’t know actually. I smoke it on my own now. Perhaps at that age it’s not the right thing. You’re very insecure with yourself as an adolescent.

But on those occasions when you smoked weed where were you?

Just with friends. Me and [husband] have smoked weed occasionally together, that’s my husband. Yeah just with friends usually. I’ve got two friends who are a lot more party-tastic than I am and often at the end of a dinner party or whatever they’ll have a joint. So we might. It’s like kind of like having an after dinner drink, so have that instead. But I will generally just have one or two puffs. I’m not. I just, I don’t like the way it makes me feel in my head. It just makes me feel really groggy.

You know people find it really relaxing and stuff and I just felt like I couldn’t move [laugh]. And I also had quite a few experiences when I obviously over imbibed and was sick. So all those things I was just like, Ah I just can’t’ kind of. And again it’s the same, the same problem of knowing where to get it from. Because I do have friends and stuff that smoke weed but you’re never really sure of the social etiquette of asking people to get, to get you weed or so yeah.

So I’m quite happy with a glass of red wine and cigarettes.

What are your motivations for continuing smoking?

I think that I have a nicotine addiction because sometimes I get an urge to have a joint. So I do think I must have some form of nicotine addiction. I enjoy smoking cannabis. A lot of my friends continue to smoke cannabis so there’s the social aspect. I like the effects of it. I don’t know it’s hard to put into words actually what the effects are but I think, I can really think when I smoke cannabis. I mean I come up with some of my, because my job’s programming I’ve come up with some of my best solutions. I don’t actually do the programming whilst I’m under the influence but sometimes I’ve been sat at home thinking about a problem I’ve had a work and that’s when I figured it out whilst I’ve been high I tend to read a lot, things like that. I don’t know I, for me I think it enhances me. Whilst I don’t think it’s a drug of choice for everyone I think in my instance it probably enhances me.

And now how often do you use?

I, these days I’d probably say 3 to 4 times a week, 3 to 4 times a week only ever on a night once my son’s sleeping.

Has having a son now sort of made you think about this or no?

Well it’s made me not want to. It’s made me not smoke. Like occasionally I’d smoke when I got straight in from work before I had a son. I wouldn’t do that with my son. One I don’t think you should smoke around children and two I wouldn’t want to be in an altered state of mind whilst with my son. You know I don’t think it’s fair he should get to see me. You know at the end of the day if I’ve got something that I get pleasure out and enjoy doing but I can do away from him then I should do I away from him not around him.

Would you like kind of to stop smoking?

No.

No?

In fact maybe I’d like to stop smoking, maybe I’d prefer another method of ingestion. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a vaporiser. Perhaps I’d prefer to vaporise than smoke.

To be honest when I was at school I maybe smoked a few cannabis joints but nothing. I never, I’ve never ever touched anything else so.

Have you been offered anything else?

Yeah.

Where?

Probably in more, recently in the last maybe three years and a lot of people take a lot of cocaine and things in clubs but I’m not really interested in anything like that. It’s too much money so.

So it was a financial thing?

Yeah and it’s very addictive as well so it doesn’t interest me at all.

Did you continue smoking cannabis or?

No it was just if you were out and somebody was smoking a cannabis joint you would maybe have a couple of draws of it. But I would, would never have bought it myself or anything like that.

And what are your views on drugs? I mean why don’t you do it? Is it just the money or are you concerned about something.

I’m probably more concerned about being addicted to drugs and things and you see what drugs do to people also. It doesn’t interest me at all, drugs.

Have you tried heroin?

No. I wouldn’t.

You wouldn’t?

No.

Why not?

I know how dangerous it is really.

In which way dangerous?

I now sort of… but being so highly addictive sort of risk of death, overdosing. I’ve actually got a sort of second cousin who went to the Priory who was addicted to heroin and then she had a pretty awful time. And just generally, you know, it’s just something I wouldn’t even consider.

So you saw her when she was?

No, no I didn’t see. I was quite young at the time but she’s well now but, you know from what I heard, it was a pretty awful time for her.

The effect that I felt was pretty much what I expected. And it was just, to me, felt very similar to having a drink, I kind of felt relaxed and just kind of just, enjoyed the kind of relaxed feeling that I got really with it, and yeah your inhibitions kind of went down a little bit and as far as it went that, you know, that was about it really. , I have since kind of had a little dabble now and again but it, it’s not something I kind of, it’s not the kind of thing I could tell I do on a weekly or even monthly or even a yearly basis, you know, it’s very infrequent but if the opportunity presents itself then I kind of don’t refuse it really. but that, that, that kind of, I’m not put in that position very often and I don’t seek that.

So in which context do you do it? With friends, at a party or?

Yeah I mean it will probably be like if a friend has something at his house and we’ve gone out and we’ve had a good night out, and we’ve had a few drinks and that and we come back, and you know, me and my friends are very kind of sit around the garden with another drink or something and like look up at the stars and get all kind of philosophical, and, you know, generally speaking we kind of feel that that kind of compliments that kind of conversation and environment so, we don’t, you know, it’s not something we kind of go out in a club and, you know, decide to roll up a bloody spliff and start smoking, you know, a joint in the middle of a club, you know, that’s not the context, and it’s not the context that you go round to someone maybe sober and kind of, Oh I’ve come round for a smoke. kind of thing, it’s an addition to kind of going out and having a drink, a bit of fun with your friends and then kind of at the end of the night rounding it off with just kind of relaxing out and chilling out kind of before you go to bed kind of thing, and that’s always been the context that it’s been in really.

Very, very infrequently. It’s obvious, I mean it’s generally my male friends obviously like, there’s not many of the girls that think, seem to do it for some unknown reason. And it’s not like my friends are kind of drug users as such, you know, not, none of them are kind of, you know, I don’t know a friend that has taken Speed, Cocaine or Ecstasy, none of those like hard drugs as I would call it, you know, they, they’re all fitness fanatics if anything, you know, some of them are rowers, some of them are, you know, gym instructors and, you know, private trainers and all that so I mean generally as a group of friends they’re quite fit, it’s just a, a downtime kind of relax, you know, relaxation that we have really.

And it hasn’t progressed to anything beyond that.