I first tried Skunk when I was eleven, and I was with my friend we was round a local area, and her brother gave me a spliff, and I didn’t really know what it was at all, I didn’t really know what it was, and me being stupid I had a whole spliff to myself, the first time I ever smoked anything, and half a can of Red Stripe, and I always remember it, and I had to go to the hospital because I was Paranoid, I was nearly blacked out, everything, so I had to go home and I was really panicky, I thought [xxxxx] I was, I felt ten metres in the air floating, everything I couldn’t, and…

I’d never had an experience of anything like that before so obviously it was really scary, I was only eleven, I wasn’t even in upper school, so it was really scary and I had to go home, I had to tell my Mum, and she tried to calm down and she took me to the hospital, and then it turned out like obviously I was fine because it’s not really a harsh drug is it? If you’re just not used to the whole experience of it you just don’t really know what to expect. So that was the first time I ever did Skunk and then I completely, you know, and it scared the living life out of me so I didn’t [laughs] touch it.

How old were you when you first tried it?

I was about 14.

Again can you tell me about the context? Who offered it to you?

Yeah it was, it was school friends. I had a little puff. It didn’t seem to affect me to be honest as far as I could tell. At that point I didn’t feel any of the effects.

So somebody just offered it to you?

Yeah I mean it was, it was quite common to smoke it at school. A lot of people smoked it. I had some. It didn’t really affect me. I didn’t really know and then I tried it in intermittently between then and probably. It might have been just later on in, as a 14, maybe or 15 or 16 I can’t remember exactly but I know that I tried it intermittently again with limited effects. I didn’t, I couldn’t really identify a high at that point.

I can’t say whether I liked it at that point. I really can’t say whether I liked it or I didn’t like it. It affected me. I knew I were, I actually. No it did affect me but I think the nicotine was the initial effect that I identified which I confused with the cannabis because generally we mixed cannabis and nicotine together to smoke it together, tobacco together, to smoke it together. And because I remember a head rush. Now actually now as an experienced cannabis user I could say that’s. It was actually probably from the amount of nicotine that I’d had at once because it. I think cannabis takes a lot longer to affect you than nicotine and that. it’s not something that I’d associate with it, a light-headed head rush. I would associate that more with the nicotine effect

And what were your reasons for, for starting smoking Cannabis were you curious…?

Yeah just, yeah I just, I don’t know why I just, don’t know, when I was younger I liked to take a, not take a risk I just liked to try something different and I knew it was illegal and I quite like that, that was quite like, quite liked the idea of that, but and I smoked cigarettes so I didn’t think it was going to be much different to be honest.

I don’t, don’t know never really thought about it like that, I’ve just more just thought of it being like a, and again like the same maybe relaxing sort of enjoy, I enjoy it, and I don’t know, I don’t really know, different feeling.

I suppose I started messing about with drugs probably when I was about 15. I turned 16 just as I was in the middle of the exams so it would have been just before then. It was just more of a case of hanging out with my mates, exploring new things and, you know, getting high for the sake of getting high partially for celebratory that we’d finished school and you’d finally finished the two years of GCSEs, three in some cases and partially, you know, that kind of teenage rebellion kind of thing.

It was cannabis.

Cannabis?

Cannabis to start with yes.

How did you obtain it?

Literally I started smoking cigarettes when I was about 14, 13/14. So it was just a natural thing for me and, you know, we were just sat in a group and a spliff was passed around. So of course it got to me and I thought, Why not. You only live once. Yeah so it was just, it was mates and then as I started liking it more and more I started buying it myself and I got people’s numbers off of my friends who were able to get it or at parties and stuff like that.

First time I was offered drugs was when he took me to the first house party was within a week of knowing him, and smoking cannabis passing a joint around, Here you go have some of this, it’s like a cigarette. Tried it, and because it was handed to me, I thought I want to look cool in front of all his mates, so I tried it I’d already, I was already smoking normal cigarettes at that point so, that was, that wasn’t too bad compared to what else was being passed around, Oh have some little white tablets. What are these? They’re ecstasy. Have a line of this coke it’s really great you will buzz. It was just

So that’s first time you’d tried cannabis?

That was the first time I tried cannabis, at that first house party I went to and then.

And how did you feel?

How did I feel?I just felt chilled out.

As the effects are I had, I did feel slightly under pressure, peer pressure to do it.

Well what do you think would have happened if you have said no I don’t want to?

I don’t know they would probably laughed at me and just, passed it off I don’t, I don’t know it’s hard saying now.

I was being pressured into trying stuff by my partner who was fairly abusive and quite forceful on me, so I, just do stuff for the sake of it, never quite enjoyed any of it, but obviously you get the rush of certain things or you get chilled out from certain things and it’s quite a scary time because watching people inject heroin and watching them pass out, slumped in a corner it’s not nice for someone to see at that young age when I was thirteen myself. Going on to like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen then, when my relationship with that partner ended, as did much of the drug use.

She smoked hash which is the brown rock form of cannabis. Which actually, it doesn’t make you as high as the skunk form of cannabis but yeah even to this day I associate that smell with home because from when I was young, that was what I could smell at home, it’s a comforting smell to me.

So you took it because you were curious about what your older sister was doing or?

I just thought it was normal. I just thought because she was doing it it was like cigarettes. It was just something else that people did and it was just normal. There wasn’t any. There wasn’t ever a problem with my sister doing it. It wasn’t ever looked upon in front of me as something you shouldn’t be doing. It was like a positive maybe because she, she sort of. I can see that when she. Because she was quite a fiery person. She’s quite a fiery character and her and my mum always used to argue.

And I observed that when she did smoke it she was a much calmer, nicer person. So I saw it as a good thing that it did make a positive impact on her. I also did notice that when she didn’t have it she was fiery again because she didn’t have it.

And your mum, what was your mum’s attitude at that time when she was smoking cannabis or skunk at home?

Quite liberal. She didn’t really see it as much as a problem either. Yeah I think that’s a general thing as well maybe in more so in like a council estate area, low income, yeah education levels and stuff. It’s just seen as a, it’s not a hard drug. It’s not a problem. It’s just a bit of skunk. It’s just a spliff. It’s not really a big problem. That’s the general idea around it.