We’ve all been there. Times are hard, money is lean, and that bowl is dirty. You’ve got a habit to placate and Wes is running Karazhan tonight so he’s not answering his phone.

The year is 2007, you (me) are 17 and the unearned ennui you feel demands to be silenced. Its time to scrape.

For those too square or too wealthy to be unfamiliar with the process, lets talk about weed resin.

Resin is formed by the combustion of Marijuana. It is sticky, tarry, and filled with carbon and ash. A shimmering black coating of good times past hiding in every nook and cranny of your pipe. It contains a fraction of the THC with higher concentrations of carcinogens. It tastes bad, smells bad, ruins anything its touches. And it is the saving grace of smoking grass.

Because when you need it, the resin is always there.

A time honored tradition of puerile pot-heads, The Scraping of The Bowl. A laborious effort with carefully angled paper-clips, screwdrivers, and bobby pins. As with all acts of maintenance, the reward comes at the end. A clean pipe, free of debris and obstruction grants passage to a fresh pull of smoke. The flavor of the bud, undiluted by leftovers, delights the senses as it burns the lungs. And most practical of all, a collection of natures insurance policy. The aforementioned ball of resin.

Thirty years of age and 14 years of experience blesses me with the gift of hindsight. But also the plague of nostalgia. I now look back on those nights with joy. A cadre of crust-heads cramped on the couch, working in silence to each provide for the tribe. As each stoner has a bowl, they all can contribute towards the oil-slick, cough till you puke ritual of smoking resin. At the time it was tedious, deftly twisting my utensil, praying not to hit a weak spot in the seams of the glass. Embarrassed that six teenagers can’t conjure up the $25 for a half-eighth of crippy (there’s a throwback).

From the present I see the halcyon days of youth. Guitar Hero, AIM, LOST, and whatever weed we could get our hands on. When the bag ran dry, or when a pipe broke revealing the treasure inside, our mom’s junk drawers were raided for a suitable tool and we began to mine.

Also from the present, I see the re-registration email for my Medical Marijuana card sit in my inbox. I see the date approach on the calendar, and I see it whisk by. Kids, bills, projects, and the gas to get them all together make the $100 renewal fee a back-burner issue. Sure, I could go get my card renewed, but then I wouldn’t have any money for the actual Marijuana. There are priorities here.

No big deal, I’ll see what I can find on the black market. It hasn’t been that long. It was only seven months ago that I went to the local Chill Mill and got the “medical recommendation.” Thereby satisfying the grotesque revenue generation scheme that The State of Florida and a handful of Marijuana companies concocted. Its really genius, fleece those comfortable enough to drop a few hundred dollars on their Do Not Arrest card. Meanwhile keeping the already targeted poor within the law’s grasp.

I then came to a haunting realization, I didn’t know any drug dealers anymore. Before the state approved my presence in the sickly sweet, open floor planned, Apple Storesque world of legal marijuana, my cousin was living with me. He knew a guy. So I’d just wait for the weed to show up. The pinnacle of convenience.

But the relationship between my cousin and his plug, had soured. The way crime cliques often crumble, something about a girl. Okay he’s out. Think harder Kris, delve deep into the confines of your pot addled memory and remember who used to serve.

Fuck, it’s Mike. His name wasn’t actually Mike, but I’m no snitch. Mike was a nice dude, always smoked me out, never shorted me. Wonderful superlatives for a drug dealer. Granted, these transactions were typically preceded by a 40 minute drive North, and a 45 minute wait in his driveway. The coveted “come up” text existing in a state of flux, will I get in? Or will he nod out on the couch again?

I haven’t seen him in years, half a dozen phones and two numbers ago. This ship had lazily sailed out from underneath me. I was marooned. I was, Dry.

And just like that, all of the advancements in drug science evaporated. In a world of concentrates, carts, and industrially grown loud, I was pushed back to my roots.

The junk drawer this time, was mine. The bobby pins, my girlfriends. The rose colored glasses towards the follies of my youth ripped from my face by a stark reality. Scraping your bowl for scraps sucks, and it sucks hard.

A gross mess of black gunk that smells like the worst barbecue restaurant in Lakeland. It’s returns, pitiful. A smattering of the precious active chemicals to tickle these long depleted dopamine receptors. I recall now why I viewed this in such disdain. My fingers, tacky and brown. My pride, dissolved.

And in that sad, messy, disheveled state an epiphany rose within me. (there’s that marijuana induced insight I’ve trained myself to need!) It worked. The state got what they wanted.

I’ve grown so complacent in my pretentious, high-efficiency led bulb soaked paradise of overpriced 8ths. I’ve lost my connection to the underworld. The underworld that guided my teenage years, ruined my early 20s. A world pockmarked by substances much stronger and more taboo than the humble cannabis I still find refuge in.

All of this perfectly illustrating the point, if you don’t want the public to have access to something, make it legal. Regulate it, tax it, do with it what you will. Black Markets have no barriers to entry.

When I was a teenager, getting weed or even something like cocaine was no farther than a text message away. Served at your location, clean and easy. If we were throwing a party and alcohol was needed, it was a several day endeavor. Making calls, seeing if older brothers are in town, finding the least scrupulous looking adult in a Wal-Mart and slipping them a twenty dollar bill for an 18 pack of Natty Ice. There were many times where it just couldn’t happen, or the difficulty of obtaining it outweighed the perks of getting drunk.

But that was fine because we knew a guy that had blow and rolls pretty regularly. He was also a pimp, he’d bring his girls around sometimes, we had some nice conversations. Again I had only been driving for two years at this point. We felt mature and cool for hanging out with a gang-banger, in retrospect I’m horrified.

The fight to legalize marijuana has been long and arduous. We have achieved so much, and still have so far to go. And even when we are finished, the fight will continue.



Drug laws are just one arm of The State’s repression of a (largely poor, and non-white) working class. William Randolph Hearst’s war on hemp linked Marijuana to Mexican and Black citizens. Nixon used heroin to target black communities fighting for liberation. The Reagan Administration charged personal crack possession at the same level of dealing cocaine, despite them being the same drug. (you notice a trend here?)

Our drug laws are founded on racism, class warfare and not much else. Can you think of a moral, ethical or logical reason for locking someone away for years for a crime that only harms the perpetrator? Trick question, you can’t.

Alcohol prohibition didn’t work. Marijuana prohibition is unraveling as we speak. Magic Mushrooms and MDMA are next, their therapeutic value only now being recognized. The writing is on the wall, you can’t keep drugs illegal forever.

But as long as they are illegal, those laws will continue to oppress and disenfranchise the lowest rungs of our society. Traditional American Thought dictates that drug addiction is a low-class problem. All the former lacrosse players lying stiff in their bedrooms from a fent overdose can attest to how that narrative is being undone. Drug addiction is a societal problem, it is caused by stress, poverty, and hopelessness. No amount of jail time will fix a world that drives former pain patients to shooting up heroin. Mandatory minimums can’t change working conditions that make methamphetamine appealing.

If one wants to rid the world of drug addiction, give the addicts a better world to live in. Because frankly, heroin feels amazing, much better than your shitty life. I can’t blame them.

No one would die from a fentanyl overdose if heroin had to be inspected like pharmaceuticals, or legal marijuana, or even beer. Hardly anyone would even want to do heroin if their life was fulfilling. And if we can somehow stop the death march of capitalism in time maybe we’ll see that world.

Until that day, criminalizing some drugs while allowing others to sponsor the Superbowl isn’t just insane and immoral. It doesn’t even work.

But right now I’m dankrupt, trapped in a state of sobriety thanks to the legality of my drug of choice. If I had never bought weed in a store, I would have never lost all my connections, I’d be high right now! But I’m not. I’m listening to Coheed and Cambria and scraping my bowl, just like the old days.