How to best enjoy substances at family gatherings this combined Easter and 420

Bunny sits and waits in grass — what kind of grass? Tim Reckman | Photographer

This year, Easter lands on April 20, coinciding with the culturally recognized holiday of stoners and all things getting high. For many at Saddleback, this may present a difficult choice: get high or spend time with family? Why not both?

Sitting down with two anonymous students, they offer some advice and personal anecdotes on getting high at family gatherings. As a first step, consider carefully your family’s cultural relationship with marijuana, as well as your age, particularly if it’s below the legal limit, and how much they already know about your personal relationship with weed and other drugs. 

The first student, an English major transferring this fall, offers some important ground-floor advice.

“Don’t take too much,” he said. “And also — don’t smoke. Because that’s just stupid. Take some edibles instead. Don’t laugh too much, I guess. Everything is super funny.”

Being high around family can present a difficult challenge in humoristic endurance.

“It’s kind of funny if you’re sitting there, and then your uncle starts talking, and then he just starts looking a little weird,” he said. “He starts talking funny, and then you’re trying to hold in your laughter.”

Entering an alternative headspace can also recontextualize your family, both as a whole and individually, for better and for worse.

“It’s honestly not that different from just being regular,” he said. “It’s just like everything slows down and you appreciate your family a little more. An ordinary moment where you might be a little bit bored is more interesting. The jokes that your family makes are funnier. It’s like your family is less dysfunctional than they are — or at least you see the good parts more.”

“With my dad — it feels like I’m on his level,” he said, specifying further. “When I’m sober it’s like I can’t understand what’s going on and his jokes don’t make sense, but when I’m faded, I’m like: ‘dude, I understand you, like fully.’ We can riff better.”

When asked what his father’s relationship with weed was, the student said that he did not smoke anymore but that “he might’ve when he was in college. He was in a frat.”

On a particular day, the student smoked with members of his family around his age, but the event was cut short, leading him to have to drive home and follow through on the high alone.

“One time I smoked a whole joint,” he said, “and then everyone was like ‘Alright—we’re going home.’ Then I was like fuck you guys okay I’m driving home. I got home and just worked on my essay. My parents came and talked to me and they didn’t say anything. The essay was on ‘Beloved.’ That book is awesome.”

Though his parents are not particularly religious, his Easter plans nonetheless consist of an  arduous family gathering.

“I’m going to watch this four-hour Christian movie from the ‘50s that my parents really like.I probably won’t get faded — but now that you’re suggesting it, that could be kind of fun. Because that movie is so boring.”

The next student interviewed is a currently sober English major, also transferring this fall. His relationship with drugs at family gatherings may not be extensive, but it contains both a cautionary and interesting story.

“I have one time,” he said, referring to getting high around family. “And it was the first time I tried lean in my life. I was 14 years old in a butt-fuck trailer park in the middle of Hemet, California. I don’t even remember what the family gathering was for anymore, but it was at my grandma’s trailer.”

“Me and my cousin were bored out of our minds,” he said, “and he went to the bathroom and emerged with a bottle of codeine. We forewent the jolly rancher step and just poured codeine into our Sprites. The ratio was horrible. It tasted awful.”

“We walked around a trailer park in Hemet,” he said, “just sipping on this shit, upset, not having a good time and eventually, it turned into a good time. We were sitting there and feeling wondrous ways, until well… It’s a dubious drug itself. But it felt good at the time.”

Given that he was 14, there were obvious concerns about getting caught.

“My family did not know at all,” he said. “We were always goofy kids and my family knew I was having health issues at the time too, so they just took it as that.” 

“The best part was that it was a bonding experience with my cousin and a point that him and I both look back on a lot,” he added. “It was one of the precipices that stares back when we think about our lives both turning for the worse at that time.”

Considering, however, that there are downsides to almost any experience with drugs that are so spontaneous and ill-informed, the experience was not all good.

“The worst part is just that you feel like shit on that drug sometimes,” he said. “It’s not too much fun and it hurts your stomach. Jolly ranchers would’ve helped or like knowing what the fuck we’re doing, too. Why are we taking this bullshit at the family function?”

He is not religious, but is looking forward to his Easter Sunday.

“I am going on Easter to my first church service I’ve ever been to because one of my family friend’s mother just passed away,” he said. “Not only is it Easter, not only is it 420, but it’s also her birthday, so we’re going to a service and then having a party afterwards honoring her.”

When asked about if he had any advice for people getting high this Easter, he took a moment and paused, reflecting on both how obvious and terribly planned his past experiences have been.

“Just be subtle about shit, especially with it being on Easter,” he said.

Along with that, if you do get high or drink this Easter, be sure to drive safely and use responsibly. The next time these two fated holidays land on each other will be 2087 — make sure to make it till then!

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