A Really Good Day(63)

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*1 ?The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988.

*2 ?Richard A. Posner, “We Need a Strong Prison System.”

*3 ?Glenn Greenwald, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal, p. 28.

*4 ?We are actually well on our way to legalizing marijuana. In addition to Colorado, the states of Washington, Oregon, and Alaska and the District of Columbia have all recently legalized the possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana. Polls show that more than half the country favors this reform. Twenty-four states allow for the possession and distribution of medical marijuana, a policy supported by over 70 percent of the population. As people come to appreciate the tax revenues of legalized marijuana, and notice the few negative effects of these schemes, support is likely only to increase.

*5 ?I’m willing to bet that the average consumer of Jell-O shots is even younger than the average consumer of bubble tea.

*6 ?Tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive substance in marijuana. There are over a hundred cannabinoids in marijuana, including cannabidiol (CBD), which is less intoxicating and has anxiolytic, antipsychotic, antiemetic, and anti-inflammatory properties. See, e.g., M. M. Bergamaschi et al., “Safety and Side Effects of Cannabidiol, a Cannabis Sativa Constituent.”

*7 ?Drugs such as 25I-NBOMe and 5-MeO-AMT, both synthetic hallucinogens.

*8 ?The Wesleyan students who nearly died took K2 or AB-FUBINACA, a synthetic cannabinoid infinitely more dangerous than the relatively safe MDMA they thought they were getting.

*9 ?Interestingly, treatment with ibogaine, a psychedelic drug derived from the African iboga plant that works to alleviate withdrawal symptoms, shows much more promising (though preliminary) results in treating addiction than either drug-replacement or traditional abstinence-based programs. See Kenneth R. Alper, M.D. et al., “Treatment of Acute Opioid Withdrawal with Ibogaine.”

*10 ?See, e.g., Breaking Bad.

*11 ?Carl L. Hart et al., “Is Cognitive Functioning Impaired in Methamphetamine Users? A Critical Review.”

*12 ?M. G. Kirkpatrick et al., “Comparison of Intranasal Methamphetamine and D-Amphetamine Self-Administration by Humans.”

*13 ?Kofi Annan, “Why It’s Time to Legalize Drugs.”





Day 28


Microdose Day

Physical Sensations: Slightly dizzy about three hours after dose.

Mood: Activated. Edgy.

Conflict: Disagreement with my husband.

Sleep: A better night’s sleep than on other Microdose Days.

Work: Productive workday.

Pain: Minor.





It began when I lobbed a passive-aggressive salvo through the closed bathroom door. My shoulder was hurting, I said, and it had to be from writing while lying on the uncomfortable couch.

“Let’s agree that the next time we buy a couch we will consult one another,” I said.

As if we spend our days buying couches. As if we are likely to buy another couch in the next decade.

After a moment, my husband answered: “Your problem isn’t the couch, or my chair, or the eight-track players. Your problem is that you want a room of your own.” Here we go again. They should write a play about us called Who’s Afraid of Admitting Virginia Woolf Was Right?

“I do not. I just can’t work in there.”

“Exactly. You can’t work in there. You want your own space. But you don’t feel like you deserve it.”

He’s said that before, and I always respond that he’s the one who wants me out of his studio. We bicker over who it is that wants me out, and then we make up and resolve to share the space more cooperatively. But this time I remembered the day a few weeks ago, when, in a fit of pique, I packed away my things from his studio: the photographs of the children, my row of books, my little laptop stand. After I had put the bin in the storage shed, I had been perfectly comfortable on the uncomfortable couch. I had felt at ease, as I feel when I write in a café. In a café, the space doesn’t feel like it’s mine, because it’s not mine. It was when I treated the studio as my husband’s, and myself as the guest that I always felt I was, that I finally felt comfortable.

I remembered that feeling, and I was finally able to admit that he is right. What I want is not a corner of his space, or even a precisely delineated half of it. What I want is a room of my own. But I don’t feel I deserve one.

In part, it’s about money. In the words of Virginia Woolf, “Money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for.” Though I have always been paid well enough for my writing, I earn a fraction of what my husband does. Not just the typical seventy-nine cents every woman earns to a man’s dollar. Even less than that. From the very beginning, this has bothered me. There was a while, when our kids were small, when I became obsessed with the salary of the nanny we hired after our third child was born. At the end of every year, I would do an assessment. If I earned more than I paid the nanny, I was relieved. If I earned less, I was devastated. How could I justify this frivolous career when I couldn’t even pay for the child care I needed because I was pursuing this frivolous career?

I was aware of how irrational I was being. We employed a nanny not so I could work, but so we could work. My husband was no less responsible for child care than I was. He is a feminist, born and bred, and never for a moment did he consider child care solely my expense, but both of ours. So why did I offset the nanny’s salary only against my own? Why did my mental equation not include what he was bringing in?