Green Room Diaries: How To Get High With Your Family Members

The holidays are coming up, blah blah blah...I’ll save you the introductory paragraph that’s been said a thousand times and just cut to the chase: someone in your family smokes weed and you should be bonding with them. But, let’s say you want to get high with your cool uncle. What if you can’t tell which uncle of yours is the "cool" one (versus the uncle responsible for your repressed memories and severe aversion to cranberry sauce)? Well, dear reader, I’m here to help you blaze up with not just uncles, but cousins, grandparents, the neighbor’s kid or whoever else who you may suspect is down with the dabs on the d/l. There are several tactics that you may take, in order to find out who at the Thanksgiving dinner table is a down-low smoker, but here are a few that are guaranteed to work...

The Finger-Up-The-Butt Approach Yeah, it’s a little odd to bring a booty poke analogy into a discussion about doing things with your aunt, but this is an adult magazine, so it works. Basically, you can just sort of sneak weed into the mix, while your relative-of-choice is outside smoking. Wait for Aunt Linda to light up a Pall Mall, then just blaze up your own pre-roll. This strategy relies on asking forgiveness—as opposed to permission—so, be ready to put that joint out and pretend like it didn’t happen, should you receive a dirty look, instead of a "pass it this way" glance. But, in most cases, you can bring up something like cancer to refute any opposition to your secondhand blunt smoke—thankfully, cigarettes have absorbed much of the smoker stigma that was once reserved for stoners. And, this is justified—there’s no tobacco medibles, or nicotine dabs. Clearly, cannabis has surpassed tobacco in more ways than one.

Reverse Psychology

Weed is becoming legal in more and more states, and the discussion surrounding it is, thus, more and more appropriate (at least in terms of bringing it up at the Thanksgiving dinner table). So, the strategy here is to express hesitation, or even all-out opposition, to the idea of legal cannabis. The first one of your family members to pull a "...well, actually..." is secretly hiding a dab pen in their purse or coat. Even though this approach seems disingenuous, if you pull it off, it will actually result in weed being passed to you, as opposed to you having to provide it. Yeah, you’ll have to act like you don’t know what you’re doing when you go to take a hit, but the fact remains— the largest amounts of free drugs are given to those who express the least amount of interest in doing them. Think about it—if you tell your bro friends, "Nah, man, I don’t think I wanna stay up all night doing cocaine and hookers," your buddies will attempt to twist your arm, and in many cases, will pay for said cocaine and hookers. But, if you call them up and say, "Hey man, I could really use some cocaine and hookers right about now," they’ll probably tell you to purchase them on your own. Weed works the same way.

The Lesser-Evil Approach

Let’s say you haven’t seen grandma for a few years and she asks you, "So, what have you been up to?" You answer honestly, "Well, I was doing really well in school, but I got lazy and went on a Fortnite binge, before dropping out and working at a dispensary. Now, I date a 23-year-old and go to rap concerts." Grandma weeps in shame. Now, let’s say you switched it up. "Well, grandma, I was living in the gutter, sucking dick for a new drug called Herotoxincaine, which turns users into cannibalistic monsters, who eat babies and openly support left-leaning, third-party candidates. But, thankfully, I’m no longer a junkie, because I kicked my Herotoxincaine habit by switching to cannabis. I’m now a successful video game tester in a wonderful relationship with someone healthy enough to birth your great-grandchild." Perspective is everything. At this point, you could probably dab up at the dinner table, and everyone would applaud you for sticking to your recovery plan.

The Semi-Cosby Approach

I do not recommend this approach, but as long as you don’t do anything that violates your target family member’s physical boundaries, it can be fun. All you have to do is bring some ready-to-eat weed butter to the family gathering. Then, just leave it on the counter. That’s right—simple and blunt (no pun intended and no blunt required). Everyone should know not to eat it, as the shit will be green and it will taste (and smell) like weed. Unless you’re part of one of those weird "we allow our kids to roam around the kitchen and just access the butter themselves" type of families, everything should be fine. Sooner or later, your cousin Patty will toss some on her potato—your duty as a responsible family member is to make sure that Patty is placed safely on the couch, in front of that Snoopy special, where Charlie Brown gets high as fuck and starts seeing imaginary pumpkins. Then, if anyone wonders why the whole family is baked off their asses, just blame that chemical that supposedly exists in turkey.