My felony marijuana growing conviction made it tough to get a handgun, but I finally scored one a few weeks after my beautiful wife told me our marriage was over.
For seven years, she’d was my best friend, stoner buddy, grow room helper.
She was a passionate goddess in bed, my muse and inspiration– the light of my life.
I loved and trusted her way more than I’d ever loved anything or anyone, even my marijuana plants.
I invested most all my money, time, hopes, plans, and dreams in her.
So when she suddenly said that the love, home, and life we had together wasn’t good enough anymore, it tore me up.
I couldn’t shake heartbreak and depression, no matter how much marijuana I used.
It felt like I’d been stabbed in the chest.
I became constantly suicidal.
I went to psychiatrists, and they prescribed me expensive pharmaceuticals that made me feel more depressed.
I found a Swiss organization named Dignitas that would help me die peacefully, but only if I was terminally ill and could pay tens of thousands of dollars.
I wanted to procure black market Nembutal (pentobarbital), the so-called “peaceful pill” touted as a sleepy, painless, reliably effective suicide method.
But pentobarbital was only available from the notorious “Silk Road” website.
The U.S. government shut down Silk Road as an allegedly criminal enterprise before I could get my order placed.
I couldn’t buy the peaceful pill, so I bought a gun.
Growing marijuana was the only thing anchoring me to life as I watered, trimmed, trained, and fed my crop of 12 large marijuana plants.
I was growing three specialty strains I’d created through many years of growing, caring, and breeding.
In my hydroponics marijuana garden, under the bright lights, life seemed worth living.
But pain and loss always returned.
Every time I saw a picture of her, or somebody asked me why she left, I felt again the cruel futility of the love, care, and attention I’d given her.
Somewhere buried deep beneath the pain I knew it was “wrong” for me to kill myself.
It would hurt family and friends, and put an end to my future.
But there was a powerful tide of sadness pulling me away from life, towards death.
The drug war itself, the constant worry that growing marijuana could land me in prison, made me feel angry about the ignorant society we live in.
I felt it was time to go to sleep and never wake up.
One day I got my gun and suicide note (it had taken me weeks to write) and mindfully, mournfully walked out to the shed I’d chosen as the place for my self-execution.
I put the cold barrel of the gun in my mouth, and then to my temple, imagining the explosion of the bullet entering my brain, the searing burst of final pain, and a bloody, stupid mess I wouldn’t have to clean up.
My finger pressed on the trigger, but on impulse, I put the weapon down and went to my hydroponics grow room.
The glistening buds smelled like oranges, pepper, mango, pine, lemon, and roses.
I inhaled the delicious scent from those glowing flowers, breathed pure oxygen created by my marijuana crop.
Suddenly I felt my mood lighten.
Perhaps it was a “terpenoid high.”
I went back to my gun and suicide note, still planning to end my life.
But I kept thinking of my cherished marijuana plants and the sticky harvest to come.
Finally, I emptied the bullets out of the chamber, and tore up the death note.
Those crystal-clear resin glands, those sweet cannabis aromas, and the joy of growing marijuana had saved my life.
