How they all scream and demonize the herb! But it’s not dear Mary Jane you have to watch out for, but her sisters, who will drive you out of your mind and straight into the loony bin. For Helge Timmerberg, there is only one – and he has remained true to it for years.

A chapter from the new book “Joint Adventure” by Helge Timmerberg.

Text: Helge Timmerberg Photo: picture alliance / Zoonar / Stanislav Rishnyak

Cannabis: the fairy tale of the gateway drug

I had moved into a palm leaf hut on the beach in Goa with a beautiful woman, but as paradisiacal as the view was, my desire for intimacy remained unfulfilled. She opened her soul, maybe even her heart to me, but not her legs, and one late afternoon someone came along with opium. It was the first time for me, and just an hour later she still wasn’t sleeping with me, she wasn’t even thinking about it, but she felt the same way I do now. No greed, no longing, no desire survived in the absolute security that the opium gave me, that was peace to the marrow of my bones, and as far as my love was concerned – it had its fill of her face. A kind of saturation that can always take more. An unparalleled gluttony, but without overindulgence. My eyelids kept drooping due to the opium, but I kept my eyes open as best I could to keep looking at her beautiful face. And when she had to go for little girls, I got my fill of the beauty of the palm trees in front of the hut, the beauty of the bay at blue hour, even the little pot-bellied pigs. Later, also due to the opium, we just lay on our backs next to each other, my hand parked on her arm, and these few square centimetres of physical contact felt like a cosmic wedding. Of course nothing came of it, of course it was just an opium rush, but I don’t care. The experience remains unforgettable, and for that I thank the drug very much. But I never got addicted to it. And I never looked for them. I only took opium when it happened to come my way, and after Goa it took me 20 years to try again and another ten to try a third time. The insights I gained from this are as follows: Firstly, I cannot defame hashish as a gateway drug for opium, because I smoked my first joint eleven years earlier, and secondly, opium does not automatically lead to addiction. You need to meet the requirements in your user profile, and if you don’t meet the requirements, you won’t become a junkie. People are built like this: The greater his longing for security, the greater his susceptibility to addiction. And opium can womb. Great longing comes from great want. The first seven years are crucial. I spent it with my grandparents, and just like Obelix, who fell into a barrel of magic potion as a child, I splashed around in a barrel full of love and security. That was enough for a lifetime. And the road became my longing instead. A thirst for adventure and opium enjoyment? That doesn’t fit. And it doesn’t need to, because the instant bliss that opium gives us immediately devours any adventure, indeed any urge to move. That’s one reason why I could enjoy opium, but didn’t have to stick with opium. I had other premises, other plans, visions and goals. And I was ambitious too. I loved to compete and loved to win, and when I lost, I loved to get back up, and that just doesn’t fit the profile for an opiate addiction. They need the desire to stay put. This is also said of stoners, but they are said to do a lot of things when the day is long. Opium is the queen of dreams. Haschisch dreams a size smaller, and that’s called inspiration. One is self-sufficient, the other helps with writing. Smoking hashish is not unprofessional. But also not the drug of the professionals. It’s called cocaine.

The Bitch and Mary Jane

Whenever I hear that cannabis is a gateway drug for cocaine, I don’t know if it’s a bold-faced lie or plain incompetence that’s being lectured. Not only because there are 30 years between my first joint and my first nose, but above all because the two drugs are enemies. The cocaine cat and the hashish bunny. Or the bitch and Mary Jane. It’s one of the many pet names for marijuana, and bitch is clear. Their opposites: Mary Jane can keep quiet, the bitch can’t. Mary Jane can listen, the bitch only hears herself. Mary Jane can give, the bitch can only take. And as far as sex is concerned: Mary Jane acts like an aphrodisiac, the bitch like a narcotic. Mary Jane is sensual, the bitch is cold. Not only in bed, but also on the dance floor. You recognize them immediately. The horny one is Mary Jane and the greedy one is the vampire. I was sitting at the table with a gallery owner and his wives in the Berlin restaurant for super professionals. First he talked like a waterfall, and quite brilliantly at that, then he invited me for a line in the toilet. I hadn’t done cocaine for seven years and I was still drinking too little to get to the Leckomio level. That’s why I said no at first. And kept drinking. After his return, I was ready and he gave me what was left.

A gift is a gift

The toilets in the super-professional bar are multifunctional and ideal for urination, sex and drug abuse. Despite this, there was no one there but me. I made myself comfortable in one of the spacious cubicles and checked the gallery owner’s remaining stock. There was enough for two lines. As I pulled one of them in, I heard the door to the anteroom open. It was the gallery owner. He called for me. I didn’t answer. I didn’t move. He washed his hands and continued to call my name. Not loudly, not annoyingly, he tried to use a lively, almost singing tone, because life is great fun. And I remained as quiet as a mouse. It went on like that for a while. He even walked up and down in front of the booths and his shouting lost its musicality. When he had given up and left again, I pulled in the second line. Greed is a deadly sin. Whether on the stock exchange or in the loo. And not wanting to share a drug, especially with someone who had given it to me, is antisocial. The cokehead brain sees it differently. A gift is a gift. And I’m not Mother Teresa. Stoners, on the other hand, love to share their joint with a friend or a friend of a friend – and even with strangers. It’s custom, it’s ritual, it’s the way it should be. “Don’t bogart that joint, my friend.” Even if it’s their last? Then they may not love it, but they share it anyway. Hashish is a drug with social skills. Cocaine can only disinhibit ego. These are two different worlds. How can one be the gateway to the other? No, the gateway drug for cocaine is the devil alcohol. That fits perfectly.

The devil alcohol

I rarely drink. I can go weeks without alcohol without noticing that I’ve given it up, and that’s called forgetting. I don’t need alcohol, I just fall into it sometimes, just as the parties fall, for example last week in my neighborhood discotheque. There were three of us there. Before that, we’d each had a caipirinha with the enchilada at the Mexican restaurant, and then Cuba Libre was served at the disco. We didn’t like it. There was too much lemon juice in it. The Indian who runs the place is a friend of mine and added three rum and lime-free colas on the house. As soon as we had finished that, taste no longer played a role and we swallowed what we hadn’t liked before. The owner of the disco, also a friend, joined us to buy us a 28-year-old rum neat. It tastes fabulous, but of course it doesn’t quench your thirst. The next batch of Cuba Libre was therefore already on its way, followed by one, two or possibly three more, and we did the only right thing and danced. And whenever I went back to the bar for a break, I just drank whatever was left there, regardless of whether it was my glass or someone else’s, as there was no name on it. In the end, the two of them took me home. It was only about 200 meters, but they thought, better safe than sorry, and hooked up with me. They only let go of me at the front door. Alone in the stairwell, I stopped walking straight ahead. I noticed because I had hit my head on the wall, only a little, nothing major, it didn’t hurt a bit, but it was enough for me to realize the seriousness of the situation and a) look for the middle and b) not lose it again until I was standing in front of my apartment door. Apparently that had worked out well, because the unlocking went fabulously. Afterwards, I sat motionless at the kitchen table for another two hours or so and was delighted with the successful evening. I didn’t look in the mirror until I was brushing my teeth the next day. A bump the size of a purple Easter egg was growing out of the left side of my forehead. Underneath, a fat blue eye looked at me in horror. “Dude, how could that happen?” And the answer is: “I haven’t been a cokehead for a long time. That’s why.” If I had also taken lines with the rum, I would have gotten to bed in one piece. Cocaine neutralizes alcohol, but doesn’t make it ineffective. It’s still fun and still tastes good, but you don’t slur your words, you don’t sway, you don’t fall, you don’t bang into walls, no matter how much you’ve drunk. I lived in Havana for two years. That’s how I know it. The rum and coke combination was part of the standard program at every salsa party because it’s so good for dancing. You don’t lose power over your balance, on the contrary, you gain power over it. The same applies to reflexes and reaction speed, whether you’re driving a car or at the poker table, you drink as much as you can afford and still stay cool. That makes alcohol and coke sibling drugs. They never come alone. They complement each other perfectly. In exchange for the gift of control, the devil alcohol gives the cocaine vampire a certain affability. Hashish and coke, on the other hand, give each other nothing at all. So how can one be the gateway to the other? Exit drug is right. Coke users dampen their withdrawal with hashish, they smoke themselves down, they finally fall asleep again with hashish. A gateway drug means that you have tasted blood with one substance and hope to taste more of it with a harder one. Cocaine can’t offer the stoner that. Neither can heroin. Only the psychedelic drugs deliver what psychoactive cannabis promises. THC is the gateway drug for LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms. But their effects are far too strong to make them a habitual drug.

Joint Adventure

Helge Timmerberg knows the good and the bad in cannabis, its highs and crashes, the stoner paranoia and the crumb too many. He writes a book about this – “Joint Adventure” – for which he not only draws on his own experiences, but also on his experiences with the lovely Mary Jane, who elsewhere is really nothing more than a friendly acquaintance with whom one enjoys spending the evening. In an interview with FACES, Helge Timmerberg reveals how his latest book “Joint Adventure” came about.
Helge Timmerberg, “Joint Adventure”, Piper, ca. 33.-
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