for Rolling Stone

The first time someone told me it’s possible to consume cannabis without getting high, I scoffed. I was five years sober and my friend, newly in recovery, was telling me about a “special” kind of marijuana. Apparently, she said, it offered anti-anxiety and pain relieving effects without the high of “traditional” marijuana. I didn’t pay much attention. First, I didn’t have strong feelings about marijuana one way or the other – my drug of choice was always alcohol. Second, weed with medicinal benefits and no psychoactive effect seemed like the wishful thinking of a newly sober recovering addict. I wrote it off as a pipe dream of the uncomfortably abstinent. (continued)