Tag Archives: stoner culture

Drop the Roach

Interviewee: ES; Interviewer’s Housemate

“So this is really common in stoner culture. The superstition is that if you drop the roach someone’s sleeping with your partner.”

interviewer asks: “Can you explain what a ‘roach is’?”

“Yeah so like-” *interviewee shuffles around on the bed for a second and pulls out an old mint tin from under their pillow*

“a roach is like the, um, the end of the joint? Kinda. It’s the part closest to the filter.” *interviewee pulls out a soot covered filter from their tin*

Interviewer asks: “so can you explain where the superstition come from?”

“Not entirely sure! When I first started smoking, I accidentally dropped the joint on the floor and my friend at the time was like, ‘yoooo someone’s fucking your bitch’. I genuinely-” *interviewee begins to laugh* “I really don’t know where that came from but apparently it’s a thing. Almost like a sign of bad luck?”

My interpretation: I think this is the funniest thing to come out of stoner culture. It feels synonymous to the Mexican saying “que te robaste?” when you get the hiccups. I think it’s just a way to point out someone’s anxiety or clumsiness when doing the activity. It’s treated more like an omen of bad luck. (I’ve never dropped the roach, is all I’m saying)

White Lighters

Background:

Informant is a student at USC who calls herself a stoner.

Main Piece:

“It’s a common story with stoners that having a white lighter is bad luck.”

Context:

This conversation was recorded in-person. I was in possession of a white lighter which my informant took note of.

Analysis:

This example of folklore is a folk belief that is widely shared by a certain group of people (in this case, stoners). In similar vein to black cats crossing the street or walking underneath a ladder bringing bad luck, the actual physicality of the lighter does not bring any luck, but rather has been given a symbolic meaning later on. My informant did not know why specifically a white-colored lighter brought bad luck, and later found out about the urban legend that many famous musicians supposedly died while carrying a white lighter. Whether this is actually true or not isn’t the important part, but such a story would reasonably carry weight among people who possess lighters or frequently use them, and like my informant did, would also pass along the story as a word of caution to people in their circles who also smoke.

White Lighter Superstition – Musicians

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: January 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college sophomore, animator, and casual pot smoker. He sees weed as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity, and while he knows quite a bit of stoner folklore by just participating in the culture, he’s not very attached to it and it doesn’t mean much to him outside of a social context.

He learned about the white lighter superstition from a friend in high school, who relayed to him this take on it.

This interview was conducted in the informant’s friend’s bedroom, with another friend of his who had a different version of the superstition.

“So what’s your version of the white lighter bad luck thing?”
“Well you see, since I’m actually pretty sure that all… all, all lighters have a white bottom, um, it’s more of a bad luck thing because peoples… people that, that yeah—“ (Stephen interrupts) “Not all of them do, bro” “Well, BIC lighters… buncha musicians that were like ‘I like white lighters!’ died when they were like 20.” “So that’s why it’s bad luck?” “Yeah, cause you don’t wanna like, die when you’re 20.” “Ok, ok, so two musicians used white lighters and they died at the same age so therefore white lighters are bad.” “Yeah! Yeah.”

This is one of two versions of the white lighter superstition I collected that day, and has more to do with celebrity culture and bad luck concerning the phenomenon of famous musicians dying young. This lends a dark twist to the superstition but distances the consequence a bit from the bearer, as opposed to the other version, which has more to do with the luck component of being caught with marijuana.

White Lighter Superstition – Police

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: January 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college student, artist and avid pot smoker. He knows a lot of “stoner tricks” as he calls them, most of which he learned from friends in high school. These and other aspects of weed culture mean a lot to him because he sees pot as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity. Uniquely, as far as I have heard, he also uses it as a form of self-medication; he has ADHD and takes Ritalin, but says that it makes him feel mentally cloudy and slow, and that weed, for him, clears things up and makes him able to focus more easily. Thus, pot is an integral part of his daily life, both socially and personally.

 

He learned about the white lighter superstition from his freshman roommate, who was also an avid smoker.

 

This interview was conducted in the informant’s bedroom, with another friend of his who had a different version of the superstition.

 

“So the legend of the white lighter… One version I’ve heard is that it’s bad luck because normally the… ok, this is more of an omen… whatever man. So what happens is the uh, ganja smokers will tap the lighter down on the pipe to push down the ash, and that makes it like stay on the bottom of it so you use dark lighters to conceal that but like, a white lighter, sometimes the police will look at the bottom of it, and if they see ash stains then they know that you’re using it for illegal activities. Well, depending on where you are.”

 

This is one of two versions of the white lighter superstition I collected, and has more to do with the illegality of pot and the luck component to getting caught or not getting caught. He learned about it within the context of smoking in a college dorm, where he was more worried about getting caught with pot because the risk and consequence was higher, and I assume that’s why he remembered this superstition.

Mangoes and Marijuana

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college student, rapper,  and avid pot smoker. He knows a lot of “stoner tricks” as he calls them, most of which he learned from friends in high school. These and other aspects of weed culture mean a lot to him because he sees pot as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity. Uniquely, as far as I have heard, he also uses it as a form of self-medication; he has ADHD and takes Ritalin, but says that it makes him feel mentally cloudy and slow, and that weed, for him, clears things up and makes him able to focus more easily. Thus, pot is an integral part of his daily life, both socially and personally.

He heard about this method of enhancing a high from his best friend back home. Essentially if you eat a mango 30 minutes to an hour before smoking pot, the high is supposed to feel stronger.

He performed this piece of folklore—or rather told me about it—during a break in class, outside the classroom on a balcony.

“So what is this mango… thing?”

“Right! So, mangoes. Um, so there is a chemical in mangoes that is also in cannabis and I don’t know what that chemical is off the top of my head but it is essentially the chemical that opens up, it, it opens up to the, probably the receptors… I guess, are they technically enzymes? I don’t know. They open up the receptors in your brain and make them susceptible to receiving THC, so normally what would happen is you smoke the cannabis and you get all the different chemicals that are in the plant when it combusts, and some of those include the THC, some of those include those chemicals that are in the mangoes, and they would both kinda hit you at the same time so as the receptors are opening up THC is also filtering through so some of that THC is lost because it’s being filtered through before the receptors open up. So with the mango, what people do is you eat a mango like an hour before, and all your receptors are open so when you smoke, you don’t have to waste, like, it doesn’t have to take, your body doesn’t have to take time to open those receptors before, before the THC attaches to them, it just gets all of it at once. So you get a stronger high.”

“Mhm. So where’d you hear this?”

“My best friend Oliver told me. And then uh, and then there’s also like a timing element, too, cause if you do it like right before, it’ll just make the trip—not the trip, the high longer just because like, um, it’ll kind of open those receptors slowly as your brain continues to process the remaining THC that’s left over. But then like if you do it an hour before, then by the time you digest it it will have all kicked in, so then it’ll just make it stronger, it’ll hit you all at once. So there’s a timing element to that as well.”

“Cool. Have you tried this before?”

“I have! I have.”
“Does it work?”
“It does, but it doesn’t work to the point where it’s like, amazing. It’s just kind of like a little extra kick.”

“You don’t think that might be, like, a placebo effect?”
“Oh I’m sure there is somewhat of a placebo effect, but it’s a combination, like, part of it is placebo and part of it actually is that you’re getting higher. Because it does, it does do the work, I’ve fact-checked this and everything. It’s a legitimate thing, it’s not just a wives’ tale. I mean it started out as folklore, obviously, and it still is, but if you wanna look it up for yourself there is legitimate information on this.”

My informant is obviously very interested in having accurate information, and sets his stories apart from “wives’ tales” in stoner culture as truth and having been “fact-checked”. I found this interesting because upon asking him, most of what he thought was “wives’ tales” came from friends and most of what he thought was true he had fact-checked on online forums about weed. He uses scientific sounding words like enzyme and receptors to do this, which may all be true but certainly reinforces, at least in his mind, the fact that they are more true with scientific backup. His attachment to the truth reveals his attachment to being more “legitimate” within his identity as a stoner.