My Profession

My sisters and I spread our mom’s ashes in the Adirondacks last October, in the same stream where we’d watched her scatter our father’s ashes nearly 30 years earlier. She died last April from complications due to cigarette smoking. She was just one of almost 500,000 people who die from cigarettes each year, but she was my one. She smoked Marlboro Reds for the last 55 years and was 72 when she passed. At her peak, she smoked two to three packs a day. She didn’t always finish them, but she always had them. Like a magician, one would appear between her fingers—poof. You wouldn’t even see her pull it from the pack before it was already lit and gesticulating along with whatever story she was telling. One of the most familiar smells in my life was cigarette smoke. My mom smoked Marlboro Reds, my dad smoked Winstons, my grandmother smoked Virginia Slims, and my other grandmother smoked Kent Ultra Lights 100s.

One of my earliest memories, when I was around 5 or 6, was running into our back door to find my mom standing in the kitchen, talking to someone. She wasn’t focused on me, so I ran over to hug her, wrapping my arms around her and pressing my cheek to her side, I felt a burn and saw a lit cherry fall. I screamed. She was mortified. I recovered, but the memory stuck.

A few years ago, I asked my mom, “Did you quit smoking and drinking when you were pregnant with me?” She laughed out loud, “Ha, I quit drinking! Things were different then!” By 1984, people already knew that cigarettes weren’t great for one’s health, especially during pregnancy. It threw me. My eldest sister was premature, and my middle sister was born in between us, and yet my mom still smoked with me in the womb? Jesus, what an addictive drug…

I had my first cigarette after my dad died when I was 9 years old. Soon after, I took a Winston from one of his last packs, went to the alley behind our house, lit it, tried it, and cried. I’d always seen my parents smoke when they were stressed. I took two or three puffs, field-stripped it, and hid it in the dirt. After that, I occasionally smoked with friends, stealing cigarettes from our parents and smoking down in the bayous in Houston. I started really using tobacco when I was 13.

Skoal Straight was my dip. Or Mint. Or Wintergreen. Or Spearmint. I’d use Copenhagen when with that crowd. I started at my first job, working at the neighborhood country club. The pro was a friend of my father’s, so I was brought on to clean and set up golf carts for members. Sometimes they would leave wallets, watches, beers, cans of dip, packs of cigarettes. I returned the personal items but kept the rest. Eventually, my locker was filled with single beers, partial cans of dip, and cigarette packs. The first time I dipped, I was in the caddy room, with ESPN playing on loop in the background. Eventually, I felt nauseated, I grew hot, and I ran to the bathroom and threw up. It still blows my mind that I tried it again.

By the time I was 15, though I was using tobacco, I wasn’t drinking yet. I grew up in a sober household. Both my mom and dad were recovering alcoholics, so occasionally, we went to AA meetings together before my dad passed. I’d always been warned about alcohol’s dangers. The story I heard was that my dad decided to get sober when he was supposed to take a flight to New York but ended up in New Mexico. My dad was a hard liquor drinker, and my mom a social binge drinker. My dad went into the program first, and my mom followed shortly thereafter, so I never knew my parents as drinkers. They were over 10 years sober before my dad died.

Starting high school, I was wary of alcohol because I hadn’t been around it much. From what I’d been told, people who drank too much hurt themselves or others, like my dad’s oldest brother, who drank until he died from “wet brain.” I remember meeting him at a cousin’s wedding when I was 5 or 6. I told him, “Isn’t this a great party?” and he replied, “What’s so fucking great about it?” He was a Stanford undergrad, a Harvard Business grad, and a high-functioning alcoholic.

Eventually, I went to boarding school, where dip was like cigarettes in prison. I assume kids are better now, but back then, it was our communal vice. We could get expelled for drinking or drug use, but we had more chances with tobacco, and dip was more discreet than smoking. Later in high school, I started to drink, but mostly in the summers. I learned it wasn’t as instantly dangerous as I’d been led to believe. I had fun drinking. But I also learned you could drink too much. You could say too much. You could black out. You could drive drunk. You could get out of control. I pushed it, like many of my peers did, but tempered my alcohol use. I knew too many people who struggled with it, and I knew my family history. Eventually, I tried cannabis. I never got out of control on cannabis. Maybe a little anxious, but never out of control. With cannabis, I stayed low-key. It always seemed to me to be the gentlest option.

I smoked pot for the first time at a friend’s house party when I was 15. I didn’t get high, but it wasn’t bad—less harsh than a cigarette. Later, when I was 16, I went to the Adirondacks with my cousins and smoked and drank around a campfire one night. I still didn’t get high, but I felt safe out there in the woods.

A few days later, some of us canoed to an island and camped overnight. We listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, saw thousands of stars, shooting stars, and the Milky Way. That night, standing on a lean-to, I thanked God for my life. I felt gratitude for the first time I could remember. I’d felt privileged before, but not truly grateful. I’d known so much loss. Yet here I was, in this majestic place where my dad’s ashes had been spread. I felt so small looking into the vastness of the universe, and yet connected to it too. I had so much to be grateful for. I finally got high. And it was glorious. It felt like what Carl Sagan said, “We are all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.”

I’ve run four marathons—Austin, San Francisco, Lake Placid, and Los Angeles—a 50K ultra-marathon at Bear Mountain in New York, and over 10 official half marathons. Twice, I’ve run up the Empire State Building in around 25 minutes. Over 20 years, I’ve logged thousands of miles of various distances, often on cannabis. During that time, I ran my fastest times in my late 20s, including a 1:40 half marathon and a 5:55 mile, but I’ve also run slowly plenty of times. Currently, I’m running about a 13-minute mile with my baby in a stroller, an erratic Rhodesian Ridgeback, and my beautiful and amazing wife, who is less into running but clearly faster than me. I’ve also played 10 seasons of club lacrosse, joined the 1,000-pound club in my almost-40s, and tried but not completed three 50-mile races, getting a little further each time. But, again, often with cannabis. I feel healthier exercising with it than I ever did with tobacco or alcohol. Running miles high is like a movie in your mind. Add music, and you’re at your own concert. Add a podcast, and you’re back in school. By the end, I feel refreshed. Many athletes would say the same; it’s great for pain relief too.

The last time I saw my mom was at Christmas. We hadn’t seen each other in person during the entire pandemic. She had grown thinner and frailer over the past few years, often shutting herself in because she’d get sick so easily. We knew that if she caught Covid, it could likely kill her. Her lungs were weak, so she used inhalers and sometimes portable oxygen. During Christmas, I saw she had a 10:1 CBD gummies that a friend had given her. She was willing to take it because her pulmonologist had told her she should “vape CBD instead of smoking cigarettes.” I asked her about the gummies, and she told me what her doctor had said. Then she added, “I can’t do it, Sam. Hippies do it.” I replied, “Mom, it’s a 4-billion-dollar legal industry in California. I can help you if you want.” She waved me off. It wasn’t something we were going to discuss. Little did she know I’d been working in the legal cannabis space in California for the past few years, and had wanted to ever since states like Colorado and Washington legalized it in 2012. Little did she know that I believed cannabis was safer than tobacco, alcohol, or any other drug and had thought so since I was 16. But we weren’t going to argue about it at Christmas. That was the last time I saw her. It was also the only time she met my son. I cherish those moments, however brief.

I haven’t used any tobacco in over six years. It took years of weaning and relapsing to get there. I took Chantix, quit cigarettes successfully for a year and a half, then picked them back up after a friend died from an overdose. Eventually, I quit because I felt best without cigarettes, and I kept seeing my mom get thinner and weaker, struggling to breathe even after a short walk. Nicotine withdrawal kept me coming back until my early 30s. Finally, I met my wife, and I haven’t had a cigarette since our first date, when we had one together after many drinks and seeing The Book of Mormon on Broadway. Several months later, we moved to California, and I haven’t really thought about a cigarette since—unless to tell this story.

In my eight years in New York, I would buy craft beer and have one or two at the end of most days. NYC is the best drinking city in the world. Bars close at 4 AM. The subway never stops. You can taxi or Uber anywhere. Since moving to L.A., I drink maybe once or twice a month, usually one glass of wine, one beer, or one cocktail. Living in a legal cannabis state has allowed me the privilege of opting out of drinking. Instead of drinking, I use cannabis. And if I smoke, it’s far less than the two to three packs a day my mom smoked for so many years—more like two to three puffs.

The cannabis industry is here, even in Texas. Chill with the guns too, Texas, please. After college, I had a dealer show me his guns while I was buying an eighth. He was ex-Army, and he sat me down at his poker table to show me two handguns and his AR in the corner next to his buddy on the couch. He said, “Just so you know, I won’t be fucked with.” All that for an eighth? I never went back. Shortly afterward, I moved to Queens, where I had safe, reliable connections. The tough guy culture in this space needs to end, and it will when safe banking and federal legalization become realities. Cannabis will continue to commoditize. It will generate billions in revenue and taxes and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It is harm-reductive and better for people than most alternatives. I know too many people who might still be here if they had stayed in this lane instead of going somewhere harder that they couldn’t control, like with alcohol or cigarettes—especially alcohol and cigarettes.

Some will say, “It’s a drug, Sam. You’re wrong.” Then why is it okay to have a drink every night? Why is it okay to smoke cigarettes? Why is taking antidepressants for life better? Why isn’t cannabis okay? My mom is gone because of cigarettes. She should have known her grandchildren longer, but tobacco’s hold was too strong. I believe cannabis is the better alternative.

I was close to telling my mom what I had been working on, but I’m relieved I didn’t. She would have worried, no matter what points I made. We were both political science majors from different sides of the aisle. The years I spent trying to convince her to quit smoking showed me that some people simply won’t change, even if those they love tell them they don’t want to lose them. Nicotine is a barbed hook. Many people say that quitting smoking was the hardest thing they ever did. It’s incredibly hard. Harder than marathons.

Cannabis needs to be normalized and expanded. It needs to be brought into the light. Doctors, lawyers, financiers, engineers, consultants, teachers, architects, artists—even military personnel—use it more than they’ll admit. Rich people and poor people use it. Celebrities, athletes, and regular folks use it. Evangelicals and atheists use it. People from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, socialists and libertarians, Harvard grads and high school dropouts all use it. Just look at the leaders of the legal cannabis space—it’s filled with the talented and the risk-takers. It doesn’t make you lazy or dumb. It is gentle and can be beautiful. It can teach you gratitude for your place in this universe, even when the world around you is full of pain. It is a mild pain reliever and a mild hallucinogen. There are forms for everyone now—flower, vapes, edibles, beverages, tablets, and more. Welcome to the end of prohibition in our lifetime. Cigarette smokers and drinkers, come on in—the water’s fine.

Living in L.A., I sometimes forget how many people still smoke cigarettes. When I went back to NYC after spreading my mom’s ashes, I saw so many people standing outside their buildings, smoking cigarettes as I used to do. I’d much rather they smoke a pipe or vape a concentrate. I’d bet they’d be happier and healthier.

This is my profession. If you didn’t know, now you do. And if you did, it’s likely because we’ve already talked about it.