I have taken some weed in my time. From the stinking high heavens of Amsterdam, all the way to potentially semen encrusted flecks, mined from beneath grimy laptop keys.

Sometime I sit and try to visualise the small mountain range of herbal mass that my lungs have played host to over the years. I think about writhing around in it, hollowing myself out a modest cavern network, then spending the rest of my days striving to satisfy its every emotional and physical need.

Stoners are often labelled antisocial, but brought together by a unifying passion for weed and shelter, stoner friendship circles often overlap with other smoke rings, forming venn diagrams of lean-up, convenient merrymaking.

On my stationary travels, I’ve come to notice that many bleary eyed brethrens can be rounded up into the following categories…

1. The Spliff Gremlin

The Spliff-Gremlin’s entire existence is a carefully orchestrated ruse to cop some complimentary doobage.

Bionically alert, they enter a smoky dwelling like a piff-pinpointing, chronic-processing android, sent back in time from a distant dystopian future where the universe’s herbal resources have long since dried up.

With one automated split second swivel, their infra-green display hones in on all rotating doob and instantaneously calculates the seat with the likeliest probability of interception.

In the open market of a party situation, the Spliff-Gremlin corners his target, spouting carefully catered breeze, tentatively sniffing for susceptibility, before fully browning their nose. Prime breeze is administered, as spliff politicking reduces them to the air hustling of an Eton bred waffle merchant.

They struggle to hold eye contact, constantly aware of the zoot’s overwhelming presence, as if straining to ignore a beckoning cleavage; even missing the odd opportunity for exaggerated agreement or mistiming and overdoing a fraudulent laugh. They look straight through their target’s eyes, with each syllable the cherry looms closer to the roach.

The Spliff-Gremlin shamelessly ransacks ashtrays, unearthing resurrectable ends.

Should the next piff recipient be being fairly adjudicated through a fiercely contested heat of one of the many, age old, social circle specific reaction time/awareness games; be it…

“Michael….”

”Jordan!?…”

“Jackson!”

“Shit!”

or

“Bing….. “

“Crosby!?”

“Bong!”

“Shit!”

…the Spliff-Gremlin is swallowed by a deep, meditative trance; their poise total, goggles fixed feverishly staking out the tokee. Counting tokes, scouring body language for a sign, a tick, that crucial tell.

An extra zealous toke, hints the call’s imminent, the Spliff-Gremlin purses his lips, locked and loaded to let off the predicted letter sound.

“Bing.””BONG!” the Spliff-Gremlin barks at a piercing volume and thrusts an aggressive zootwards grab, startling all the fools they caught napping.

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2. The Couch Ninja

The Couch Ninja has a very particular set of skills, skills they have acquired over a very long, very sluggish career. Through sheer repetition they have developed superhuman dexterity in sub-sloth slacking. Perpetual comfort their ultimate aim, effort minimisation governs their subconscious. Their devotion to convenience is unrivaled; .

The Couch Ninja hasn’t fluffed a lighter catch in dying memory. They can manipulate the unpredictable trajectory of a rizla packet, like it aint no thing.

Their nimble fingers having magnetically plucked a lit zoot out of the air frequently enough, that they can disregard the uproar, coolly placing said zoot between their lips before cracking a smile.

When times are a serious, Couch Ninjas forage with squirrel-like intuition. Emergency rizla from their phone; train ticket roach spied 4 days prior; grinder-keyed weed dust; a mummified chip excavated from a sofa crevice: ingredients materialise.

When met with half hearted flaps and grunts, only the Couch Ninja can sense which pocket has irreversibly ingested the expedition’s sole lighter.

They partake in the hottest of spots without fear of repercussion, a mystical protective force buffers them from the fed-dederalés.

Like a lean, mean shottah decoding machine, the Ninja can convert a fabricated ETA to Greenwhich Mean Time (GMT) from Dealer Lean Time (DLT). The Ninja, without fail, executes the textbook draw for note exchange slap with crisp Fresh Prince flair, infusing just a dash of latter day Big Willy gravitas into the performance.

The Couch Ninja’s rolling credits roll on indefinitely. Of your stoner cronies, it was the Ninja who the responsibility fell upon to grow the first tulip and raise the first windmill.

Only the ninja, knows the crane like pose and precise angle which stirs the TV’s faltering sensor. Unholstering the remote quick draw, they’ll fast forward through a Sky Plus-ed Caribean Cops ad break (x30, naturally) resuming with accuracy, ruthless and unforgiving.

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3. The Connoisseur

The connoisseur inhales deeply, slowly and meaningfully.

A methodic, sensory examination of each cubic millimeter of smoke is conducted at each pompous bronchus and snooty-ass alveoli, as passage is made through their respiratory system.

They breath out thoughtfully and deliberately, before pausing for a cumbersome mull; while their judgement matures, they channel the inflated showmanship of a has-been Channel 5 wine personality.

“It is a tad raspy, it has these full bodied hazey notes, with a really tangy, citrusy lemon kick. Try it, it’s a bit like that haze that Stackeavelli the Dô had in February last year, actually.”

You can picture them preaching on which strain most fittingly compliments a compadre’s night garage sourced morsel.

“Oh god, yeah. It’s simply got to be sativa with savoury! But with say, something like a curly wurly, for instance, you’ve got to get your hands on a fruity indica, southerly facing; tangerine dream, ideally, could even stretch to blueberry yumyum.”

If you haven’t poured out any liquor for Big this week and the wrath-partial, but notoriously lethargic Weed Gods actually manage to get round to smiting you; then you just might get mugged off with a shitty draw. It happens.

The connoisseur will let the disappointing weight of the bag purchased from this bottom-of-the-phonebook chancer infect their every toke.

The raw indignation will neatly lead them to bitterly dreaming aloud about the ganja golden ages, when you could cop a 3.5g henry for thrupence and a quarter hour’s honest thatching. When weed was weed and joints respected their elders.

They refuse to dismount from their high horse, snickering down with snobbish amusement at the mathematically imperfect dimensions of nearby roaches.

As a whole, prejudice is rife within the stoner community. Too many are discriminative and shallow, getting hung up on the superficial.

It matters not if you are chunky, weak, moist, undeveloped, lumpy, scrawny, decrepit or downright disfigured. The one true Jah created all zooties equally. It’s what on the inside that counts. Weed. Look for the inner beauty in every dooby.

“Is that even backrolled?”

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4. The Productive Pothead

The lesser spotted productive pothead is an aggravating anomaly.

They report back to the bun-bunker with tales of effort and accomplishment from the outside world. Smugly wofting their daily triumph over inertia into the faces, of honest, respectable, industrious couch pot-tatos; often inciting momentary internal prangs.

“Fuck, I should probably be doing something like that….fuck.. shit… fuck… shit…. wait, hold on; crisps.”

Seemingly boastful reports of zoot preceded chore completion, irritatingly dispel the illusion that your idleness is involuntary.

“I bunned a quick zuti, then cleaned my car, dry cleaned…

… What have you been up to, mate?”

“Um.. urr.. earlier, went got some crisps.”

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5. The Novice Stoner

The Novice achieves the silly, giddying heights of back ah day leanness after but a few spluttery huffs. Nearby chronic chronic smokers might mask their jealousy with bitter taunts.

They get mates to call shottahs. Budding fledgling attempts, materialise as either flimsy, thank-heavy mutterings or a hesitant audition for a 6th form stage adaptation of The Wire.

They are yet to master a telephone manner delicately balancing presenting yourself as friendly and polite, but not a great, squelching pussyhole; and vocally sturdy, without straying into the realms of the counterfeit OG.

Trembling, they’ll envelop a fist or clumsily bump a dealer’s outstretched hand.

They might feel slightly offended when receiving this phone call…

“Yo man? What you upto? Sweet. Just jamming man, should pop down. See you in a bit. Oh have you got any backy? Sweet.”

…whereas, a battle hardened chuffer would think only “Weed.”

Jittery billing fingers assemble bifters more comical than conical. Rolling joints like King Kong’s fingers; after they’re all gnarled and fucked up from pimpslapping propellers.

They will take you for a sausage, when you attempt to regale them with an anecdote they witnessed firsthand. For them Youtube holds infinite possibility, not just well-worn thought processes, before resigning to the side bar suggestions. The Novice refers to actors and films by name.

There once was a time when you didn’t have to get on a plane to whitey. The Novice silently suffers, endeavouring to weather the unrelenting waves of pale unease; encrusted on the sofa like a globule of wayward semen. Comatosed and sticky, they contend with those dip in the road/rollercoaster gut shifts; while spiralling through long winded digressive prangs, completely beyond OJ resuscitation.

Much to the delight of the old guard, they might just ribbit out some baby spew.

We all have our days. When skint, I’m a good for nothing, beggary Spliff Gremlin. Occasionally, I’ll perform a feat that echoes a Couch Ninja. If I could be bothered, I would probably be a Connoisseur, and I front like one when required anyhow. When presented with absolutely no other option, I am forced to become a productive stoner.

And it seem I am destined to always roll with the outcome of a shaky novice. Such is my lack of technical ability, any mediocre zoot I produce is met with condescending props, in the same supportive tone football parents use to praise their tubby, incompetent kids. It’s hard sometimes.