Part 1: Anon, A True Story Of Marijuana In The Military

Bogs of Cannaplayground recently met with a veteran who has had many experiences with marijuana. These experiences from his time in high school, the military, and beyond is what Mr. Anon conveys as:

“A story isn’t worth telling unless its true”

The story begins with both of us situated in a small office space located in his house.

The area is somewhat unkempt; multiple items of clothing lay on the floor, his desk filled with papers and other things, a pink lei attached to one of the blades of the ceiling fan lazily spins around — the surroundings of someone always busy with work but also someone that has remained humble.

I sit in a small desk placed diagonally across from his. We begin with personal conversation mainly to break the ice and make the environment comfortable enough to be able to tell his story.

As we’re talking, he takes brief pauses to either answer a text or writes up an email. He is doing everything done with purpose. His eyes dart left and right as he scans and processes all the information showing up on the screen. He takes only a few seconds to think and proceeds to type intently on his keyboard, every click and clack characterizing his strong work ethic.

He continues working on his desktop for a couple more minutes as he prepares to talk about his life. Per his request, he wishes to be called “Outlaw Seven” keeping his name anonymous.

He finishes typing, takes a deep breath, and without any hesitation begins telling me his story.

Outlaw Seven: “I’m originally from Canada, Toronto area “A”.

“I’ve been living in Illinois since I was four years old and predominantly lived in the Kane County area until I was 22 years old.”

Cannaplayground: When I ask him about his childhood, he takes yet another pause to type a sentence or two. He leans back in his chair while resting his hands behind his head, lets out a deep sigh, and continues.

“My childhood was… well, elementary school was excellent. I was a pretty normal kid, I would say.

Cannaplayground: ” He moves his eyes and glances at the ceiling as he recollects his memory.

“I was pretty close with my parents. My parents were very supportive of me. We always did these trips where they would take me on these business trips and stuff.”

Cannaplayground: He proceeds to tell me more about his relationship with his parents, his lips slightly trembling as he tries to find the words to continue. He says that his relationship with his father started to drift apart during middle school but swiftly shifts the conversation to talk more about his time during school.

“I was a delinquent in high school. I graduated with a 1.6 GPA. I almost got suspended several times. Even in middle school and high school, my friends and I considered us the bullies. However, we would fight other bullies because we wanted to be the toughest kids in school, and we were. We didn’t ever pick on anyone like that. I mean, we would make fun of people and stuff, but we never really bullied anyone. We just bullied the bullies.”

Being A Dealer

Cannaplayground: How were things for you growing up?

“Like every teenager living in a small area, I had to find a job. My first job was as a busboy at the age of 15 at a “famous little diner that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Cannaplayground: He glances at the ceiling and flashes a slight smirk.

“I was a nerd, though, ‘cause I spent all the money I made on World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, financial issues plagued the family. My dad would make a six-figure income as an international sales manager in many areas of Latin America; however, he decided to quit his job and continue his education to obtain a master’s degree.

My mother started her own cleaning business and eventually had to take care of the mortgage payments herself.

After that, I really couldn’t ask for any money, so I started selling weed at the age of 13.”

Cannaplayground: How was your experience as a dealer?

“Selling marijuana was nothing short of eventful.

I recall starting with an eighth, selling to friends and other high school kids, and eventually moving up to selling ounces.

When I did get to an ounce, I started selling to parents. Even older people I didn’t know.”

Cannaplayground: He recalls a situation in which he began selling to a woman who has Parkinson’s who got connected to him through a mutual friend. He also makes mention of selling to another neighborhood kid that had severe anxiety, saying:

“I would never leave the house, so we would help him cope and stuff. I eventually made my way up to sell even more significant amounts of marijuana. In the beginning, I was probably making $100 to $150 per ounce but eventually did move up to two ounces, three ounces, four ounces. I would probably make like $400, maybe $500 or $600 if I did it right.”

Cannaplayground: Did your parents know about the marijuana you were selling?

“I would walk in and out of the house at random times all the time, and my friends would pull up in the driveway to buy marijuana from me, yet my parents never questioned it.”

Cannaplayground: He goes back on topic and further elaborates on his time selling.

“When I made enough money, he eventually bought myself a used car for $12,000.

I began to branch out and meet new people all over the county. That’s when I started to sell a lot more. I had a half pound of weed at one point. I’d probably make maybe $1,200 off that half pound, depends how fast you sell it or how slow, you always make more when you trade in smaller quantities, but that’s much work .”

I was not alone in my endeavors, however. I had two other close friends that would sell with me. Sometimes I’d be the one selling the most and other times it was either one of my friends.

Cannaplayground: He recounts a time in which one of his friends moved out of town to Colorado and found a farm where he would send five to six pounds of marijuana through to his parent’s place back home. He’d come back to the neighborhood, and Outlaw Seven would ask for two or three pounds to sell. He says:

“I remember I would ask for more. One time I made like $6,000 in about two hours. That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done because, one, I didn’t have the money to put up for it, and two, I was 18 years old.

I would have gone to jail. I would have been a felon. I couldn’t even imagine if I was a felon right now.”

Joining The Military

Outlaw Seven decided to join the Army at an early age and eventually deployed to Afghanistan. He describes his time in Afghanistan as:

“pretty messed up”

On the topic, he says, “I was in the Pash Valley, fighting in the mountains and stuff, getting ambushed, or having an RPG shot at me.

The ambushes up north in the Pash valley were crazy because they could happen any minute. One time I saw another Vehicle drive into the base. There was a live RPG lodged in the side of the trunk of the humvee.

How it didn’t explode was a straight-up miracle. The guys driving didn’t even know it was there until they parked, just fucking crazy.”

Cannaplayground: He tells me about his first firefight. He was coming back from a mission from the Korengal valley and had to pass through a small village.

He mentions seeing muzzle flashes at a particular spot in the mountains up ahead across a ravine when his combat training immediately kicked in and began firing with a .50-cal mounted on a vehicle. He says:

“I remember being insanely scared and my adrenaline pumping so hard that I would shoot in between buildings and not hit any of them. I remember thinking, ‘how did I do that? My legs were shaking uncontrollably, and I remember thinking ‘don’t get shot in the face’’.

The Afghanistan Way Of Weed

Cannaplayground: While in Afghanistan, he and his squad would mentor a local police force. He tells me that a couple of months into his deployment, he asked one of the police officers if he had any marijuana.

The disparity between cultures regarding marijuana was evident in that instance. The language barrier was excellent, and I would mention every term that people used to describe weed. It wasn’t until Outlaw Seven said the word “kush” when the police officer finally knew what he meant.

“In areas like Afghanistan, the consumption of marijuana is vastly different from the way it is consumed here in the States. The most popular form of use of cannabis here is smoking the buds that protrude from the marijuana plant itself. However, in Afghanistan, they consume what is widely known as “hashish,” which comes from the dried resin of marijuana buds that are pressed into blocks and later smoked in a pipe or joint. The hash he got was straight from the Hindu Kush mountains, and that’s precisely why the Afghan police officer knew what I was talking about (also pretending to hit a joint might of helped in the cause).

Cannaplayground: Outlaw Seven says that once the police officer knew what he meant, he pulled out a bag of hash and gave away about four grams to him. He says:

“I tried to give him money, but he refused. That’s their culture. When you ask for something like that, that’s just what friends do.” He even made a shushing gesture to the officer so that no one else in his unit would find out he had hash on him.

Cannaplayground: That’s when he started wondering how he was going to smoke the hash. He goes on to tell me that he and another person in his unit went to one of the guard towers. They somehow communicated with some of their fellow Afghans to smoke the hash.

Again making a shushing gesture to make sure to keep their hash use a secret. Outlaw Seven explains:

“they would take a cigarette, mix the hash with tobacco, and put it back in the cigarette somehow and we would smoke it that way… I remember I ripped to the point that walking back into our base was almost like a dream. I was also insanely scared because I didn’t want to get caught.”

Cannaplayground: He recalls another time where he and his Staff Sergeant managed to get a puck of hash and a pack of cigarillos from one of the small shops in the village. He described the cigarillo as “the driest thing you’ll ever open.” He eventually got a good roll in and smoked the hash with other Afghans.

“they were pretty impressed. We got those guys stoned. No smoking out of a filtered cigarette at that point. We showed them how to roll an American blunt.”

Cannaplayground: Another time in which he smoked hash was when he was supposed to be in one of the guard towers. He was with his Staff Sergeant again, but they decided to leave the base with no gun.

They walked around the corner towards the Pakistan border to where a river runs and decided to smoke another cigarillo filled with chunks of hash.

“My Staff Sergeant just loved to talk,” he says. “He was talking his ass off, and I remember not understanding a single word that came out of his mouth. I was looking at the stars. That was the point where I knew there was something bigger than all of this. There are so many things that are greater out there. I just felt insanely tiny, and I’ve never seen a star like that ever in my life again.”

Cannaplayground: Upon returning to the base, there was another Sergeant that questioned the two and asked where they were. Outlaw was worried that they were smelling like hash, so he stopped smoking. As he explains, though, the word seemingly gets around pretty quickly at the base, and soon after he found himself worrying about passing a urine test. He said:

“I remember being so pissed it was two weeks after I smoked. I sure drank a lot of water before pissing. There was a soldier that worked there that was staring down at my dick. I was so pissed that I made sure to wiggle my dick around and out of simple payback, thinking ‘fuck your job.’

Cannaplayground: For the next month, he kept his head down, doing everything that he was supposed to do. He says that being terrified of his Sergeant Major who instilled some of the most reliable work ethic in the unit into him while he was waiting to hear about the urine test results.

“I remember being so scared and so stressed out, on top of humvee trying to stay awake, on top of that  fighting insurgents, on top of maintaining everything, on top of trying to keep my sanity,”

Eventually, my Sergeant Major walked up to me and tried to have a normal conversation with, but because I was so scared of him, it didn’t immediately dawn on him that it was just a normal conversation, and that’s how I figured out I passed the test.

We conclude Part 1 of Anon, A True Story Of Marijuana In The Military.

Make sure to check out the Part 2, Anon, A True Story Of Marijuana In The Military.

We will be discussing images and video captured and never before seen or made public — the photos of confiscated Heroin and a massive weed field the size of a Narcos Mexico movie set.

Trust our word when we say it’s going to be good (hint, it has a fire).

-Bogz

Cannplayground