Shooting Pot

This happened in Hollywood, California in 1968

Now this incident was a fluke because the result was quite unintentional. There were about eight of us runaways crashing in this old Victorian house in 1968, my boyfriend and myself the last ones to move in. No one had any money or drugs and it was weekend. There was nothing in the house but some leftover Marijuana seeds.
 
One of the guys had this weird idea that we should put the seeds in water and cook them down to make a tea, take the syringes that I had stolen from my father in Dallas who was diabetic, and shoot up the tea to get high. I had a full case of syringes in the trunk of my car. No one at this place had a pot to cook the seeds in but someone found a mayonnaise lid, sitting on the kitchen counter. I don't think they actually washed it or even turned on the hot water. They just rinsed out the crusted, golden mayonnaise on it.

 

They gathered up the seeds and put them in the mayonnaise lid and added some water. Electric, my boyfriend, took a Bic lighter and flicked it under the lid until the water began to boil. Now, he burned his fingers several times but I could tell he wasn't going to show that to anyone. He just kept flicking the lighter to keep the water cooking and we could see that the liquid was turning a little brown.
 
 I decided right away I wasn't going to shoot up the pot tea because I didn't like the effects of pot on myself because it brought me down and made me sleepy. I wanted to stay awake and check out the neighborhood later and become accustomed to my new surroundings. I got the needles out of my car and passed one out to each of the guys. I then sat back and watched one at a time draw some liquid up and inject it into a vein.

 

 One could tell that they felt something because their eyes were glazed for a little while and then, some awful things began to happen. One guy complained of a terrible headache, then the one that shot up after him complained of the same problem and that is how it went from that time on. Each guy could predict what was going to happen as they saw the others one by one get sick. They all started moaning and groaning and one ran into the bathroom and threw up.

 

 I  totally freaked out because I was there alone with five sick people including my boyfriend. I didn't know what to do. I had seen Heroin users get sick and throw up so I thought maybe it would pass but it just got worse. In about thirty minutes they all doubled over holding their stomachs and literally cried real tears.

I ran next door because we didn't have a phone and the lady that lived there told me that the hospital was in San Bernadino.

 

  I didn't have a clue where that was but I called and wrote down the directions, telling the one on the phone where I lived and what happened. I didn't want those guys to get in trouble with the law but I helped each one to the car. By myself, I took off the emergency brake and let the car roll down the hill the way Electric showed me, shifting it into second gear and turned the key.

 

 Thank God the damned thing started and we rolled into the nearest gas station registering on empty. One of the guys pulled out a dollar bill. At that time, a dollar would buy five gallons of gas. I didn't know that there was only a little bit of transmission fluid in the car and we couldn't drive over twenty miles an hour up a hill. The hospital was probably not the closest one available but I didn't know where any of the other ones were; I just went by what the written directions said that I got over the phone. I think the one in San Bernadino was the only charity hospital at that time.

 

 Those guys were so sick and they kept crying that their heads hurt, they had stomach aches, and were vomiting all over the floorboard of my '59 Dodge Custom Royal. I watched them in the rear view mirror while driving and it seemed like forever before we arrived. Finally, I saw the hospital and drove right into the emergency entrance. People swarmed out of the door with stretchers, gurnies and wheelchairs like bees.

 

 They saw the boys vomiting in the car and red in the face and crying for help. I told one young doctor what they did as we walked towards the door and watched his face as he paid close attention to every word I said. He butted in once in a while asking things like, 'Was the mayonnaise lid sterile?" and "Were the syringes new and unused?" and other questions like, "Do their parents know?"
 
 Tubes were inserted down their noses and stomachs were pumped. I.V.'s were placed in each one's hand and it was a desperate struggle to clean out their blood quickly. I must have told and retold the story to four or five doctors and several nurses until the police came. They didn't even search my car or ask for my drivers license (and I had an expired Texas license plate on the car) but were very concerned with the outcome of these boys lives and I was really touched with that. They didn't arrest me or anyone. They just watched as all the hospital staff were so very hospitable and friendly, loving and caring.

 

 I will never forget how everyone took such good care of five longhaired freaky hippies on a bad drug trip. The last thing I remember the doctor saying to me was, "One more hour and they would have all been dead. Those pot seeds were sprayed with insecticide and that was what they shot up. Poison!"

 The last thing that the police said to me was, "Well, young lady, there is a law against smoking pot and a law against drug possession and a law against selling the drugs but there isn't anything in the books about shooting pot or having possession of it in the veins. I think these guys learned their lesson, don't you?"

 

 The boys stayed in the hospital for ten days and when they were ready to leave, the first thing they did was call their parents to send them a plane ticket home.