I’ve had trouble sleeping my whole life, and a good friend, a doctor, suggested I look into taking a couple of cannabis gummies before bed and see what happens. What happened is very good; I am sleeping longer and more comfortably than ever, from bed wetting to panic attacks to seven hours of sleep.

I appreciate this very much and am vigilant about purchasing the gummies legally and using them sparingly. I take two gummies before bedtime. I love sleeping well; it is a new experience – I took sleeping bills like Valium for decades, and they rarely worked.

(Above: the first place I went to buy some cannabis for sleeping. I won’t be going back.)

When I set out to search, I was amazed. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of places in New York where cannabis can be purchased in different forms. They are almost all illegal, and all cannabis sales everywhere are unlawful, according to the federal government.

I guess they don’t speak to one another or care.

I found no legal outlets in my town or county and none in Saratoga or Saratoga County. Illegal sellers are all over the place.

For most people who want cannabis as a medicine or “recreational drug,” there is no choice but to break the law. I might be getting old, but I am proud to say I have never knowingly broken the law, and I’d like to end my life that way. Truth and honor matter to me.

What I heard was that the authorities are not shutting down the illegal cannabis stores; they are constantly shutting down the legal ones – the bureaucratic regulations and, paperwork, and obstacles are astounding, renewals and inspections take forever and continuously change.

In our divided government and polarized world, our representatives seem unwilling and unable to agree on licensing, payment, and legality or do much else other than call one another names.

I found one legal cannabis seller 20 miles outside of Saratoga and about the same distance from me. I was surprised to drive up today and find the shop, a former gun shed, closed. The shop was not inviting or reassuring; it was tiny and shabby. I was nervous but took the plunge.

(First Cannabis, right, new one on the left.)

I had this weird feeling that I was somehow breaking the law or skipping around it. That felt strange.

The young woman who sold me the cannabis shrugged her shoulders when I asked her how to use it. “Just try a little at a time,” she advised. She had nothing more to say. I had to show my driver’s license the first and every time,  and because of the federal refusal to legalize cannabis, I couldn’t use a credit card.

There is a convenience store a few miles down the road, and I had to go there and bring back the cash. Cash is the only way you can legally buy cannabis; I am told that illegal sellers welcome credit cards and don’t tell the truth to their banks about what the cards are being used for.

I wonder who we think we are kidding? A teenager waiting in line with me one day didn’t have the proper ID and couldn’t buy any. I asked him what he would do. “I can buy this stuff everywhere,” he said, “my dad, a cop, just asked that it be legal.” Easier said than done.

I asked the soft-spoken and articulate young person in line what he made of this. “It’s all bullshit,” he said.”Everyone I know uses this stuff; everyone bought it illegally, and no one we know has ever been arrested.” He was right.

My seller’s license had expired, and there was no way of knowing if and when it would be renewed. Certainly not in time for me, who is running out of the cannabis I had purchased for $30 a package. It is well worth it to me.

The maker of the cannabis I was using owns a nearby grocery and food shop; she was frustrated and embarrassed by having to close down.

“They were supposed to get back to me today, maybe Monday,” she said. So were her customers. I was surprised by how much I wanted to get those gummies and have them on hand. I drove an hour to get to this place but swallowed my announcement. This, too, I thought, might be a simple message: find a legal spot and go there.

She was apologetic and angry. She said the paperwork and bureaucracy was suffocating. A woman from Massachusetts came into the store and was told there was no cannabis to sell, and she wasn’t sure when it would be available. She said she would leave and find an illegal seller; they were all over Saratoga.

I was upset also and resented the idea that I might soon be an insomniac again.

I said I would come back, but I won’t. I got on the car phone and called every cannabis store in Southern Vermont. I found two in Bennington. The one on the phone sounded great; I called Maria and said I was heading to Bennington, about an hour from where I was.

I got on the phone and called a cannabis dealer in nearby Bennington, Vt., a state that legalized marijuana recreational products a couple of years ago.

I’m low on my cannabis supply, and a big storm is coming this weekend. This medicine, if I can call it that, has been transformative, solving a life-long and troubling kind of insomnia. I wanted to get to the right place and buy a significant enough amount to last a few weeks.

I wanted to get to a place I trusted. And I want to keep sleeping well.

A polite woman answered the phone. She told me her store opened a year ago and invited me to come. She said she would walk me through the program. They have their license and an ATM in the store for people who don’t want to pay in cash.

I had gone to the bank before heading to Vermont and had the cash. It cost the same thing as the cannabis in my state – $30 for each of the sleep packages, each package lasting a week, depending on how it was used.

I was relieved to see this new and recently renovated store in a beautifully refurbished building, bright, clean, roomy, and attractive. It was the right place for me.

A person at the door asked for my ID, and when I got to the counter, I was asked to show it again. The salesperson walked me through how to use the cannabis – take it 90 minutes before bed, he said. That was something I didn’t know.

The store has a license and is unlikely to be arbitrarily or suddenly dropped or canceled. Vermont seems to have its shit together.

There was a number I could call anytime for advice or assistance. There was the ATM above to draw cash. The store looks both reassuring and very serious.

I came home with four new cans of cannabis, the lowest-level gummies on the market. I understood what I was getting and how to use it. I marveled at how easy it is for bureaucrats to live in their world and respect only their selves.

So this is what prohibition felt like. A law that cannot and will not be obeyed, a government whose legislators live with their heads up their asses and in their own narrow and clueless world. And a regulatory process paralyzed by narrow and out-of-touch interests.

___

The Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, first passed by Congress in 2014, prohibits federal prosecution of individuals complying with state medical cannabis laws. The recreational use of cannabis has been legalized in 24 states, three U.S. territories, and D.C. Another seven states have decriminalized its use.

All 24 states that have legalized ignore the federal government, something the banks don’t dare to do. I’ll dream tonight.