Pandemonium.

There’s not really a better word for it than that.

Over the past weekend I found myself in the midst of utter pandemonium when I had a chance to catch up with one of the many friends I have met over my years with the magazine. It was an interesting day to say the least, so I thought I would share it with you.

Having recently found myself with dwindling resources in my stash tin, I reached out to a man in the know to see if he could help me to restock. Sadly, and I do mean this genuinely, he was not currently in the process of cultivating or curing my favourite strain but he kindly offered to put me in touch with someone else who might take pity on my situation. We arranged to meet up on the coming Saturday and initially it was decided that he would take a trip out to visit me at some point in the afternoon. On Friday, however, he realized that his car was not coping well with the current mini-heatwave and we concluded that we might need to make alternative arrangements.

Saturday came and, after a couple of phone calls, I agreed to drive over to meet him in an area I had not visited before and he told me that it would be fun because there was a carnival taking place that same day. Thinking that it would be a nice opportunity to take the family out for a chilled afternoon with a summer vibe, we packed ourselves into the car and headed off down to St. Paul’s in Bristol (if you already know where this is heading then you clearly have better knowledge than I did of the area).When we found reached the pre-arranged location of our meeting I became incredibly aware of the number of cars parked in every conceivable space on every street – it was truly ridiculous.

For the next 30-or-so minutes we trawled down endless side-streets with barely an inch either side of the car and had to contend with traffic, cyclists and pedestrians coming from every direction. To say we had a few close calls would be an understatement, but people seemed to be in high spirits, and it was surprisingly calmer than I had expected.

Finally, we located the only available parking space in the city (down a long twisting road, through a number of tunnels and squeezed between two caravans in a bush overhanging a drop to a small stream) and my friend led the way back to the main attraction.

It wasn’t too far to walk in terms of distance, but the number of people and the laughable parking decisions made it much more of an effort than it needed to be. Slowly-but-surely the sound from the festival began to grow as thumping bass from countless sound systems rumbled and echoed through the warm air; the staggered groups of pedestrians gradually became more condensed. Having never been to the festival before I didn’t know what to expect…but I was in for a shock.

When we came around the corner of an industrial estate and got a first glimpse of the revellers. This is where we came in at the beginning of the article…Pandemonium. There are few other ways to describe the scene at first glance. It was unbridled chaos in every direction.

Police cars had blocked off vehicular access to the main streets and riot vans were positioned strategically around the town while makeshift roadblocks had been littered around the place to isolate some of the side-streets.

There were thousands upon thousands of people in every conceivable direction and the majority of them looked absolutely hammered. The merry revelers, many of whom looked like they were out on a Saturday night at about 3am, jostled and bustled about like one humongous, heaving, sweaty mass. It was insanely loud and more than a little overwhelming when it is suddenly thrust upon you.

Litter was strewn all over the place, glass bottles were smashed against walls and curbs, small silver canisters which once contained Nitrous Oxide were scattered liberally about the place and half-eaten food was slung around like gross confetti. It was a bit of a sudden shift from the relative calm of the streets we had just walked down to get to this location. My friend said that this was the first time he had been in years and he was also a little bit staggered by just how frenetic it had all become.

After a few minutes of readjustment, however, the absolute chaos began to seem like something far-more beautiful. People from every walk of life were hanging out, drinking and blazing big fat spliffs in full-view of the local authorities and nobody even battered an eyelid. I saw a guy walk past a police officer while blowing huge billowing clouds of smoke above him and talking loudly on his phone about how much it cost for some nice Haze and it didn’t even seem to register.

Looking around at the masses of people, it was clear that there was a sense of oneness within the madness that really brought people together. This isn’t to say that I suddenly became overwhelmed with a desire for our society to descend into a lawless free-for-all (the sense of pandemonium was something which still remained even when I saw the goodness in it) but it did make me wonder how things would be different if people felt more at ease due to an end to prohibition. It also made me wish I had brought a joint with me but I was driving anyway so this just wasn’t feasible.

I was glad that I had taken my dose of CBD oil that morning to maintain a sense of calm and level-headedness, but the fact that I had my wife and kids in tow (one in a pram and the other easy to lose in the throng of people) made me more than a little on edge. Eventually, we drifted away from the epicenter and relocated to a nice quiet park via a street vendor who was selling jerk chicken that smelt too good to resist. Once there, my friend set off on his mission to find what I originally set out for and I found myself thinking that this had been far-too-much effort just to get some decent weed.

In the UK you tend to rely on small-time street dealers who sell 10-bags which weigh less than a gram and while they often claim that it’s ‘that pure Cali-weed’ the reality is often a far cry from it. Finding someone who can get guaranteed quality at a reasonable price (not £10 per gram) is something of a rarity these days, so I’m used to the effort but it’s not exactly ideal by any stretch of the imagination.

To make matters worse, when he did return it was with far-less than expected as his connection had had their grow ripped off the day before, but it was cheap enough and it meant I could go home and try to recover from the shock of the afternoon.

The things we go through just to medicate…there has to be a better way than this, surely? The worst part is that after this experience I’m still left trying to find some good bud as what I got at the weekend will last a couple of day max. I can’t wait to see what happens next time I have to score.

Written and Published By Psy-23 In Weed World Magazine Issue 142