Mico Nacional

May 13

Photo Credit: Joe Budd — *Photo Credit: Joe Budd*

“Honestly, it’s hard at home. But I noticed when I smoke, I don’t get angry.”

My name is Jeremy, people call me Mico. I'm a San Francisco native. I'm 20-years-old.

Honestly, it’s hard at home. Not even gonna go into details, but everybody got their own problems. So, that's why I picked it up at first. Really didn't think much of it. It wasn't bad. I knew I was still in my right state of mind. I was like, whoa, I thought it was gonna be worse.

Before, I used to get angry. But I noticed when I smoke, I don’t get angry. If I notice I'm mad I just smoke. Everything else just doesn't even matter as much then, I just go about my day. I smoke just to keep going. It helps me focus.

My mom, she used to hate it when I first started. Coming from back then, she thought it was bad, but then she started seeing the effect. She noticed the positive outcome in me. She noticed it wasn't as bad as people made it seem like. Then she didn't care no more, long as I'm handling my responsibilities.

I’ve never been arrested, but one time I was smoking and a cop came to my face. He was like, oh, you gotta throw that and step on it - so I stomped it out. Honestly, here in San Francisco, every time they catch us smoking, they at least make us stomp it out. They don't really trip off it really hard, at least not in my generation.

The old folks tell me it used to be so much worse when they used to smoke weed. They used to get arrested for it, and some of them got beat up. I used to work at a cannabis club, actually, when I was 19. There I had a coworker, his name was Shaggy. He's 50. He was telling me back then, the police used to be extra. They’d get taken in for weed. You could do some serious time.

I got laid off from that job though. At one point the club was warning me - this is what hit me - they they might have to fire me because they're passing the law that it's gonna be recreational. I wasn't 21 at the time, so I had to go.

I'm waiting to go back. I loved that job. I turn 21 on August 19, it won’t be long now.