Why many science undergraduates smoke marijuana — Anayo Nwosu

Smoking marijuana was one of the few vices I didn't try while I was in Nnewi High School. 

I had realized very early in life that a smoker of "Igbo" also known as marijuana is a future mad man. It is just a matter of time for him to pay his debt of madness. 

I was further dissuaded not to join the smoking party because of what marijuana did to my townsman, a guy we nicknamed I.K Dairo.

Ik Dairo transformed from a normal young man to an afro-carrying super madman, confirming the Nnewi saying that "ala na aka mma n'okolobia" meaning "madness is most elegant when one is a young man".

I came to learn the creative use of marijuana in my first year in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

It was the morning of a first semester course, Maths 101 examination. I had arrived Jimbaz Building, the venue of the exam early but noticed that some of my friends were yet to enter the exam hall.

I had cursorily noticed a high rising smoke from a nearby bush. Guys would dashing into the bush and rush out about 5 minutes later, feeling relaxed and ready to sit for the exam.

Bucarty my friend and an Engineering student was a marijuana smoker. He was to tell me why people were visiting the nearby bush minutes before the exams.

"Oracle, you are a real jew man. You mean you don't know that if you smoke to upload, you have to smoke again to download otherwise you would have a blackout in the exam hall," Bucarty said with a serious face.

"Do you know that gbana or igbò also known as marijuana could heat up a dull or saturated brain to expand and assimilate difficult mathematical or complex theories and you need to heat up the brain again to be able to regurgitate or retrieve that which was stored in the expanded space?

"I'm amazed that you don't know that igbo or marijuana can extend the human ordinary capabilities?" and he went on to drop a shocker.

"If not for gbana, I would be reading Geography not Engineering ; who born monkey?

"People like you that have normal penis don't know the travails of someone with scrotal elephantiasis.

"Anayo, you're blessed with a good brain but many of us need help to be who we want to be" Bucarty ended  with a contemplative face.

Next day was Physics 101 exam and I noticed that a group of students still came into the hall from the same bush.

The erie peace of the exam hall was disrupted when one boy named Picolo enchanted  "Glory to Jesus" and some involuntarily conscious catholics in the hall responded "Honour to Mary!"

But that was an exam hall not a prayer gathering.

Picolo followed up with another enchantment "let us recite the National Pledge".

Water don pass garri!

All in the exam hall were mortified by the seemingly surging madness in a handsome Picolo.

Picolo was one of the last students to enter the exam hall from the smoking bush.

The mishaviour alerted the invigilators who I was to learn, were used to such abnormal behaviours.

Strong security men were mobilized to bundled Picolo to the medical centre where he was stabilized before he was referred to the National Psychiatric Hospital Enugu for treatment.

But Picolo never returned to UNN after the incident. He couldn't have handled the taunts or shame.

I learned that he later graduated from another university after rehabilitation but he read Arts course not Physics &Astronomy he was admitted to read at UNN.

Many undergraduates and even graduates many not be as lucky as Picolo as they are daily keeping fate with madness which hard drug like gbana or marijuana has promised its faithful users.

Marijuana wears off the meninges or brain cells known to be tough but are difficult to regenerate if damaged.

There many other side effects of abuse of marijuana.

All those bravado of secret cult students are fuelled by heavy consumption or smoking of Igbo.

How else can one explain the feeling of an undergraduate that he is a capon or an emperor with power to kill and miam fellow students or his teachers?

Surprisingly many faithful smokers of igbo now graduates, employed or self-employed still rely on their "usual" for enhanced performance on their daily beats.

I know many preachers who would not go on to the pulpit  without smoking or eating porridge cooked with igbo leaves.

Some Men of God have upgraded to cocaine, heroine and other morphines to enhance their effectiveness which their congregation misinterpretes as spirit-filled or action-packed performance.

One of my friends once complained that he lost his girlfriend to one marijuana  smoking boy who would send his girlfriend to all the nine planets whilst my friend would not go beyond two rounds which he considered sufficient for a normal woman.

Parents should please allow their children to study courses they could handle as your insistence on your children to read your choice of course could put undue pressure on the child.

You child's fellow students would introduce him to a brain expander in an innocent attempt to help a friend.

With a benefit of hindsight, I now strongly suspect that Picolo was forced to read a course he could not cope with and was introduced to gbana by his friends.

His brain too could not tolerate marijuana hence his own madness arrived so soon.

Except for few exceptions, watch that person taking marijuana to support his or her brain performance or to enhance his/her output, he/she will surely keep a date with madness or with a psychiatrist.

Madness is the promise igbo or marijuana made to its faithful smokers. It may tarry but will surely come.

But, not all madness are so visible to a non careful observer.

Ara di na udi na udi (meaning, madness like breasts are of various sizes or types).