[Clampy]

Originally Posted by southern151

I'm going to put myself on blast here for a minute and say, "Yes, I was somewhat of a follower as a youth." I did take to a less-than-savory crowd for reasons that I still don't understand today. I didn't feel like we were bad people and, for the most part, we weren't. We were just kids that liked to "paint outside of society's lines."

Did we stop at herb use only? No. Many of the guys I ran with, myself included did things that were far more sinister beyond that. I don't believe, not even for a second that one lead to the other though. It was just the times and, place we lived in.

Did these experiences do me any good? Yes and, no. Yes because, I learned some very valuable lessons about life and, the pitfalls that can come with substance abuse. I learned that, even the worst sins(in the eyes of society) doesn't mean you can't still do good for others. No, it did not make me a greater athlete. No, it did not motivate me. It also didn't make me want to rob a store either.

Of all the guys I ran with, more than 50% of us own businesses now and, are doing well with them. Another is the GM for a huge Harley dealer. Two more are operators in plants. Yeah, a couple wound up on the loser train but, I truly don't believe that had anything to do with substance abuse. It had to do with their home life or, lackthereof.

Nailed it. Look we can't all be gems but if you let a plant that makes stuff funny and makes good taste good ruin your life then shame on you. That person could have got hooked on anything like cheese burgers / porn or anything. Something like 8% of pop has addictive personality. The phone many of us are typing on made by Steve jobs who occasionally smoked pot and credited some of his creativity to early LSD use. Carl Sagan daily pot smoker I could literally go on for days with smart as hell people who smoked pot. That being said a bunch are losers but that's because they were destine to become losers.