Where to start? I'll never be convinced that it's worse than alcohol, will never see how the wake-and-bake or the high-every-day crowd is healthy.

How representative it is, I do not know, but a good, lifelong friend was the classic slacker, didn't accomplish much of what he set out to do, pissed away a lot of days and weeks being high and watching TV. He spoke of a stretch of doing that at some point when we were in our late-30s; I said off the top of my head, "High school's over."

I was a teen-age pothead and it opened my eyes when someone I liked said I was generally decent when not high, generally an ass when high. I've seen a lot of that -- stoner humor = acting like a sneering jackass -- in the years since then.

And someone mentioned Mexican weed, which is what we smoked 99% of the time. What people smoke now has soooooooooooo much more THC. It's gotta be along the lines of going from low-alcohol beer to Bacardi 151. I wonder what effect that's having on people's brains.

I didn't do it every week or close during my 20s and 30s, found myself wanting/liking it less and less -- in part because my brain felt fuzzy and slow the next day, I was too inclined to piss away much of a day on the couch.

Oh, no question that people build up a tolerance. I used to know someone who was remarkably productive while smoking a lot of ultra-strong legal weed (in Calif.) and he'd smoke a staggering amount. I indulged in what he had, the first time I'd smoked even a teeny bit in years, was way on out of it after one little puff.

Lest I sound full of doom and gloom, around that time, about five years ago, I had part of an edible at the beach, enjoyed the sun, colors, planes heading out from SFO, etc., for a while.