I say it’s me or drugs, you choose drugs.

Just a thought or two on the ganj.

In my life, I’ve been close friends with a number of serious smokers. And by serious, I mean serious. Not just in their frequency of use (daily), but also in their dedication and devotion to the weed. The wacky. The opening of their minds and expanding of their horizons.

Don’t get me wrong, until I became a “serious” runner I too had been known to indulge every now and then. But these guys took it to a whole different, almost religious level. A level I didn’t really understand (pot never really revealed anything particularly profound to me—it just made me find everything really fucking funny), but didn’t really give a second thought to, either. I guess they were potheads, though I never identified them as such since they didn’t exhibit the ‘80s-movie pothead qualities we grew up with that had become so familiar.

The first time I really stopped and thought, “Hmm, this may not be normal,” was in high school when one of my good friends was expelled for repeated pot use on school property. Expelled! Dude, chill. I mean, at least wait until you get home. That was the first time I really questioned the “common knowledge” that pot’s not addictive. I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of “addiction;” whether or not your brain is chemically dependent is one thing, but I can tell you that I’ve had many a friend that seemed to exhibit a slavish devotion to the stuff. And if you’re being controlled in that way, call it what you want, but that sounds like addiction to me.

But they’ll argue that point to the death. Or at least, to the next time they light up. Once that happens, there’s no argument. Just enlightenment. The language is always the same. The dam breaks, and the deluge of (brilliant) ideas is unleashed. Where just moments ago there was confusion, now there is clarity. Where there was listlessness, direction. Where lines were blurred, now there is intense focus. The dull becomes sharp, and the “im-” drops off of “impossibility.” Oh yes. And how can you argue with that?

A friend (and regular smoker) has recently been going through a difficult period, and he extols the virtue of his daily bowl in helping to make sense of it all. And I nod my head in supportive agreement, thinking yeah, I’ve heard all this before. That’s great that you’re sorting it all out. Thing is—and this is what they never seem to realize, which is so glaringly obvious to the sober among us—they never actually act on any of their brilliant realizations. As the munchies move in, that clarity moves out. That direction. That focus. Until the next time they light up, that is.

And so goes the cycle. What’s perceived as a powerful roadside tow actually leads to the faster and faster spinning of wheels and further deepening of the ruts out of which we are trying so desperately to pull ourselves...