[Ketman]

I tried everything in the hippy era - LSD, speed, and every kind of weed you can name. I don't recall any medical campaigns against cannabis at that time, but then there wasn't much of a campaign against cigarettes either. I stopped in 1972, simply because I got bored and disillusioned with it. But I did suspect some of the effects weren't good. My eyes seemed to be bloodshot all the time, and I noticed I simply wasn't getting anything done. Weed has an insidious way of controlling your life, even if it isn't addictive, strictly speaking, or not chemically, anyway. But it does tend to shrink your life down, and become in some way the dominating thing. You only associate with others who smoke, and your conversations with them become very repetitive, and eventually incoherent. I saw no one becoming wiser or more spiritual as a result of getting stoned four times a day. I saw nobody's mind "expanding". Rather the reverse. What I think finally set off an alarm bell was noticing how some people hated even being in the room if there was someone there who wasn't smoking. The mere presence of a "straight" was enough to ***** the vibe. I began to realize that the true effects of this drug were actually the reverse of what was claimed by its proponents. Instead of opening up your mind, it gradually shut it down.

I was lucky enough to kick it young. But if you go on beyond your mid-twenties.... well, what I noticed later was that those who continued smoking weed after that age began to get very old very fast. They just looked decrepit, you know, haggard and shagged out at 28 or 29, giving you a sneak preview of their later life. I haven't seen any medical studies about it, but if it turned out that it does do damage to the brain or the nervous system, I wouldn't be surprised. My own views about it are not based on anything I've read or was told. They're simply based on my own observations about my own behaviour and those I associated with.