10-20-2002, 02:07 AM
I used to smoke weed on occasion, for years, and only with my best friend. We started in high school, and did it during my four years at school. I went away to school and got my degree. My friend is a year younger than me, and was in high school when I left. Before I left, he became more and more into smoking up. I got my degree four years later. He had dropped out of high school in his senior year, quit all the jobs he got, and continued to smoke weed. I saw how he had changed. I could not stand by and watch him waste more years of his life smoking up. So I stopped entirely, and confronted him with the idea that his drug use was hurting him because he was even worse off than he was 4 years ago, because he has no high school degree and no job, yet still wants to keep smoking up. I refuse to participate in smoking with him, it's the only way I can get the message through to him. I don't do drugs because I don't want to make it seem like I endorse the idea that he can keep doing drugs and actually do something with himself, because the evidence of the past 4 years tells me he can't. I don't see how making drug use legal would better the lives of so many people.