I Won't Tell You How To Quit Smoking Pot

I categorically and unequivocally refuse to instruct people on how to quit smoking pot. There are far, far too many other, more pressing, more hazardous behaviors in the world that should be stopped before I start telling hundreds of thousands of stoners to put down their joints, bongs, and bowls. The trick, friends, is to engage in moderation when packing and rolling the world's most infamous weed, no more.

When I was seventeen I went to London on a school trip. I went on a book-buying spree in one of the shops, and the most interesting purchase I made there was a compilation of essays and short stories that had been banned here in the US. One of the pieces was an essay called "Just Say No to Drug Histeria!" by William S. Burroughs. (Burroughs had made his name in the literary world for a weird novel called Naked Lunch in the late '50s.) The essay-- which had been written during the Reagan years-- was a scathingly clear indictment of the drug policies in the US at the time and, as such, was banned from publication here when he submitted it for publication. The upshot of the essay: the War on Drugs is a little more than a PR blitz, and the drugs they target usually have nothing to do with the functionality of the people who are using them.

Heroin, cocaine, and Oxycontin have all very clearly shown signs of deleterious effect on the people who use them recreationally. I have only ever seen serious dysfunctions due to regular pot use in people who are either drinkers or chronically depressed anyway, in which case the use o the plant for recreational purposes is simply a side effect of much, much larger problems in their lives. Smoking pot didn't cause them to live in their mother's basements at forty; deciding not to do anything productive did so.

In essence, my point is that if you want to smoke, do it. By now you should know the consequences of prolonged use, and if you don't, all you have to do is look it up and you'll get three billion hits about how to do so. Luckily, marijuana's active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC) is only detrimental to brain function after prolonged, unbroken, and excessive use. Moderate, my friends. And if you want to quit, just stop buying it.