How I feel about pot now is very different from how I felt when I was smoking it. People I got stoned with back in the day might (and probably do) call me a hypocrite because I not only don't smoke pot anymore, but I object to its rampant and accelerated mainstreaming in American culture. 

I get the whole loosening of marijuana laws thing. The arguments make tons of logical sense. But I'm disgusted that so few people are talking about the social consequences of legalizing pot, especially for America's youth. In the interest of saving money on the drug war and giving people more "free choice" about how to live their lives––which is nothing but giving them, in addition to ever-present alcohol, another easy way to fuck theirs up entirely––we are going to lose a boatload of personal battles in this country as people let their lives quite literally go to pot.   
 
I accept the label of hypocrite. But it's only a surface label. People who call my a hypocrite aren't taking into consideration how much a person can change inside and what regrets a person might have. They'll say "you went through all your hard times with abusing, and learned your lesson, and you came out okay. Why not let other people learn by their mistakes, too?" 

But the fact is that it simply wasn't necessary at all for me to smoke pot and fuck up my life in order for me to find my path. I could have figured my shit out without ever taking a toke or a bong hit. So while I eventually got through my marijuana abuse crisis and overcame it, I wonder what my life would've been like if I hadn't made such stupid decisions in the first place and needed to put so much energy into merely digging myself out of the mud. I think that energy could have gone elsewhere. 

And being a dad changes you, simple as that. That's what those who call me a hypocrite are overlooking. I don't want my sons to make the same dumb-ass mistakes I did with pot, and the current legal direction of America is making it way too easy for them to do so. I hope my kids never get into pot at all, because it's ultimately a pleasant waste of time and energy. There are other ways to have a good time. I chose it as mine because I was a self-desecrator. 

So the best thing I can do for my kids to keep them off drugs (and the best thing you can do, dear readers who care) is not to teach them the way of desecration. Then they won't go looking around for things to desecrate themselves with.