Good post there, Strollin' Johnny. I agree with your description of the drug dealers and their methods. Very accurate. You are also quite correct that marijuana smoking is psychologically addictive for many, if not most people who choose to smoke it fairly regularly. This was what disturbed me most about it when virtually all my friends were into it back in the 70's. I could see that they had become dependent on it. They didn't see it that way. They saw it, frankly, much the same way they saw things like: coffee-drinking, eating burgers and other fast food, drinking pop, listening to their favourite music, and a lot of other things like that. It was simply part of the everday stuff that they considered enjoyable and normal in their lives. It was that common and ordinary. However, pot-smoking was accorded a sort of mystical importance which set it apart for this reason: it was seen as a very iconic and powerful "coming of age" ritual for those who were moving through adolescence into adulthood.

This is one of the problems that tends to arise in a society that has largely lost its traditional sense, caved in to mere mass marketing of anything that sells, and left its young people in moral limbo.

They go off and find their own coming of age rituals if they are not provided with much of any social structure by their elders.

The key coming of age rituals then (in the late 60's, early 70's) were:

1.(a)smoking cigarettes!

1. (b) drinking alcohol (most typically, beer)with your "buddies"

2. losing your virginity (if at all possible) and pretending you had lost it, if you didn't succeed in that objective!

3. swearing a lot, and using all those forbidden words at every possible opportunity (this tended to result in a very reduced vocabulary)

4. adopting various other verbal slang that older people didn't use or like (further reduction of vocabulary...)

5. wearing clothing that indicated your tribal affiliation (the "young" tribe) and bugged the hell out of older people

6. growing long, long hair and (for some of the guys) facial hair too

7. espousing unusual philosophies, politics, and religions

7. Getting high! You could get high on a variety of things, and pot and alcohol were definitely the favourites.

Now, what were these young people doing? They were trying to clamber out of childhood into adulthood and gain control over their own lives (instead of being controlled by their parents)...but without the wisdom of a few decades of experience that one hopefully gains later in life they were mostly just floundering around in confusion doing things that were silly, often destructive to their health, and sometimes illegal. This put them at further risk of unnecessarily acquiring a criminal record, although they were not, in truth, criminals. Lawbreakers, yes...but not criminals. There's a difference.

Criminals are people who consciously and deliberately act to harm, cheat, and take advantage of OTHER people. Criminals rob, murder, commit fraud, damage property, kidnap, embezzle, blackmail, and so on.

My friends were not criminals. They were simply young people with not much experience and not very good judgement. They were engaging in practices which were technically illegal (just like someone does when he parks in a "no-parking" spot or makes an illegal left turn on a deserted street with no other traffic in sight). They were not committing what I call "crimes".

I think it was unproductive and unhelpful that the legal system treated these young people as criminals. It did not help improve them in any way, and it often resulted in a worsening of their basic nature.

In my own case, I was quite unusual. I rebelled against my own age group even more than I did against the older people. I resisted peer pressure. Very few did that.

Accordingly, I did not smoke, barely drank, simply observed but did not participate in the common drug use around me, and didn't swear very much either (a bit, though...). I could have been classified as almost totally "uncool", except for these saving graces: I grew my hair very long, and I wore the cool clothing, and I was a good musician.

In fact, I refused to conform to the expectations of either straight society OR my young friends...so I guess I was protesting against just about everybody! :-)

My actions were based on this reasoning: Long hair doesn't hurt anyone, nor does hippy clothing. Smoking is bad for people's health. Getting drunk is bad for people's health and results in idiotic public behaviour. Getting stoned impairs judgement and efficiency and is most likely bad for your health. Doing things that are illegal is unnecessarily risky, so why bother?

I also took an interest in unusual philosophies, politics, and religions...and still do. Why? It opens one up to new possibilities and it doesn't hurt anyone.

I dearly wanted, like everyone else, to lose my virginity (which I don't call losing anything, but gaining experience)...but was frustrated in that endeavour for the longest time. :-)

Reasoning on this: Losing your virginity doesn't hurt you, as long as you have enough judgement to avoid getting someone pregnant. It's part of normal adult existence to have sex with consensual partners, and virtually everyone agrees that it's an experience worth having. :-) I was looking for "true love", but I had a very hard time finding it, probably because I was too serious about it.

Now, what puzzles me is how most young people are so careless in their choices of how to rebel...in that they do things which are personally risky and potentially harmful. I didn't. I could reason it all out beforehand. I think the main reason most young people are so reckless is this...they want to prove themselves to their peers. I was in rebellion against my peers for the most part.

The whole nature of adolescence guarantees this: if marijuana is illegal, most young people will seek out opportunities to try it. That is the norm. Those who are particularly vulnerable by nature to a psychological addiction to that particular experience will get heavily dependent on it. Those who aren't won't.

Why is it that I have tried marijuana (on a very few occasions), alcohol (very moderately), and yet not gotten hooked on either...while millions of other people do get hooked?

Why is it that all the young people whom I knew well in my 20's tried marijuana and used it quite a bit...yet not one of them died as a result of that...and most of them became conventional, functional, contributing members of the society....while a member of your family was apparently destroyed (indirectly) by it?

I don't know. It all comes down to the individual and the individual's unique characteristics.

I was undoubtedly helped by the fact that I grew up in a non-smoking family where alcohol and other drugs were never abused. One tends to follow the example one sees as a very young child. It gets imprinted.

I figure that if a toddler sees his/her parents smoking, then the chances that he will take up both tobacco smoking and marijuana-smoking in his adolescence are astronomically increased. If he sees heavy drinking in the home, he is likely to repeat that too.

Accordingly, the most important factor in shaping young people's minds is not the law...it is the day to day behaviour of their own parents while they are growing up. That will prove to be a much stronger influence on their minds in the end than a law that makes some common substance illegal.

I'm speaking in general terms there, and not trying to say anything about your particular family experience.