"Of course not. Smoking is just one link in a continuum of self-destructive, self-loathing behavior that you know full well it is time to say goodbye to. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here...And the same goes for pot...and alcohol."
"You're not gonna start that debate are you? Nobody has ever been able to tell me that marijuana and alcohol should be grouped in the same category. They're totally different. Alcohol makes you stupid. Marijuana makes you different. I've always felt that was why pot was illegal and liquor wasn't. The government doesn't mind you being stupid but it does NOT want you being different. Long ago, it choose sour mash and ice-cold drafts to be the opiate for its masses. Toking on a big fat spliff however gives you perspective. That slight introspective skewed glance at a larger picture that makes you question authority as well as yourself. My father was an alcoholic, you know."
"Forgive me if I'm skeptical, but what's going to take their place?"
"You hit on it yourself a moment ago. Perspective."
On cue, twin automatic doors that were hardly noticed before whooshed open and three people came lurching through. Two of them were of the "medical" persuasion in drab pastel garb while the middle guy definitely belonged to the inmate/patient group. He was being led away and quite physically supported by the other two. In every discernible way, he was visibly shaken. The expression he bore was one that could be interpreted as a highly bemused smirk and a frozen shriek of desperation at alternating moments. He had most certainly seen something and the message was obviously that perspective did not have to be pretty.
