Growing up, smoking pot was bad: it was for people with long hair, people who didn't want to work, people who wanted us to lose the Cold War. People who were too weak to abuse alcohol.

Worse still, it was a gateway drug. Remember "Love Boat"? PCP mixed with pot. It turned you into a rapist and child-killer of superhuman strength.

Actually smoking pot was more than bad. It seemed positively evil. My father would return from his after-work jog around the field of Western Junior High School (right behind our house) and shake his head that some of the kids hanging out there in the evening were smoking marijuana. I shuddered. That he'd seen the face of evil and come back alive seemed almost miraculous.

So there, I've said it. I have never smoked pot.

In fact I've said it a lot, but my feelings on my pot-smoking virginity have begun to change...