NOT TO? –
July 14, 2026 – When I was a teenager in Upstate New York, I passed joints the way other kids passed notes in class. Friday nights behind the bleachers with my friends was the only place I could exhale, an escape from the chaos waiting at home, bracing for the next eruption from my father, who was an addict himself.
It was 1980, long before Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, which researchers later said was ineffective, and before the war on drugs became the cultural crusade of the mid-80s. In 9th grade, I wrote a detailed report defending marijuana, titled “The Decriminalization Picture.” I got a B-minus. Nobody called my parents.
