I have personal knowledge of a very talented musician — once with international stature — who basically fried his brain with drugs, and who is now a nobody who can't carry on a conversation.
Pot wasn't the only drug he abused, but it was certainly one of them, and the one he started with.
If it wasn't for drugs, this individual might well have been the conductor of the Boston Pops; John Williams borrowed musically from him.
I completely agree. I know people who essentially scrambled their brains due to drug use and it all began with marijuana which is truly a “gateway” or “steppingstone” drug.
Proponents of legalization NEVER want to address the scientific reality that human brains develop until about the age of twenty-six. High school burnouts are potentially doing irreparable damage to themselves. Likewise, not every smoker is mellow. A subset of potheads can become argumentative and violent.
I know firsthand of former honor students who cannot engage in rational conversations after years of abusing marijuana and drugs. For all of the Haight-Asbury fans, today’s marijuana is far more potent than anything smoked at Woodstock.
Or Amy Winehouse