Yeah, even though I've joined that group, I still struggle to process it. "You mean... an extremely high percentage of successful people are 'druggies'?" It's so entirely contrary to the propaganda we received as kids.

Re-contextualizes a lot of cop and justice system stuff. "The defendant had coke in his car". Yeah, so? Decent chance the judge has some in his chambers, too. Doesn't mean shit. "The suspect smelled of weed" yeah, and so did some of the best teachers and professors I ever had, who were, I'm pretty sure, high more often than not.

Another weird thing: my view on alcohol has gotten a lot dimmer over time. As much as I love some of the flavors you can get out of fermentation and distillation, it really is one of the worst of the lot, as far as health damage and how it makes you feel, often stretching into the next day as general lethargy and feeling "off", even if you don't have every much.

I get a lot of weird responses still when I turn down alcohol with "sorry I quit, I only smoke weed now"

Missed out on a lot of tasty craft brews.

I would love to see that stats on that, but it somehow seems like it is more common in the US than in, say, Denmark or the UK even. But then, my perception is primarily from:

1. US TV shows, where it seems like all kinds of drug use is more normalized

2. US 'high-status' culture seeming very odd - this whole thing about people having to always appear positive, high-energy, always busy (partly what I see from US TV shows, partly what my own experience) just doesn't seem sustainable without some sort of drug support.