Rancho Mirage. It is so unbelievably hot here it\u2019s well, it\u2019s unbelievable. That\u2019s how hot it is. 106 degrees with no breeze at all.<\/p>\n
I am not at all sure why we are even here, but the son of a close relative is visiting and he had expressed an interest in playing golf. We have a super course here at the Club at Morningside and we might have played a few holes but it\u2019s far too hot now. It is heat stroke, sunstroke weather. Cruel.<\/p>\n
As I drove our guest to dinner, on my disk of Civil War songs, what should we hear but the stirring strains of \u201cDixie.\u201d Our guest, age 27, a family man who had gone to college in the deep, rural south, and who now lives in the deep, semi-rural south, had no idea of what the song was or what it represented. None at all.<\/p>\n
This young man, extremely eloquent with language, is high all day long. Literally there is no waking moment when he is not high. He smokes powerful pot all day long and late into the night. He used to have a great high school athletic career and intellectual ambitions. Then, in 11th grade, he discovered marijuana and all of his drive, all of his motivation, all of his discipline disappeared.<\/p>\n
Marijuana ate this young man\u2019s soul. It was very much like that movie,\u00a0Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>, where space aliens invade the bodies of humans. I have never known any chronic user of the chronic whose ambitions and good sense have not been either demolished or very substantially lessened by the use of the weed. It is eating up the soul of the nation altogether.<\/p>\n The most bitter enemies of the United States could not have imagined a more wicked attack on a society based on individual initiative than the mass use of marijuana. To think we have a President in favor of its legalization, a Mayor of Gotham who is a huge proponent of the poison, a rap culture that celebrates this vile poison, is heart breaking.<\/p>\n At dinner, our guest had to excuse himself from the table repeatedly. Each time, he came back smelling like reefer. He was far too stupefied to make conversation. The other people at the table began to talk about a nearby retirement community called \u201cSun City.\u201d Meals available. Nurses available. Shuffleboard. Many channels of cable TV.<\/p>\n \u201cThat sounds perfect for me,\u201d said our young guest. \u201cI could just spend all day getting high.\u201d<\/p>\n We stared at him. \u201cYou\u2019re twenty-seven,\u201d I said to this former high school football star.<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d he answered. \u201cHospice sounds even better. Just a slow morphine drip until I die, with everyone bringing me food and a remote control in my hand for\u00a0The Simpsons<\/em>. High on morphine all of the time. Can you believe how great that would be? Like for forty years.\u201d<\/p>\n If ISIS could have its fondest wishes granted, it could ask for no more ruinous fate for America than a drug addicted last, formerly best hope for mankind.<\/p>\n Late that night I spoke to a super-smart friend who has a Ph.D. in psychology from UC. \u201cThere used to be studies about how marijuana use destroys motivation,\u201d he said. \u201cThey aren\u2019t allowed to do them any longer. It isn\u2019t PC to even question what marijuana use does to young people. Cannot even be questioned.\u201d<\/p>\n By the way, how did our young guest \u2014 who stayed at a hotel \u2014 get his super-strong ganja? One 20-minute visit with a \u201cpot doctor\u201d he had never seen before out here in the desert. Then a five-minute visit to a \u201cdispensary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll I had to do,\u201d said the guest, \u201cwas tell him I had trouble sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n