Mister K - well said, sir!
I know lots of people who do it, and none of them are shining examples of how to live your lives. I know people will argue not everyone ends up this way just because they do marijuana or cannabis, but in my experience, every single one of them has ended up this way:
They don't pay any attention to their studies, and even when they do, they don't know what's going on and don't understand. They consistently get appalling results in tests and homework, and are expected to fail their A Levels. Most of their time seems to be spent gossiping or talking about the latest clothes they've bought, or discussing the next party which occurs every other evening during which they all stand about and smoke and get off with people and basically that's it. Their conversation is unintelligent and they're the most retarded people I've ever met. I'm serious. If I had a quid for every time in class they've come out with something idiotic... They can't even read and write properly... Think Big Brother standard of stupidity here. Do you know what one of them came out with the other day? "Uh... yeah... Downing Street is where the President lives, innit." Apart from that, their moral values seem to be practically non-existent. All they seem to care about is bagging a nice rich boy from the local private school. One time, I heard them talking about a girl and they were actually criticising her for going out with a boy from this private school who had a scholarship - i.e. he was a genius, but he wasn't rich. I find that kind of attitude disgusting. I really have to hold back from just whacking them over the head with sledgehammers whenever I hear them start to speak like that. At the very least I have the strong urge to rubber stamp them all on the forehead with permanent ink "WARNING" just to give those poor guys a chance.
They have no future, no moral standards, and no depth. Most of the time they're completely off their heads and would rather party and do yet more drugs and smoke and drink themselves into unconsciousness, than do some studying so they'd actually pass their A Levels. That's not the worst of it. There's one person I know, who I used to be friends with, who now does cannabis and marijuana, and when they're stoned they undergo a completely personality change. They suffer violent mood swings, they become irritable and snappy and even get into physical fights with people.
From my experience of these people therefore, I could never admire them and never pursue that kind of lifestyle. At best, I'd say I have a vehement contempt for them. At worst, it would be fair to say that I hate them so much I wouldn't hesitate in erasing this blight on the human race from existence if I had that power.
I'd never take it myself, not just because I never want to end up like that, but also because I made a moral pledge to myself long ago not to (and also never to take up smoking and never to drink alcohol to excess), and I take those kind of promises to myself very seriously.
Rag - Sorry to point this out, but those alcoholic people you mentioned, are idiots. They're either idiots for drinking that much, or if they didn't drink that much, then they're just plain idiots because who would go around getting violent and having casual sex. My friends and I drink alcohol, I don't mind admitting that, and yeah we've got drunk a few times. But at the end of an evening we're all still standing, in thoroughly high spirits, and have never instigated any violence or had cases of casual sex. Maybe because we're smart enough not to get completely smashed out of our heads, but the problems of alcoholism can be avoided simply by knowing when to say when, and milions of people do it every day. The number of bad incidents occurring from drink are not insignificant, I admit it, but in comparison to the millions who drink responsibly, they are a very tiny percentage indeed - in many cases young people who don't know how much they can handle or who are simply stupid enough and at that kind of age to think that it'd be fun to drink that much.