David Brooks: Choom Leader

“Weed: Been There. Done That,” exclaims…the New York Times’ David Brooks? No, really!

For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships.

But then we all sort of moved away from it. I don’t remember any big group decision that we should give up weed. It just sort of petered out, and, before long, we were scarcely using it.

We didn’t give it up for the obvious health reasons: that it is addictive in about one in six teenagers; that smoking and driving is a good way to get yourself killed; that young people who smoke go on to suffer I.Q. loss and perform worse on other cognitive tests.

I think we gave it up, first, because we each had had a few embarrassing incidents. Stoned people do stupid things (that’s basically the point).

Suddenly, Brooks admiring then-rookie Sen. Barack Obama’s pants crease, and extrapolating from its sharpness that his trousers’ manifest destiny would be to take the man inside of them all the way to the White House three years later starts to make perfect sense. But only if can you picture the conversation occurring at 4:20 PM, with both legendary tokers higher than Air Force One while engaging in the conversation.