Living in the suburbs does not always guarantee excitement. There are very few options for free-time activities. A lack of available social excitement means some hard work to find ways to entertain ourselves. Unfortunately many of my friends have taken a dangerous short-cut to what they see as harmless fun. Smoking marijuana has come to control too many people's lives in my school. It is common knowledge among many students that a particular group of people come to school stoned at least once a week. Although pot may not be the only drug abused at my school, it is the most visible. The abusers are not ashamed nor do that have any intentions of quitting. Accessibility of pot makes it easy for many kids to just take the easy road away from the pressures of high school.

Some days I wish I could just turn all my friends in for their own good. One day they are going to come off their high and realize they have hit rock bottom. I just hope that realization comes sooner rather than later because I do not know what will become of these kids who are so dependent on pot. I admit I live a basically sheltered life and I should be thankful that pot is the biggest problem I have to deal with but this does not make getting stoned any more right. I watch my friends sit back and slowly kill their brain cells and their intelligence. This scares me because we are our future and we must start taking responsibility for that today.n