What are you talking about? I read the story. It's definitely anti-pot, anti-alcohol, anti-most drugs. He described himself as completely addicted to pot, and arranged things so that he was never six feet away from being able to smoke it. He also described his marijuana using days (14-22) as extremely unhappy, and essentially blamed his (pot) addiction for being indifferent about his university studies, indifferent about his writing, spacing out during important events, indifferent about his relationship with his parents, etc.
I don't think I've ever read such a strong anti-marijuana story.
It's interesting that way. He described himself as being very successful while using the drugs, especially in highschool, but also with the negative consequences that you mention. I don't think it's incredibly anti-marijuana, but there are definitely negatives as well as positives.
It seems to me, from the story, that his life didn't really fall apart until he tried heroin.
I think his life definitely fell apart before that -- I am pretty sure, from the way the story is structured, that he associates the beginning of his downfall with his first use of pot. And in the middle of the story, just before trying heroin, he says the he hadn't yet suffered many "external" consequences, which suggests that he had suffered "internally", as a result of his drug use.
He does say some good things about how pot made him feel, but it's only on the first page, and in association with when he first started using. This type of praise could be applied to most drugs. And then he counterbalances it, to make you wonder whether even these positive effects were illusory:
I tried everything during those years, including hypnosis, psychotherapy, relaxation therapy, counting sheep. But nothing worked until I smoked pot. Suddenly, I could sleep at night -- or during the day, or in class, or behind the wheel of a car, for that matter. I became less obsessive. I felt more controlled and less anxious, although the opposite was probably true.
Then right afterwards:
Within a week of trying pot, I was smoking it every day. Within a couple of months, five and six times a day. Within a year, I was selling it, and using other drugs to try to pick me up or slow me down: cocaine, mescaline, LSD, speed, prescription painkillers.
Then:
Even more pernicious, my persona as a drug-addled protege was becoming my identity. If I stopped getting high all the time, if I stopped showing up to school drunk, wouldn't I just be another staid, over-achieving suburban teen?
Then:
In my junior year of high school, I was arrested for breaking and entering; a couple of months later, I passed out while interviewing the principal for the school newspaper. My parents' reactions to my drug addiction were different: my father furious, my mother betrayed. During the years when my dad wanted to be harder on me, my mother had pushed to give me more freedom, arguing that I was doing fine and just going through normal teenage rebellion. He wanted me home by midnight; she said I had earned the right to be out late. So the fact that I had been deceiving them hurt them both, but it was like a personal "fuck you" to my mother.
Then (describing his college experience):
Mainly, I smoked pot: At one point during my sophomore year, I set up my dorm room so that I would never be more than 5 feet away from a pipe or a bong. When I ran out of weed, I would rip apart my furniture and scrape my floors in a desperate attempt to locate an errant bud or a forgotten joint.
Then:
In November of sophomore year, something snapped. I would smoke pot, and five minutes later need to smoke again. I would drink, but as Tennessee Williams so accurately described it in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," I never got the click. So, at 19, I checked into an inpatient drug detox and rehab program at McLean's Hospital in Belmont.
Then (after going clean):
So eventually, one Wednesday night at around 11, I went and bought a bottle of vodka and sat in my room alone until it was done. The next morning, I bought a bottle of red wine and drank it down before lunch; by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, exactly two years after I went into rehab, I was once again smoking pot every morning.
I'd say all-round, he seemed pretty desperate and unhappy and addicted before he tried heroin. On the whole, it's definitely discouraging of any type of drug use. But yes, everything crashed pretty quickly after he started using heroin.
