Morris stood up at the end of our last therapy session. He was leaving the following day to return to his parents’ home after being convicted of marijuana cultivation and sale. I had been treating Morris’s anxiety as he felt the law’s tightening grip around the sprawling cannabis business he had built. Proud of his success at managing such a large operation, he had arrogantly and deludedly believed that cannabis would be legalized before he was arrested. A defeated smile crossed his lips as he gravely shook my hand and said defiantly, “You know it’s only a matter of time. I will be vindicated in the future.” And he has been. We both understood the future of cannabis back then. What does the future look like now?

Martin was an intelligent and cocky young man whose father hoped therapy would help him cut down his cannabis use and mature enough to take over the family’s successful road construction business. Martin only wanted me to help him get away from his father. He was convinced that his cannabis use was part of a healthy life, and he constantly tried to prove that he knew more about the plant than I did. In fact, he did know far more than I about the latest varieties of cannabis and new methods of cultivation.

Tom thoroughly enjoyed introducing his friends to cannabis. He was careful. You had to be careful in 1967 in central Ohio. He was careful about where he bought his marijuana, relying on an old high-school friend who grew his own rather than his new friends at Ohio State University who were eager to sell him their wares. He was careful to groom his stash, diligently picking out all the seeds and stems. And he was very careful to wait for his friends to express curiosity before beginning a conversation about pot.

Stacey had been a brilliant professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley until her multiple sclerosis (MS) crippled her and drained her of energy. Unable to get out of bed without assistance, she studied the research literature about MS and decided to try cannabis to treat her painful and debilitating muscle spasms.

Edward strode to the microphone on a mission. It was his opportunity to speak directly to California’s Cannabis Advisory Committee and the head of the state’s Bureau of Cannabis Control. He was given 90 seconds. A man of average height with a strong, athletic build, Edward’s voice commanded attention without needing to be raised.

Randy was a middle-aged businessman who maintained a charming, although too often irresponsible, adolescent quality. His life had never reached its potential and his marriage was threatened. An intermittently regular cannabis user since college, he told me about recently scoring some wildly good marijuana. This was the mid-1990s, when new varieties of powerful sinsemilla cannabis flower were becoming available in San Francisco. After smoking it every day for a couple of weeks, he exhausted his supply and was unable to find any more.

John agreed to an evaluation of his cannabis use to appease his mother. The 10th grader cautiously acknowledged experimenting with cannabis after his best friend had been given some pot by his older brother. John asked his friend for a joint and they had smoked together half a dozen times over the past 4 months. He sheepishly admitted liking marijuana, but he also knew pot carried some vague risk for people his age. His mother was terrified when she saw her son looking at websites about cannabis, but when confronted, he was honest with his parents about his use. After talking with John, I wasn’t concerned that he was in any real danger. I taught him the signs of using cannabis too frequently, and we reviewed the reasons why he should delay use until he was a few years older.

Monique was charming, restless, independent, and willful. Always surrounded by friends, she was the adventurous risk-taker among them. Quick-witted, Monique liked to learn but not to be taught. Her body developed early, writing checks that her mind was unprepared to cash. Older boys quickly targeted her when she entered high school, and with the boys came their drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. She started with cannabis.

Sarah was 15 and already devoted to cannabis, despite the legal difficulties she faced from being caught smoking a joint in the school bathroom. I had no hope of convincing her that the risks she ran were serious, so I took a different approach, hoping to intrigue her into learning more about weed. I asked what she liked most about being high.

Stefan’s well-educated parents emigrated from the Balkans when Stefan was an infant to escape the violence tearing through their country. He grew up feeling different from his friends. His parents spoke with an accent, didn’t automatically understand American customs, and insisted on taking Stefan back to Croatia during summer breaks to visit family after the violence ended. He didn’t fit into his parents’ homeland or his own new home. He felt fundamentally different from his parents and yet deeply bound to them. Betwixt and between, he was confused by having to face the world on his own.

Jackson was bored with his massage therapy practice and was looking for something more interesting to do. Cannabis legalization had reawakened his interest in the use of natural, psychoactive substances as healing and spiritual agents. A once-a-month user of cannabis, he was enthusiastic about Johns Hopkins University’s research on the potential mental health benefits of psilocybin, the psychedelic “magic mushroom.” Jackson fondly remembered experiencing a spiritual awakening when he took LSD as a young man, but he had also seen the powerful drug send a friend into paranoid panic that lasted over a year.

Morgan had a classic case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), although it had not been diagnosed until he was nearly 40 years old. A computerized test of his ability to withhold impulsive responses revealed that he performed no better than if he had been responding randomly. His ability to sustain concentration and avoid distraction was profoundly impaired. Morgan told me how this contributed to his poor work history.