There have been a few benchmarks in my life that I still remember clearly. These were the moments where I stepped up and stood up for myself. As a kid I was used to following orders and doing what the grown-ups told me. With maturity I started to question authority, and make decisions based on what I thought was right instead of what they told me was right. When I was sixteen years old my parents caught me smoking cannabis in the attic. They brought me into the kitchen and made me drink some coffee to help me sober up, and then started to lecture me about right and wrong. This was the first time I stood up to them, and told them they were wrong, and cannabis was not dangerous. They disagreed with me, but I stood my ground, and started to cite scientific research about the medical benefits of cannabis. They could not refute any of my claims, because they knew nothing factual about the marijuana plant. Everything they thought they knew about cannabis came from the church, or the cops. If I know anything in life, it’s that you should never trust the cops or the church! The religious argument about cannabis was the dumbest of them all. I remember the look on my parents’ faces when I told them that God put cannabis here for people to enjoy. They said I was being sacreligious, and I replied that if God was real, and God created everything, then God was the one who put cannabis plants here. If anyone was being sacreligious, it was them!