In fact, I was welcomed. There were movie stars and rock stars. I became a pot star. I glorified in that. And of course as time wore on the business began to expand and grow. It went from more or less a college fun thing to a serious business. As the money grew, the power grew.

I've had so many great experiences in my life, of living total free will, that I wouldn't change it for all the gold in the earth.

I thought cocaine was a fantastic drug. A wonder drug, like everybody else. It gave you [an] energy burst. You could stay awake for days on end, and it was just marvelous and I didn't think it was evil at all. I put it almost in the same category as marijuana, only hell of a lot better. It was a tremendous energy boost. It gave the feeling, a high, but nobody knew, well maybe a small percentage of people knew. But eventually everybody knew how evil it really was.

Strange thing, when they arrested me for the pot, the federal agents, they said, "We're sorry, we really don't want to bust pot people but this is tied into a heroin operation and we have to arrest you."

All I can say is that my ambition far exceeded my talent.

I was snorting a lot of cocaine and I had lost myself to a great degree. A lot of people, everybody was starting to realize what the coke was all about and they were all starting to get lost.

Basically I was no different than a rock star or a movie star. I was a coke star.