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."

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 suddenly began to realize that to become an entrepreneur in the marijuana business would make me fairly well off. And I also liked the lifestyle, my own working hours.

The war on drugs was an ideology the government came up with, and there never really was a war on drugs. I mean, to stop the importation of drugs into the United States of America is an impossibility.

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.

Smoking marijuana - or most everybody who smokes marijuana deals it in small amounts to their friends, innocently enough. I think it's innocently enough.

I was the kid who would take the car out at night when he was 16 and see if he can redline it. And then there's the kid who will be careful of it because it's his dad's car, or whatever, and drive it safely home and go to bed. And that's how my whole life was.