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.

Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on.

I hope there's a life after life - and maybe I can even come back again and get on another train, and ride and gain some more wisdom.

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.

I thought heroin was evil and morally, myself, I thought that pot was okay. That it wasn't a bad thing and so therefore thought I wasn't doing a bad thing. I knew I was breaking the law but I thought that the law was wrong also. So I morally justified what I was doing.

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.

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