I was still thought of as a kid actor even though I was in my mid twenties.

We each had to spend a week out at Lassie's ranch, and whoever got along best with the dog got the part.

Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.

I was totally devastated for four years in the mid '60s when l tried to buck the tide.

Acid wasn't getting a whole lot of bad press at the time, and as I saw the whole bad-press thing happen, I became aware that the government had done a whole lie on all the other benign drugs as well. It became clear to me that the government wanted no real drug education.

I had always turned it down-to me, smoking pot was absolutely the worst thing in the world. I thought of it as an addiction, and all my friends who smoked it, I felt they really needed help.

Marijuana. Boy, I thought that was just terrible. How could this great man do this to his life?