Editor’s note: The following article is satirical.

Marijuana is awful and a gateway drug: plain and simple. Only lazy people who are going nowhere in life succumb to the devil’s lettuce and waste away their days as they lie numb and mindless.

I know someone who smoked a singular weed once… OK maybe it was 1/18 of a weed … anyway, my friend injected a pot, and now she lives at home with her mom. She lived on her own at college for a while, but once she tried a marijuana, she moved back home with her mom.

She almost has a bachelor’s degree at age 21 in psychology, but that is beside the point. She is practically a loser for wanting to save money.

The money she is saving by living at home will probably be spent on crack cocaine or maybe even methamphetamines, because weed leads people to harder drugs and addiction.

Maybe in between her six classes and research internship, she will spend her time being lazy and smoking marijuana. I do not see her going anywhere in life, honestly.

I also know this girl who did two weeds. She finished beauty school when she was 19, has a great job with lots of clientele and lives with a roommate in a smaller city in Illinois.

After she pays her bills, rent, insurance and everything else on her own without her parents’ or family’s help, she probably just buys one huge joint to smoke. She told me she will not share because she is afraid of her other friends falling into the same pathetic pattern of working a good job, saving money and spending it all on the pots. It might lead to an overdose.

Finally, another friend of mine is the worst. She somehow managed to get a college degree and still thinks doing a weed here and there is OK. She wakes up at 6 a.m. every day for work, has a very good job at a company owned by one of Eastern’s own ‘alumni’ (even though he never graduated) and pays for everything on her own like my other friend.

But here is the kicker: she took one hit of a joint and said she felt ‘happy.’ I do not believe it. How can someone like HER be happy? She smoked the bud of a plant. If she is on the street selling herself to pay for heroin in five years, I would not be surprised.

I know if I want to be successful and not a lazy ol’ millennial, I will need to avoid the cannabis plant at all costs. It might make me too calm and happy to enjoy how I really feel.

Kennedy Nolen is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or kdnolen@eiu.edu.