REEFER MAINSTREAM, Part 4 of 4

Access isn't much of a problem.

"We had one guy who was kind of more the inner city type of dealer, the guy
with the Monte Carlo -- that kind of scene. We kind of got sketched out by
that after a while. Now we get it from one of our friends who we know from
ASU."

Sometimes, Hal buys an ounce and sells it among his friends. Sometimes, he
just gets a quarter to keep at home. He and his wife spend between $100 and
$150 a month on pot.

They plan on kids someday, and Hal figures he'll stop while they're trying
to get pregnant, and encourage his wife to stop, too.

"I don't know after that. I guess it's hard to say without having that
responsibility," he says. Hal knows it might get tricky when the little
ones get older.

For now, pot is really important to Hal.

"It's so much a part of my lifestyle that I can't imagine being married to
someone who didn't, or was against it. I have some friends who don't, but
they're cool with me sparking up next to them."

Being friends with someone who's anti-pot would be totally unacceptable to
Hal. Like being friends, he says, with someone who's pro-life.

THE TEACHERS

Denise, 48, is an elementary schoolteacher in an East Valley public school.
Her friend Rebecca, 49, teaches college. Both are single moms with teenage
daughters; they met at a church singles group.

Rebecca buys her pot from Denise, who gets it from an ex-boyfriend.

They both worry a lot about their daughters. The girls aren't ready for
marijuana, Rebecca and Denise say, but does that mean their mothers
shouldn't tell them the truth -- that when you're a grown-up, there's
nothing wrong with smoking pot?

Both women started experimenting with marijuana at 15, although in
Rebecca's case, it turned out to be catnip. It was a snobby thing at their
East Coast high schools -- the stoners were better than the redneck beer
drinkers.

When Rebecca was 18, her father found a plant and a grow light in her
bedroom. He was terrified of getting busted, she recalls. When Rebecca's
daughter was 7 or 8, she came home from school with a list of bad drugs.
Marijuana was right next to heroin and cocaine.

How do you explain the difference to a 7-year-old? Seven years later,
Rebecca's still trying to answer that question. She knows her daughter
suspects her. The teenager has found pot in her mom's underwear drawer and
didn't seem completely convinced when told it was herbal tea.

"It does bother me. I don't like not being honest," Rebecca says.

Both Rebecca and Denise have trouble finding the time -- and space -- to
get stoned. Rebecca figures she smokes once a month, Denise a little more
often. Once when they went out hiking -- Denise tried to teach Rebecca to
use a compass.

"The time we painted my cabinets," Rebecca recalls.

One of the oddest things for Denise is sitting through antidrug lectures by
the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) police officers. She changes the
subject as soon as the cops leave the classroom.

Denise knows there are people out there who would find it "disgusting" that
a 48-year-old mom and teacher smokes pot. As for her students' parents?

"I think they would be very uncomfortable."

THE CHRISTIAN

Even though Christians are supposed to be forgiving, Jackson wouldn't dare
tell any of his friends at church that he gets high.

"No matter how Christian I could be, it would always be in their mind, Hey,
there goes that pot smoker guy.'"

So Jackson, 27, goes to church every Sunday, reads the Bible every day and
gets high several times a week. His wife, also a devout Christian, has
never smoked.

"It's Don't ask, don't tell,'" Jackson says. "She doesn't want to know
about it."

After work, after the house is clean, Jackson slips into the garage and
smokes. Out of respect for the wife, he's ditched all the "nifty
paraphernalia," like the three-foot bong he used to keep in his bedroom
closet at his parents' home.

During his senior year in high school, a cousin gave him some pot;
Jackson's parents always ignored the towel stuffed under the door, he
recalls. During college, home -- or a parked car -- was the only place he
could smoke. Jackson graduated from Grand Canyon University, a private
religious school with strict rules. There are two kinds of students at GCU,
according to Jackson -- the "laid-back Christians" like him, and the "real
hard-core Bible thumpers," like his freshman-year roommate. The roommate
was constantly trying to get Jackson to quit smoking.

"One of his biggest arguments was, Would Jesus smoke a joint?'" Jackson
says. Jackson admits he agreed with the roommate, that no, Jesus would not
have smoked a joint.

In any case, Jackson figured that Jesus wouldn't expect him to be perfect.

Jackson still gets a good deal on pot from that same cousin who gave him
his first taste. But someday soon, he says, he's going to quit. After all,
he's already cut down to several times a week.

"I had fun with it, and there's a time to say, Hey, this was neat,' and
walk away," Jackson says.

"It's just the direction I'm heading with my life in general. I mean, here
pretty soon, I may turn vegetarian."