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Ethan Nadelmann grew up in the suburbs of New York City, but the first time he used pot was in 1975 in the old student ghetto at McGill University in Montreal, where he spent the first two years of his college life. He’s been an occasional cannabis consumer ever since.

“Cannabis — marijuana — has been very good to me,” the founder and former director of the Drug Policy Alliance said at a McGill conference last year. For Nadelmann, described by Rolling Stone magazine as the “point man” for drug policy reform, pot has been a source of pleasure and insight.

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“While there may have been moments when it made me dumber, I think (there were) other moments when it made me smarter, and helped me enjoy life,” he said.

At 61, Nadelmann is now finding edibles “profoundly enjoyable.”

He believes his experience is true for many, but he said he also knows people close to him for whom marijuana has been a “terrible drug” — people who rapidly moved from occasional to compulsive users. People who get manic or paranoid on pot.