A large number of my friends in High School smoked. Many of them were not accepted into college, or are now on academic probation. I always assumed that marijuana was at least contributing to their poor performances in school.<p>Now I am in the honors college of a fairly good public school, and I am surprised at how many of my fellow honors students smoke.<p>Nevertheless, I believe that smoking pot is still a bad habit. Many of my friends say that it makes them feel happy and that it makes them relax. That's all well and good, but to me it seems that they became dependent on pot to make them happy and relax. I see first-hand how stressed out many of them get without it, and I can't help but wonder if pot is the problem.<p>Regardless of whether it makes you dumber, it can kill your motivation because it seems like you've found what makes you happy and you no longer feel like working hard.<p>Note that I have never used marijuana and am basing my opinion on observations of my friends who do/did.