Some of the finest people I know are prostitutes and/or pot smokers. For all their weaknesses pot smokers aren't fanatics who manipulate economies, invade other countries or start wars. Most are perfectly willing to live and let live as long as they are allowed to partake of their drug of choice. IMO I have seen far more problems coming from beer drinkers than tokers.

And if your interested in learning how to live on the streets in the US you could do worse than talk to the hookers. In the US they walk the streets in the worse parts of town alone and negotiate their way around gangs and drug dealers and thugs.

At least in the Netherlands, the civilized nation that it is, they are protected and allowed to ply their trade in a well regulated but open manner.

As for any great events happening on 20012 because the Mayan calender ends ... that is, in the words of one specialist in Mayan culture, stupid. It is like someone a digging up a present -day calender and assuming that because the calender year ends on December 31 that it is prediction of doom.

Even the Mayans knew that when one cycle completed it started again. Sun goes down, sun comes up. Cycle ends, new cycle starts. Along the way something bad, and something good, will happen. Life will go on. And we will muddle through as best we can.

Of course telling people this doesn't sell books quite so well as telling people about imaginary dire predictions of an impending apocalypse. You could make a living out of catering to people's fears.