There was a saying in Utah when I was young that if a girl smokes, she pokes. It was pretty true about alcohol too.

My experience in high school was that the saying was true for the most part. In my youthful naivete I thought that it was universally true. Then I moved to California, and found that plenty of girls there will drink and smoke, but won't have sex. That baffled me.

A little while later, I figured it out. In Utah, drinking or smoking was such a "sin" that a girl figured that if she was going to hell anyway, why not have sex on the way to hell.

In other states, where the girls weren't mormons, drinking and smoking didn't make you go to hell, so it had no bearing on having sex.

But in Utah, a girl smoking or drinking was like a flashing sign that said your chances of making it with me are great!

Anyone else notice that?

You hear that a lot here in the Bible Belt to rationalize all sorts of behavior.

Meanwhile, back in Zion, my sister discovered one of her several teen sons was smoking pot. Hysteria ensued, followed by rehab and therapy for the boy and parents. What finally came out was that it wasn't actually about drugs, it was about sex. He had discovered girls who used drugs were more likely to be sexually active -- or at least less coy/difficult about it. If smoking a little weed could get him laid, then pass the joint.