The time has come where those of you who, like me, were straight-edge all through high school are probably discovering what joys and pains recreational drugs can add to your life. You, like me, may find that marijuana in particular happens to be a fantastic remedy for most of life’s bitter woes, including stress from classes and good ol’-fashioned boredom.

It is you, fellow lovers of the green, who I hope to reach today. I must warn you, as great as pot is, it might not take too long before you find yourself smoking just a little more than you’d like. Maybe you’re picking up 20 sacks every other day or scheduling your classes around when you can get high. Either way, there comes a point at which it is simply too much, and this is the issue I’m about to tackle. Do not let people tell you that pot is not an addictive drug – these people tend to be those who have no experience with such things or don’t smoke quite enough to reach that point.

As an ex-S.T.A.R. intern, I could sit here and rail you on a number of ways to tell if you have an addiction to marijuana. And in fact, I’m going to. Spending more money than you mean to on weed, failing attempts to quit, markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of marijuana and continued use despite ill effects. Bam. However, that’s often not enough, and it can be hard to apply such knowledge to your own experiences. So, wonderful Samaritan that I am, I have taken the time to share with you all a list of ways to tell if you may be smoking just a little too much pot. If you have any of these symptoms, please – I beg of you — get help.

After calling a friend, you find yourself checking the phone to see who you called before they answer… more than once.

You get in the shower with glasses on, not realizing you’re wearing them until the shampooing action smacks them off your face and you suddenly find yourself unable to see.

The scent of a skunk is not just tolerable, but vaguely enjoyable.

You invite friends over for a 4:20 sesh, but get so baked in the meantime that you either pass out or completely forget about the task by the time 4:20 rolls around.

You realize that the “strange feeling” you had over vacation was “sobriety.”

You fill in-class workbooks with jokes as answers, and for some reason assume the TA will give you a good grade because she thinks you’re funny. (She doesn’t, and you’re retaking the class next quarter.)

When your roommate comes in and asks why you’re watching the Spanish channel, you laugh at him and ask why you would be watching the movie if you couldn’t understand it.

Upon further questioning, you stubbornly argue that there is no way in hell you’ve been watching a movie in Spanish for the last 40 minutes (but you have).

There are anywhere between 10 and 15 lighters in your house, but you have no idea how they got there and could swear on your life you haven’t seen a single one of them before.

After thinking of the PERFECT spot to hide a lighter and bringing it there, you “discover” a plethora of previously hidden Bics.

You take your shorts off… to put your socks on.

It takes you more than five minutes to realize that the reason you can’t fall asleep is that you forgot to turn off the light.

You can’t find your keys, because they’re still in your car. In the ignition. And the engine’s on.

The reason the elevator isn’t coming is that the button you’ve been pressing is, in fact, on the parking permit machine.