You have a good time partying, and I’ll have a good time judging you. It’s a win-win.

When you are the writer of an incredibly famous, overwhelmingly popular, extremely lucrative website, like I am, you know that the first article of the year is the most important. (Just go with me on this. Take the journey.) I can’t just write some half-hearted sex jokes about John Hughes movies and expect that to be enough. No, you are discerning readers—all five of you. So, let’s start the year right: I’m going to piss you off by writing about why drugs are dumb.

The problem with talking about drugs is that there’s almost no way to have an opinion and not sound like a crazy person. Take, for example, pot. If you are anti-marijuana, then toking up is more than bad; it’s A Danger to the Children. Potheads are hippies who live off welfare and sell drugs to kids before running them over in a drug-fueled car rampage. Pot is a gateway to crack cocaine and hardcore pornography. Likewise, if you are pro-marijuana, then use and legalization are not just okay, they’re downright logical. Taxing pot would solve all of our economic problems (hey, need a job? Somebody’s got to grow it!). A batch of special brownies and everyone would just chill the fuck out; it would be the end of racism, the NRA, and global warming.

The reality is that they’re both wrong. Smoking weed doesn’t turn you into a brainless amoral parasite, nor does it make you cool and funny and philosophical. In other words, it won’t make you Seth Rogen, and it won’t make you Seth Rogen.

I don’t do drugs. Well, I drink coffee and alcohol, I take OTC medication, I eat enough sugar to kill a six-year-old (not because it’s unhealthy, but because it’s justifiable homicide to off hyper children), and I’ve probably seen that pot-smoking scene in The Breakfast Club like sixty times, which has to count for something. But I don’t do drugs drugs. Part of it is for health reasons: if I wanted to inhale burning plant matter into my precious, pink lungs, I’d just light the VeggieTales foliage up at the stake like I’ve been wanting to. Part of it is for social reasons: I don’t want to listen to people talk about drugs and how awesome they are.

You might say, Kim, you can do what you like, but aren’t you being kind of judgmental and square? Well, first of all, I am judgmental, and I will be judgmental until the day I die, and you can’t call me judgmental or else you’re judgmental, and this sentence sounds like dialogue from an episode of Real World, oh, wait, is that show even still on, well, don’t judge me or my run-on sentences. Judgmental. And secondly, like Huey Lewis and the News said, it’s hip to be square.

But the real reason is that someone has to be judgmental and square, because pro-drug humor is so prevalent. And like most forms of comedy, while some people do it well (I couldn’t live without Super Troopers, and that is stoner comedy), mostly it’s been overrun by idiots. Do we really need any more film scenes where a dog, ape, or wild cat gets high? Is there someone out there to whom that’s still funny? Jokes about drugs are so common that they barely qualify as jokes anymore. If I had a time machine, I would go back to a time before everyone constantly accused each other of being “on crack” or “on steroids.” When I worked at the sunglass counter in Macy’s (yeah, I know), a couple of rich teenage bitches came up to try some of those gigantic Dolce&Gabbana sunglasses that were popular that summer. (I mean, I guess they were popular. I personally wear a Geordi LaForge-style visor, but then, I’m pretty fashion-forward.) RealDoll #1 turned to RealDoll #2 and said, “I look totally Down’s Syndrome in these.”

Now, I wanted to smash her perfect, shiny head into the countertop and bust out a couple of her straight, white teeth. But if a brainless sub-human with her daddy’s AmEx card can be as creatively offensive as that, then what excuse do you have for accusing your friends of being “on crack”?

Some people like nothing better than to whip out their twenty-minute explanation of why everyone should try smoking dope/dropping E/eating shrooms at least once (which is about as logical as the “everyone is at least bi” argument). You’d think they wrote their damn master’s thesis on it. It’s like those earthy-crunchy vegans who love to tell other people what to put in their bodies. But at least vegetarians have something to brag about. It’s hard to avoid eating meat, because meat is everywhere: meat on a plate, meat on a bun, meat on a stick, meat entrees, meat appetizers, meat- bathed French fries—I’m sure there’s even someone developing Styrofoam cups and plasticware out of meat.

Sure, vegetarian options are getting popular, but if I wanted to make a million dollars, I’d still start a restaurant chain that was solely devoted to meat and naked women. I’d call it Strippers ‘n’ Sausage, Pork ‘n’ Poontang, or maybe Bacon, Burgers, ‘n’ Babes—something that’s catchy, fun, and drives home the point that you are going to see some teen mom’s baby-oiled breasts sliding up and down a brass pole while you enjoy a plate of ribs. Hell, for $500 you’ll be able to eat your wings off a chick’s naked body—like they do in Japan with sushi, only with more barbecue sauce and crying.

“Kim,” you say, “That’s nasty.” Yes. It is. But if there’s one thing I know about people, it’s that they have endless talent and zeal for making filthy, disgusting monsters of themselves. Take, for example, Terror Toons.

I digress. My point is being vegetarian or dieting is a reasonable thing about which to brag; bragging about doing drugs is like bragging about smoking cigarettes. What’s to be proud of, there? But no matter what, a good rule is: you should only tell other people what to put inside of their bodies if you’re being paid to do so. You have free license to be bossy if you are a surgeon, diet guru, or dominatrix. Or if you’re me, obviously.

Another problem is that when people get high, whatever they do suddenly seems exciting and hilarious, and once they sober up, they want to tell everyone about it. (Like we’re all so surprised that Spice World was a better film when you were baked.) Big deal, so you were under the influence of a consciousness-altering substance, and did something that would normally be boring, that was not boring because of the drugs. Listen, do I brag about the time I got sick, took too many cold pills, and watched a MacGyver marathon between bouts of napping and throwing up? No, I don’t. (Okay, I do, but for the sake of this story, I don’t.)

And if it wasn’t for drug counterculture, we wouldn’t have anti-drug counter-counterculture: straight edge. Ew. This is a monster you created, drug fans of the world. If you weren’t so busy fighting The Man with your substance abuse, then The Man’s teenage children wouldn’t feel the need to fight you with their own militant non-drug use. You made your bed, stoners; now you have to lie in it.

Now…there’s an idea. I mean, everything’s about getting laid, right? If you’re really into drug culture, you’re going to get in the pants of semi-unconscious partygoers, graduate students, urban hipsters, and naïve socialists. If you’re really into the anti-drug culture, you can score with impressionable preachers’ kids, people with nautical star tattoos, and the MILFs of MADD. How about you guys hook up with each other instead? Hear me out! If the druggies and the anti-druggies mate, maybe we’ll end up with a generation of reasonable people who have interesting party stories. It’s just crazy enough to work, and if romantic comedies have taught me anything, it’s that opposites attract (at least as long as they’re still middle-class, attractive, young, white people). What I’m saying is, drug fans and straight-edgers need to reach across the aisle…and grope each other.

Or, as Huey Lewis and the News would say, “That’s the power of love.”