Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research on a panel talking about stress, drugs and mental health.

The panel was stacked with some big brains including: Psychologist David Gilfilan from the Black Dog Institute, who spoke about bi-polar disorder; Dr Leonora Long, a researcher at the Schizophrenia Research Institute, who talked about the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia and; Dr Michael Novy, director of training with the NSW Helicopter Retrieval Service, who spoke about drug use trends he's observed in hospital emergency rooms.

Then there was little ole me, the only mug without a jumble of letters after his name, who was invited to speak because of the column I wrote about snorting a grand worth of cocaine a few weeks ago in The Sun-Herald.

I was there to humanise the panel, I guess, provide some insight from the 'user's' perspective, maybe crack a few bad jokes ...