One great way to experiment before you commit to a plant is this beut of a program, High Grow. A freeware game by Slick Software, it is a Marijuana growing simulation. You can choose from thirty species, and then you must set the light levels and times, temperature, humidity, water the plant(s) (you can have up to three at a time), fertilize them, prune them and, when they are ready, harvest them. This works in realtime and uses complex calculations through years of research done by the people at Slick Software. It is meant to grow like a real plant. If you do something wrong, it won't grow, and next time you will know what not to do. After you have harvested your plant(s) it rates the potency and how much you have. I used this a few times before I got my plant and I grew one killer plant, so I reccommend novices check this out. Even if you don't smoke or grow dope, this is still a fun little program to mess around with, especially if you are into gardening.

You can find this nifty little thing at: http://www.geocities.com/slick_software/index.html
Or you can email the creator at: slicker@mweb.co.za