Having already 'fessed up to drinking bhong water, I might as well acknowledge that I did inhale, and did experience euphoric sensations.
In my final year of high school I did not smoke. I got a part time job. I failed that year.
I repeated my final year the next year, started smoking - rapidly reaching a 4 to 7 days per week rate - and passed.
I continued to smoke at uni, not every single day but most days, occasionally drying out for a few weeks, sometimes going through phases where due to depression I was into the bhongs-for-breakfast behaviour. This is not a good way to manage your life. :p Nevertheless, my marks continued to rise, my final year was straight As, I wrote my honours thesis with a bud-loaded tobacco pipe on my desk, and got a "clear first" which got me a scholarship to do a PhD.
The PhD was written in phases of smoking and not smoking, which were about equally productive. I do not like to get really wasted, just a little to get things flowing. The effect seems conducive to rearranging ideas in new ways, but can really mess with your ability to write a grammatically correct sentence.
I have learned not to go to work (as in paid work) stoned. If anything slightly out of the routine happens, it is such a bloody hassle. And it is an inefficient way to enjoy your stash.
However, in the event of an emergency, I have been able to pull myself together and handle the situation, probably not at 100% of my capacity, but enough. As a senior resident in a dorm I twice led responses to fire alarms and once handled a first aid incident in this way.
Since leaving uni, I've been traveling, working, or both. I sometimes enjoy a small smoke after work before going for a stroll in the park. Hiking and sitting by a stream is also very much enhanced by smoking, as well as the previously mentioned activities of musical appreciation and eating.
For the last two years, I haven't touched the stuff, but that's because I've been in Japan and (a) can't get it and (b) the consequences of being busted are very severe.
For most people, occasional cannabis use has only a temporary mental effect. However, long term daily use can lead people into the "withdrawal trap". You get baked and don't do whatever it was you were supposed to do that day, your life gets crappy, so the next day it becomes more attractive to get baked again ...
Furthermore, for people with an existing mental illness or even a disposition to mental illness, cannabis can trigger an acute episode. "Reefer Madness" is 98% BS, but there is a grain of truth buried in amongst it.
Medically, inhaling smoke is bad for your lungs and mouth. Cancer, emphysema, that kind of stuff. A bhong filters out a lot of the bad stuff. Better yet, an aromatherapy vapouriser just delivers the good stuff without the bad. Also good is eating cookies, except the dosage can be hard to judge. I believe cannabis relaxes your immune system.
While there appears to be little or no chemical addiction, it is both psychologically habit forming and just plain fun. If I want to give up or go dry for a while, I have to run out or entrust my stash to a friend. If it is in the house, I find it very hard to resist temptation.
In the long run, smoking cannabis almost certainly HAS shortened my life expectancy. But I read a good line in response to that. IIRC it was by Luciano de Crezenso.
Quote:
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So much effort goes into trying to lengthen life. We would get better return by trying to broaden it.
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What'll it be? 85 years on the straight-and-narrow, or 80 years with frequent visits to cloud nine and playing with the pixies deep in the magic woods?