Wait, what? I've never felt any of those effects from smoking, and I made sure to inhale deeply. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Are there people who are genetically unable to get the high?
For an incredible overview of the benefits and harms of nicotine, see Gwen: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine
I guess it's one of those things that's so obvious no one actually says it. If you think about it, that benefit is never mentioned in debates about smoking and the appropriate government response. I know because I aggressively scour for such upsides, being the "hipster contrarian". Had I known about the pleasure and stimulation of smoking[3], you can bet I would bring it up every time!
Reminds me of "What Universal Human Experiences Are You Missing Without Realizing It?" [2]
Now you might ask, "Did it never seem strange to you that people would suck this disgusting tar into their lungs if it didn't at least feel good or something?"
Well, no. IME, people indulge in a lot of BS without obvious explanation. For example, people claim to like the taste of alcohol[ic drinks], and that is outright ridiculous -- or so I thought, but it was another case of [2]. Also, modern art.
My model of smokers was roughly that, they start doing it to look cool, and then get hooked, so that they have to smoke to fend off the pain of withdrawal. I didn't think the act could feel good itself!
Now that I think about it, people don't mention the good feeling of other drugs in debates about them either. For alcohol, I had a good explanation: those benefits are taboo, and people use the purported taste and refinement of their "fave bev" as "intellectual covering fire" for what they really want, the alcohol high.
In conclusion, the phenomenon in [2] is serious business!
[1] See, for example, the responses to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14569775
[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-ex...
[3] Incidentally, I read Bostrom's Superintelligence, where he mentions writing the book while being powered by caffeine and nicotine, but I wrote that off (like most purported benefits of smoking) as psychosomatic.
Never got into smoking tobacco or weed, both just made me feel bad.