Californian here. In college my friends turned me on to drinking. I became what I would describe as a drunk in my 20’s. It was horrible for my body. I’d had some bad experiences with weed but for some reason I decided to try again in my late 20’s. Somehow then I was able to handle the strange disorienting feeling it had previously caused for me.

I’ve found that when I want to unwind with the help of a drug, I vastly prefer weed over alcohol. I currently smoke a little every day. I really do see smoking weed like drinking wine. If you do it a lot and it’s interfering with your life, it sounds like a problem. If you do it a little then yes it’s still unhealthy but it’s not a problem.

I work in tech as an engineer and I consider myself very successful. I know doing drugs isn’t as healthy as staying clean and I don’t plan to smoke every day forever, but for now I like what it gives me. When I smoke, it’s a small hit of sativa from a pipe. Then I get up, put on some music, and clean the house, cook food, or do some mechanical design. I smoke less if I’m going to write software - that’s just how my brain likes it.

But often if I’m going through something hard in life, I’m not good at processing it on my own. I know I could learn that through meditation, but certainly taking a larger hit of the same stuff and sitting down for a while usually allows me to process those emotions. I’ll go in to my emotions, cry, and then work through them. That’s just an evening or weekend thing.

I’ll reiterate that I don’t see this as objectively healthy, but it’s certainly not in a worse class of drug than alcohol. I am frustrated when I go to parties and people allow young children to see everyone drinking but say the weed should be hidden. We have a culture that accepts heavy drinking but we still see weed as some problem. In California it’s not so severe, but I hope to see it legalized everywhere in the world. It’s absurd to send anyone to jail for consuming, producing, or selling this easy to grow drug.