I first smoked the herb in the summer of 1968, when I was 15 years old. At the time, it was just young adventure, a bag of ratty stems and leaves that some college dude sold the naive high school kid. We got high, wandered around the house a little bit, looked at ourselves in the mirror, laughed a lot and ... woke up later on the floor. But then, I got the hang up it.

I kept smoking on the weekends, etc, and eventually started doing the daily attitude adjustment hour after work with a few hits of pot. A couple before supper, a few for dessert, and a steady diet for the rest of the evening. Booze never worked for me - made me cynical and ornery and generally not happy.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was a PTSD victim, and I had adopted cannabis as a way of matching my bruised mind to daily reality. I always had my own business, so I could work with a buzz if I liked, and I would often catch a wake and bake to greet the day. Now that I'm retired with fewer responsibilities I just stay stoned.

So the answer is that I smoke because I want to, and because it doesn't affect the lives of people I'm responsible to. I smoke because I led a periodically traumatic life and I found that it helped me to face what I had to face. Like coffee, it's now a part of my daily routine, and much easier on the metabolism, I might add.

I smoke to keep the demons at bay, and to be a better person to others. Along the way, I've become wiser and more at peace because of it.