I am a product of Central Coastal California scene in the 1960s. I started smoking weed in the 1970s because... well, everyone smoked weed there then. And pretty much everyone also smoked cigarettes in those days, as I also did. Winstons. They taste good like a cigarette should! My head is still filled with advertising jingles from the 1960s. I am also a product of TV ads.
My first time getting high was after work as a busboy at a private club when I was 15. The dishwasher had some Oaxacan. We did not have a pipe or any papers, so we went into the walk in and found an apple. We cut holes in the apple to make a pipe, and used a piece of screen from a broken window out by the dumpster and it worked rather well. There was a common misconception in those days that you did not get high the first time you smoked weed. Well, I got high the first time I smoked weed. Good and Oaxacan high. I was happily trashed. We went back inside rather stoned and watched the live band perform for the wedding reception that we had worked at that afternoon, and the bartender slipped us some screwdrivers that he had left over from the open bar. We danced and hooked up with some girls. We had a good time.
That same night I was quite happy with getting high on grass, so I placed my first order for some of that same weed. It was $10 for a lid. A lid then was a baggie of weed that may or may not have weighed an ounce. From that point I stayed stoned pretty much non stop for the next 10 years. I loved weed and still love weed. My brother also smoked weed and we got high all the time and all over the place with a lot of our friends. It was a social thing. We smoked at parties. We smoked outside of bars. We smoked at the house. We smoked in our apartments. We smoked at concerts In Berkeley, we smoked on Telegraph Ave and in restaurants there. We smoked at concerts. I used to smoke in my car at school (open campus). My brother's roommate called me the "Medicine Man" because I always carried a bag that my brother had made with an assortment of hashish and marijuana in it. I like variety in my weed. I still have 15 or so strains to choose from here at any given time, over half of which I grew myself. GDP, White Widow, Blue Dream, Durban Poison, OT2, Super Silver Haze... yadda yadda.
Anyway, flash forward (*cough*) many years into the future and I still get high just to get high at times, but it is more medicinal now. I smoke a lot of high CBD weed during the day to deal with the pain of aging, and keep calm, and to (supposedly) tighten up my leaky gut. I also smoke GDP if I cannot sleep at night, and Durban in the morning if I am still groggy. Durban gets me going! Speed weed! The weed strain that I smoke depends on my mood and how I feel, and what I am doing. Oh yes, and weed is legal here now in Oregon, and in California, and in Washington, and in Nevada, and in Alaska. Pretty much anywhere I go in the west now and everywhere that I have lived weed is legal now. I would have never thought that weed would be legal in my lifetime or that I could grow it legally here at my house. In the 70s while is was virtually decriminalized in California, it was still not legal and there was an outlaw camaraderie to it. Go to a bar and meet a friend that you know get high, and the next thing you are at a party with friends, or on the beach someplace, or whatever. That changed when "Vitamin C" and booze became more prevalent in the late 70s with the advent of disco. But I stayed with the weed. I did harder drugs on and off for several years there in the early 80's, but they never satisfied me like the evil weed did. I quit smoking cigarettes in the 80's. I quit drinking coffee in the 90's. I even quit smoking weed for a decade in the mid 90s. In the end I drink beer and vodka, and I smoke weed. Far better than the opioid pain killers that my doctor prescribes me, and better than taking NSAIDs that rag my guts out.
But the bottom line as to why I smoke weed? Because I fucking love it, man! For whatever physiological or psychological or behavioral or social reason. I like getting high. Of late I also like using it for more medicinal purposes. And as I have suspected for several decades there is far more to weed that they have given it credit for. There are over 140 cannabinoids, and upward of a thousand terpenoids. That they have found so far. They all have affects on our endocrine systems and resulting behavior, mood, well being, homeostasis, pain, attention, sleep, and of late they have been found to have strong anti inflammatory and strong anti cancer action. Now, if this is not a miracle drug, I do not know what is. And, I like getting high. And its legal here now. And I am a product of the 60s. And the 70s. And did I mention that I like getting high?