Are you pondering “should I smoke weed?” If so, you should know that there are lots of positive reasons why people smoke weed. If not for these positive reasons, cannabis wouldn’t have been passed down from culture to culture and generation to generation for over 12,000 years.
So, if you’re looking for a few reasons to try marijuana or are trying to answer the question “why smoke weed?”, consider the five biggest reasons below:
1. To Alleviate Mental and Physical Pain
Why smoke weed? The most important reason people decide to is because increases their quality of life. Lots of people have medical conditions with symptoms that weed helps alleviate.
Some of the biggest symptoms that marijuana can benefit include:
Many people who smoke marijuana have underlying medical conditions causing their symptoms. For instance, marijuana has been shown to benefit those with HIV, cancer, and other chronic, potentially fatal, illnesses.
Without marijuana, many would face constant pain and suffering. They would also be forced to try less-effective and more-harmful alternatives, such as opioids or expensive pharmaceuticals.
Looking at just this reason alone, marijuana can make life more bearable for many people in many ways.
2. To Make You Feel Good
Our bodies have natural cannabinoid receptors that marijuana binds to in order to work. They activate pleasurable parts of the brain while altering many of our feelings and thoughts. The most noticeable effect is euphoria. Some marijuana strains have a “high” so strong it can feel like you’re being lifted right off the ground. However, there are also strains that barely make an impact. These tend to have high CBD levels and low THC levels.
People tend to feel relaxed after they smoke, which is why some people specifically seek out marijuana strains that relieve stress. They may smoke to “take the edge off” after a day of work or during a particularly stressful period.
Others use it as a type of “pick-me-up” that can help them feel more positive and enjoy themselves no matter what situation they are in. Their biggest answer for “why smoke weed?” would be that it can make specific experiences better or offer a way to enjoy their day more easily.
3. To Heighten Your Senses
Using marijuana not only affects your thoughts and feelings, but it can also heighten your senses.
For one, it increases blood pressure in the eye. This effect causes your pupils to dilate, letting more light into you eyes than they would normally allow. As a result, colors may seem slightly more intense or altered compared to their normal state.
Dopamine-related effects also change the way we perceive seeing, hearing, tasting and more. As we intake things that would normally give us a minor amount of pleasure, like a guitar riff in a rock song, the dopamine sections of our brains go hyperactive. Effects like these make us feel happier or more excited about things we already tend to enjoy.
Marijuana also stimulates appetite by creating the hormone ghrelin. This means food can often taste better and flavors can “come alive”.
Many people take advantage of these effects to help relieve their boredom or enjoy experiences more fully. You can bring some bud on a camping trip or a walk to feel more in tune with the natural surroundings, or you can enjoy playing video games while feeling extra stimulated, etc.
4. To Explore New Perspectives
Some like to re-experience things on marijuana, to help see it from a whole new perspective.
The psychoactive and sense-enhancing components of cannabis force your brain into a state that it’s not used to. Many people use this state as an opportunity to think more deeply about things in their life.
These deep consideration periods can relate to something simple like realizing a clever plot twist in a tv show. However, they can also be more meaningful like realizing your purpose in life.
Marijuana can also help you reconsider much deeper issues from a completely different angle. Many people who answer “yes” to the question “should I smoke weed” end up seeing aspects of our daily lives with new clarity. Some even meditate while high to purposefully explore new thoughts, ideas, concepts or possibilities.
“Weed has allowed me to look at the world in a different view,” explains one Reddit user. “It has let me see how weird the world we live in is.”
Adding to his point, another user responded: “Since I started smoking it made me realize how trivial most of my problems are when you look at the entirety of life. Reduced my stress factor tenfold.”
Moments of discovery like these are often aided by altering your mental state, which is a prime reason why people smoke weed.
5. To Participate in Rituals
People smoke marijuana because they like the effects, but the ritual of smoking can be appealing in and of itself. In fact, the spread of marijuana was mainly because of historic rituals. Those looking for medical or spiritual healing would entrust herbalists with deep knowledge of plants’ effects, and these herbalists often turned to marijuana.
“Historically, cannabis was imbibed in religious and spiritual practices to help one open the doors to the soul,” explains The Practical Herbalist website. Additionally, many Hindus would use cannabis in the form of bhang or smoked ganja as part of their rituals or as a precursor to celebrations like Holi.
Even within our increasingly secular society, the appeal of having to go through a certain set of procedures to enjoy marijuana takes on a religious feeling.
Packing a bowl can feel like you’re loading up an experience, not just getting ready to smoke. Passing a joint among friends can help increase feelings of camaraderie while giving people something to collectively bond over.
Also, why smoke weed exclusively when you can try hundreds of the other different ways to smoke weed that are all equally fun. Plus edibles, vapes, concentrates, and even drinkable THC-rich juices are now available for you to explore and come up with “rituals” of your own.
Even With All These Reasons Why People Smoke Weed, The Answer to “Should I Smoke Weed?” Is up to You
Even though we just laid out a ton of reasons why weed is so popular, and why so many people enjoy it as a part of their lifestyle, it still may not be right for you.
Make sure to weigh these pros against any cons you may have while you mull over the question “why smoke weed?”
Also, recognize that weed affects different people in different ways. You may not find that your senses are especially enhanced, for instance. Or, you may feel anxious rather than relaxed. It is important to understand why you are smoking and to do research into the strains that will accomplish that desired feeling for you.
Even still, smoking once is an experience that lasts 2-3 hours at most. If you decide you don’t like it, no one is forcing you to ever try it again. So your answer for “why smoke weed” or “should I smoke weed” can be just to try something new, even if only once.
So, go ahead and give weed a try if you are looking for a new experience or are interested in these benefits outlined above. Afterwards, you can decide for yourself if the reasons why people smoke weed are good enough reasons for you.
