I guess everyone has a different reason for wanting to 'smoke' - My reason is just to escape

Not that there's anything really terrible about my life apart from the usual stuff (like not having enough money to cover all the bills) but nearly everyone has that problem. One of the good things that cannabis did for me was to get me off booze and also off tobacco.

I was working in old Mexico years ago and booze was cheap. Pretty soon I was going through a bottle of vodka or whisky in an evening. I would feel terrible next morning - hung over - mouth like a camel driver's armpit - all the usual things.

I was teaching English to Mexican business people at the time (as one does in a foreign country) and one of them turned me on to a joint!

Well I got no reaction whatever from that one - but the second time around it really hit me and gave me a good time. I went to a party. I soon found that most people were drinking like mad to get away from their problems and I was getting off on pot and having a great time with no consequences. Well fact is I didn't get caught otherwise there would have been serious consequences.

Over there the law holds that you are Guilty until you prove your innocence . If there was a raid you would be busted just for being there! After that the problems would just multiply.

I used to smoke a lot of tobacco in those days and the dangers were getting more and more press - so one day I decided that I would just smoke some pot in the morning and see if I could do without tobacco all day. It worked for me - I had another smoke in the evening (of course) so that I wouldn't go back to by bad nicotine habit. After a week or so I was off tobacco for ever and even though a don't much decent pot to smoke here, I've never gone back to tobacco.

I would be interested to hear other members reasons for taking up smoking pot ..