That's me standing by my old friend Mary Jane. This photo was taken of me a few days ago in the city of Portland at a friends house.
It's been really cool to see the legalization and commercialization of marijuana in the Pacific Northwest first hand. I don't live here but I visit here often.
I stopped smoking weed about a year ago now and I'm glad I did. Not that I have a problem with the plant, I'm definitely not against it and wish more people would actually smoke it, especially my own family :)
However, after 10 years of daily use at one point I just stopped and honestly I don't think I'll ever smoke again.
I personally enjoyed smoking weed and it definitely had it's pluses and minuses. The pluses were enhanced creativity, stress relief, good times and many laughs with my stoner friends.
The minuses were that everytime I smoked I wouldn't dream (recalling, remembering, and learning dreams are important to me), I would get easily dehydrated, paranoia, and eventually would lose motivation to work on my business projects if I smoked too much.
I was never a hardcore smoker, I rarely even bought weed but I would smoke it whenever it was around.
All in all I think it's an amazing plant with a lot of benefit for a variety of different things but I just couldn't see myself smoking it for the rest of my life.
Also I found that when I smoked it consistently I became out of touch with my true feelings, it would suppress them so I wouldn't have to deal with what was bothering me and inhibited my ability to correctly perceive reality.
"Don't worry everything's gonna be alright" is definitely a marijuana inspired thought, and it's totally true but that doesn't mean that you don't have to confront what's going on within you beyond the smoke because eventually you will.