Not only do I need to drink coffee to be happy, I need to drink coffee jsut to take a dump every morning! If I don't have 40-60 oz a day of strong coffee I'm in extreme pain! I'm not trying to fool myself about it, it's a dependence, an addiction. The caffeine in coffee has been shown to enhance cognitive and physical function and performance. What does THC do? It interferes with your neuro receptors ability to align properly- that's why I put my short sleeve full on up to my waist one time and walked half a mile to the pier only to find I'd put it on backwards and that's why a friend of mine put a track top on 2/3rds of the way up his brand new board. It doesn't make you smarter it makes the ordinary seem more extraordinaryt b/c your thinking less clearly.
If you read what I've posted you'd see that I smoked pot almost every day, all day for a solid 20 years- and very few people would have ever guessed b/c I didn't fit any of the stereotypes except surfboard ownership. New pot smoking acquaintances would sometiems suspect I was a cop because I was so "preppy" or straight looking and cops never asked me if I had drugs in the car even when I did.
From my personal experience when I ran out of pot I was in a pissy mood until I got some and I don't know too many regular or daily smokers who would disagree with that. A doctor told me once that I probobly had a higher concentration of THC in my blood than Oxygen, you can't think that doesn't have some effect on you. I would smoke all day and shirk many a responsibility. My lungs were definately polluted, and anything I enjoyed doing I thought I enjoyed more (John Stewart voice) ON WEED!
I definately feel now that I wasted a preposterous amount of money and time that could have been spent on surf gear and trips, missed many sessions, underachieved at work and school, cheated my family out of the best possible me, harmed my surfing performance, and on and on. I can't really point to any positives that I am missing out on now. I still laugh and have a good time, everything is better, nothing is worse.
I'm not judging anyone who does it (except for comedy's sake

) but give my experience some thought and ask yourselves honestly: what does it do for you? Do you need it to have a good time and if not than why do you do it? What would be bad if you left it behind and what would be better?