Used to smoke a lot of weed, from too young an age. But for the last 8 years or so I have only ever smoked it on the very odd occasion (basically when I am already drunk and out with other people). Smoking it any other time basically just makes me socially anxious and paranoid. Most of the people I knew who grew up smoking it religiously have stopped it completely for similar reasons, or at least massively cut down
I am fully on board with the legalisation of cannabis. But I remember growing up smoking it, and I would argue until the cows came home that there is no, or very few, negative side-effects as to why it should not be legalised. I realise now that is just not the case. For all those who did end up giving up smoking or falling into a more moderate smoking pattern, I know other people who have basically wasted their lives sitting around smoking away, and become recluses with very little going for them. Of course that is not just down to smoking weed - these are probably people that way inclined anyway, but the weed definitely hasn´t helped.
But I also know people for whom excessive cannabis consumption has definitely helped trigger some serious underlying mental conditions.
As for me, I have experienced noticiable memory loss in recent years. I do wander how all my years of adolescent smoking might have effected that? And who knows in what other ways my developing brain may have been affected?
Now I would argue one of the strongest reasons for legalising it, aside from all the reasons that apply to all other drugs (regulation to make safer, taking money away from criminals, the difficulty of arguing for prohibition on a moral level when alcohol remains one of the worst drugs...), is to make it harder for adolescents to get a hold of. I remember growing up it was always easier buying a bag of weed, then finding someone with an ID to get served for alcohol (which also involved walking to the shops - whereas ordering weed involved sitting on your arse!).
