Well you can use your will power if you don't want to do it?

IF you've smoked only two weeks now daily, isn't this the best time to stop? Especially if you enjoyed being without weed before?

Funnily enough, weed can have that effect on some people. The effects are highly subjective, you generalise your personal experience as the whole picture. Weed CAN have a negative impact, whether you like to admit it or not. The simple fact that it is smoked has health implications. Every positive has a negative. Sure there can be massive positives with this wonderful plant, but glossing over the negatives is short sighted IMO.

I love weed but it´s bad for me, to many years of abuse has destroyed this drug for me.

Maybe if i stay clean for a long time i can get some benefits out of it again.

"You see, it was you, not the pot"

Im sorry but you really dont know a damn thing about me so can you just stop trying to dress me up in your opinions? I had serious adrenal burnout from smoking cannabis which I had verified by a physician.

I was a smoker for 17 years and a grower for 11 of those years. For the last 11 years i smoked the very best weed day in, day out.

I was totally addicted.

Weed has cost me 1 marriage and 3 girlfriends. Its only in the last 6 months since I've quit that I see what a fool i was. I used to be the person who would say that i would smoke till i die and that weed isn't addictive. But like most things if done to much it IS very addictive and can ruin your life (like it has mine).

I was sooooo lazy when i smoked. I wouldn't be productive, I smoked all day and i became a recluse. I'm telling my tale so if any of you reading are following in my foot steps, then please give thought to your usage...If you are smoking all day or even can't go a day without a smoke then think about it...

I have had many friends addicted to weed, but i do have friends that still maintain a productive life who smoke, so i believe it comes down to the person. I will never smoke again as i know it would lead to me smoking full time again. I'm like a alcoholic but with weed.

Peace all

Yes! To be specific, I loooove spice, love mushrooms, but marijuana has always had a very uncomfortable and unpleasant effect on me. However, I think it tastes and smells delicious, and I truly wish I could smoke it. I will put a pinch or two in chicken stuffing, it's very good.

I think neurochemistry is, as others have said here, highly specific to the individual. Even with something like opiates (not at all my thing!) I have seen some people melt themselves off their chair, and other people get all hyper. You would think opiates would hit everybody with the same stone club; but apparently not.

I was reading this intently, as I'm currently smoking throughout all my days (and right now). I have a cannabis certificate granting me the non-illegal (haha) use of it medicinally. I first began writing a response about how "weed fixed everything for me", but began to realize something through the wise words of others who have "been there, done that" (so to speak) on this thread.

For the most part, what everyone said has valid points. Cannabis helped open my mind and show me how wonderful life is. I was depressed and overrun with anxiety, with a touch of suicidal. I'm sure I'm not alone on here. I began smoking and my quality of life improved. Because I was again happy due to the euphoria cannabis produces, I started to take care of myself again. My life improved further, but fulfillment was not present as much as desired. I lost some weight and began making somewhat healthier decisions overall. But, I was pretty much just a happier me, which was a great improvement...at the time. Yet, in hindsight, my ego ruined much of it.

I became slightly more open minded and now had something of comfort to come home to and not worry so much about the ramifications it would have on my body and mind (like drinking). Cannabis comforted me when I needed it most. With my newly open mind, it was a matter of time before I tried psychedelics. THIS is where the healthful change began to increase dramatically, not in cannabis, and I realize that now. It seems my ego would have me smoking cannabis all-day, every day

Realizing this and applying reason to my situation, I come to the re-re-re-realization that I would like to minimize my use of pot to that of special occasions and times to relax and truly let the mind be at peace. It's just better in moderation, as with most things. Cannabis comforts me on a whole different level, and I think it may be some time before that changes. With that in mind, I consider myself 'addicted'. Excessive comfort seems to encourage weakness, ime, and so I'd like to reduce that which I find myself troubled in moderating. If I reduce smoking, my eating will increase and decrease my quality of life (ime). If I reduce my smoking and eating, my drinking will increase and decrease my quality of life (ime). Right now, all is under control save that I'm a heavy smoker of about a gram a day at the very, very least. I know these are excuses, but I simply can't see how to work past them.

It's a puzzling cycle I can't seem to break free from, yet I desperately want to, and it's almost my main objective at times. I've changed my life with cannabis and psychedelics. I'm in shape. I eat well. I'm confident. I'm aware. I'm happy. I'm generally more patient. I'm outgoing. This is all different from how I existed just 3 years ago. And yet, I am unfulfilled at times due to the lack of motivation it causes, or more exactly in my case; how comfortable it makes me with everything.

I hope in time I can somehow adopt a healthier lifestyle like the others on this thread have exhibited. I want cannabis to be for celebrations and times of deep relaxation and reward, with psychedelics being more of the "main attraction". Your approach MAKES SENSE, Fractal and others. With this in mind, I think everything is addictive to those who are predisposed to it through their earlier experiences.

Let me be clear, though. I LOVE cannabis, but that's only cuz you can't exactly do LSD everyday, now can you?

Sorry for the long-winded stoner response Advice is gratefully welcome. Cheers to OP

Like many in this thread, I used to be a pothead. Smoked everyday, heavily, for many years. All through high school and beyond. And like many have also said, after a while of using it like that, it begins to detract from your quality of life. I have no regrets, my addiction taught me a lot. And I moved past it now, to the point where I can consume it without feeling the need to chronic on it all day long. When I use it now, I use mostly sativa strains and I ingest it rather than smoke it. Smoking indica strains is what I used to be into a lot, those couchlock strains, just doped out of your head with no energy to do anything. Not very productive.

Now I eat it rather than smoke it, and the high is very different. I still can ingest quite a bit at one time, depending on my purpose and mood, etc. It becomes very psychedelic when you dose fairly high orally. I enjoy that aspect, especially when combined with certain other psychedelics.

What I did want to say was basically what I traded for with my daily cannabis use. I know this will seem like an odd choice, but Serenity's post made me think of it. I smoke plain Salvia leaf pretty much daily now. I realize most people can't have a habit like this. I actually don't feel like it's an addiction or a habit really. I have to force myself to smoke it most of the time, like a stubborn child who doesn't want to brush his teeth before bed. But it does a lot of what Serenity here says cannabis does. It brings me out of my shell, makes me more conscious of my actions, keeps the nasty depression which plagued me severely for years away, the list goes on. Many psychedelics could do this as well, but as has been said, you can't very well eat mushrooms or LSD everyday, even in small doses Salvia is something that can be taken that way, and it works very well for managing depression and giving positivity and motivation where it's needed.

Generally, yes, SWIM prefers psychedelics to weed. He got his start with psyches before ever touching weed, but recently he's enjoyed a couple bowls vaporized over a weekend to kick off psychedelic sessions. Since he's such a lightweight in that regard, a bowl (rather small one at that) can be quite distracting when listening to some tunes prior to setting up for the session. It's always been around for him, but he almost always used to mix it with drinking. Light, purposeful use is definitely the way to go, but without a good psychedelic to follow it up, the experience could end up lacking. SWIM supposes if he weened himself off of psyches for a while, he could begin to appreciate weed on its own for what it lends when listening to music.

Well no offense dude, but I looked up adrenal burnout and it's not even a real condition in the professional medical community. Now I know that's not saying much but it also says there is no evidence to prove it exists, so I'm a little confused as to what kind of and how a physician would verify such a thing, and then prove it's from marijuana usage.. When all these holisitc opinion based websites say it can be caused from a number of things including STRESS (hmm).. I still stand by what I said, and your defensiveness only makes me assumes my assumptions are correct. If you really had adrenal burnout, which I doubt, then it was something in your life that was causing it, and it was not the weed. Maybe you were abusing weed at the time, but smoking everyday does not mean you abuse weed. Abusing weed has nothing to do with whether you smoke all day or not, because smoking all day is not abusing weed. It's how you think about weed that makes it abusive, and how you let it effect your priorities in life, but at the end of the day, that's still YOU, and not the weed. The weed making you lazy and your abuse of it by making it a crutch is a manifestation with a spiritual source.. The weed is not the source, and if you really did have adrenal burnout, and it really was from the weed (which I HIGHLY doubt it was or you had), then the reason you got that was because of the spiritual source, and had you alleviated that source or never manifested it in the first place, and still smoked weed everyday, I bet you wouldn't have had that 'adrenal burnout' or 'problems in life' which you think was caused by smoking weed and fixed by 'quitting weed' and making changes to your life (hmmm?). It's because you had problems in your life (hey not saying they were all that bad either man I'm not judging you we all got problems in life no ones perfect but don't act like you didn't have any when you said "i made some changes in my life", no point in getting so defensive either when we're just sharing opinions) while you were smoking weed that caused your body to burn out your adrenal glands (if they really did burn out!) from the weed, but it was from the problems. Do you follow me? Had you just smoked weed, and kept your life in order (or got it fixed while still smoking weed), you'd have been fine, still getting high to this day, and not blaming the weed right now.

A truly developed and disciplined individual lives a fulfilling and energetic life with or without weed, and would only let weed enhance their experience. I live life like it's a basketball game and I walk onto the court with an attitude like "Which one of you mother fuckers is taking second?!" and why? For fun! For the love of the game! And I'm not a sore loser nor do I like to brag, I just play to enjoy myself and my other team mates. I am constantly living an exciting life where I'm creating , making things happen, meeting people, etc, and weed would never do anything but motivate me to do that more.

Now I know people say that my experience is subjective and blah blah blah, but maybe my mindset is subjective, as in it's my choice, because we all have free will, and by choosing to think this way, you too could have my experience, because I guarantee all you guys here blaming the weed for anything other than a good time don't have the kind of life and mindset that I do whether you smoke weed or not!

Idk maybe I just think highly of myself but that's just my thoughts, like I said please to don't take offense.. Feel free to respond and elaborate on why I'm wrong.

In India, the Shiva worshiping Sadhus use Cannabis regularly. In fact, the two primary gifts that Shiva gave to humanity, out of compassion for its suffering, were Ganja & Yoga (Sanskrit names).

Not personally a Shivite Hindu (or any formal religion for that matter), this idea still interested me a lot while justifying my ridiculous over-consumption of the chronic. At one point, though, I met a Yogi Sadhu who told me that Ganja & Hashish were considered appropriate for initiates. But, that as one progressed spiritually, it was considered an impediment to reaching the most profound states. He claimed that after the beginner phase of one's development (anywhere from 5-20+ years) one should give up regular cannabis usage.

Some people switched to stronger substances or combinations of substances, some preferred to use nothing. I won't go into the substances that some people chose to replace Ganja with, as I don't recommend them, and some of them are explicitly discouraged to talk about here. Many chose to drink bhang or bhang lassi (drinks prepared with hash or weed) on holy days, but drastically reduced their regular consumption as their abilities in meditation enabled them to get high naturally.

This was the anecdotal wisdom of a single Sadhu. Obviously, he doesn't speak for the hundreds of millions of Shiva worshipers in the world. But I have heard things to this effect since then second and third hand.

Anyway, this revelation caused me to recognize that while Ganj had been a blessing for me early on, it did transition to becoming an obstacle... that instead of raising my vibration and bringing insight, it lowered my vibration and dulled my cerebral faculties. This is obviously relative. I could still study, function, and deal with situations extremely well. In fact, that is the main reason it took me so long to give cannabis up. If it had actually caused me to lose girlfriends, jobs, or have other detrimental effects I would have seen that I needed to give it up sooner. As it was, I could function just fine consuming an upwards of a quarter ounce (7 to 10 gm) of the best weed on the planet daily.

I don't say any of this to influence anyone, or try to tell people who are still benefiting from its use to stop. On the contrary, I believe that many people SHOULD smoke weed regularly for a period of time. It seems ideally suited for young men in particular. High school boys who puff ganj are immeasurably superior to those who binge drink... and even generally better off than those who are totally abstinent. Marijuana has the wondrous effect of making people peaceful. When the alternative to "stoner kids" is fistfights, gang mentalities etc., weed wins every time.

Having seen the difference from the perspective of a DJ between clubs where people are smoking weed in large numbers vs. clubs where there is little or no weed around... I can confidently say empirically that incidences of violence and aggression are literally on the order of 50x rarer when cannabis is in the mix. Coke and meth on the other hand (combined with our ever violent friend alcohol) produce a staggering amount of horrifying dramas.

Having said all that, anyone who plays with yoga, entheogens, both, or other forms of spiritual development work... WILL at some point, outgrow Ganja. It might take many years and the aid of a stronger entheogenic ally to realize this, but it is very clear when you learn what to look for. There always comes a time when weed's negatives begin to outweigh its positives. I think of it like a security blanket. It is a wonderful thing for a young child to have something warm and cozy to make them feel safe and be a tangible proof that everything is okay in their world. Seeing an adult carrying around such a blanket is kind of laughable. [One's spiritual age in this case is not at all connected to one's physical age... you could be 80 and still a spiritual infant.]

Feel free to disagree with me. I haven't always had this opinion, and it is likely to change even more as time goes on.

^^^ Agree wholeheartedly on many of the things you said, and the rest resonated with me as well. While I do think that my usage is fine now and always will be... If for any reason there is ever a time when I need to slow down or take a break.. And that does happen even now from time to time just not too drastically because I'm so young.. I think I would have enough brains to realize when the time is right to do so.. Slowing down being the more likely option.. Along with still occasional use of other substances.. I have no worries about how such things will effect me, because the only thing that gets in my way is myself, and I have that under control.

I think it was another thread where you mentioned that you were 21. (jealous)

In my estimation, you are still in that perfect age where weed is an infite blessing. You are still young enough to be full of hormones that counteract the most sedating and motivation sapping aspects of herb. Your HGH levels, testosterone levels are fine, and you can smoke all day and still be extremely productive.

I had NO intention of quitting when I was 21. And I had already been smoking daily since 12 1/2.

You seem sharp enough that I don't doubt that when (or if) weed becomes a drain on you, you will recognize it and react accordingly. I was pretty sharp when I was 21 as well, though... and I didn't admit it was holding me back until already in my 30's. This was probably nearly 5 years after it had stopped being beneficial for me. And then, I continued to fall off the wagon for years to come. Even after 2 years without grass, it only took a few tokes to become a raging stoner again.

Anyway. I am NOT suggesting you quit. Just sharing my personal journey with a plant I still dearly love.

So on the one hand you are putting down my current position ('blah blah blah' mature response btw ), and yet you agree with Fool, on pretty much exactly my point.

You say yourself "If for any reason there is ever a time when I need to slow down or take a break.. And that does happen now even from time to time just not too drastically because I'm so young.."

Give it time and your attitude may well change, just because everything is plain sailing at this point in time, there is no reason to try and discredit some one elses experience, just by reinterpreting it to suit your argument, that's just ridiculous. Saying Frac's experience is just him is hardly conclusive, you don't know him or his situation, yet seem to know everything about it (?!) if he was smoking that much weed for that much time, chances are he WAS experiencing something physiological, and the fact that it stoppped when he quit doesn't really give that argument much weight. I haven't heard anyone here say anything particularly against weed, merely stating what their current relationship with it is. Its not slanderous to point out its pitfalls, its honest and responsible. But, promote it how best you see fit, those of us with extensive experience have our own take on it.

Weed has changed many of my attitudes about things, has helped me with anger and depression, soothed me on come downs, and been a very good friend, but as with all relationships, things change over time and you learn to be less reliant. The fact that it smooths out anger, depression etc makes these things easier to adress by your self, but there will come a time when you need to learn to do these things without as Fool puts it 'a security blanket' and in many ways he is right. You learn what you need then you graduate and move on, like going to school getting your grades, passing the exams, then moving on to the next stage of life, it is much the same.

Any how, I am glad you find it such a rewarding plant, much as I have, I owe a lot to Mary, and still love her dearly, but at the moment my main teacher is spice, which is helping me move past various obstacles that have presented themselves, one being feeling the need to be stoned all the time!

That's exactly what weed does to me....
I might take one puff of a joint from time to time. But mostly I just regret it.
Weed and tryptamines/lsd just don't compare at all to me. I can't use pot as a psychedelic. I know it can go very deep for certain people but my brain just reacts completely differently...Big dose of pot is a bad trip guarantee.
It's like cocain. I don't like it one bit. But a lot of people I know just love it.
I listen to my body and consequently throw out what is not good for me (altough sometimes it might be a slow process)

I can't stand speed...

in fact I think when I started using psychedelics frequently was when I stopped using weed.

Weird that, one day I just woke up and the desire to get high wasn't there, and I stopped smoking for like 5 years. I was the biggest pothead in my circle of friends, too.

Like many, I also had a period of heavy usage, which was then abruptly halted with my exposure to LSD and DMT. Cannabis is now only useful to me for yoga or sporadically for meditation.

Also, nursing an laughably low tolerance is extremely rewarding. I feel that any substance which develops a tolerance is subject to the body suggesting periodic usage.

I'm not too sure... I've taken quite 'leave of life' at the moment. I am on a 4-week-break. In those 4 weeks I have seen my friends maybe twice... I usually hang out with them nearly every day. I've been sitting at home indoors, nocturnal, smoking pot all day. it happened overnight... I'm not sure why, I feel there is an emotional downfall behind it somewhere but I don't want to dig too deep

Sorry to quote so much, but thank you for such a well-crafted message of awareness and (indirect?) reassurance, Hyperspace. It seriously resonated with me and put my mind at ease (although it certainly won't impact my work toward reducing my pot consumption, which is going outstandingly well today, I might add.).

Dioxippus, I'm glad some of my words shed light as Hyperspace did for me.

I freakin' love the Nexus!!

I enjoy weed every once in a while. Sometimes I use it for insight or experience in my life, when I first tried it, it really tripped me out and still does sometimes. Makes me face reality and at the same time give me a whole different perspective on things, which I benefit from. I was never really into it, most I smoked was a couple times a day for a few months. Now I would say I smoke once a month or even once every few months. Yes it is a good tool, but not strong enough in itself to apply to my life the change and awakening that I need. That's why I turned to stronger psychedelics for a completely different realm of possibilities that instills in me a lot more then marijuana ever could. When I do use it, I like to use a large amount maybe a few times a month for introspection and reflection. The higher psychedelics are where my interest is mainly focused, simply for what they are capable of doing. That's where my awakening is demonstrated and where I feel there is something greatly beyond anything that invokes a strong wonder, amazement, and mystery.