That's very interesting about cannabis punching holes in your energy field. After I made the decision to stop completely, to never touch it again, I had an ayahuasca experience where an entity was caressing and smoothing this field of energy around me. I asked what it was doing and it told me, "Healing the wounds from your addiction".

At the time I thought perhaps these were older "wounds" from addictions that I had in the past with other substances.

Well, at least I know I'm not the only one that trips balls on weed. I felt like a bit of an outcast because of it. Then eventually I saw it as sort of a blessing in disguise. It seems that not many people get to experience weed the same way that you all or I get to.

I'll give examples of what used to happen to me

1) The earth would curl up on itself like a taco. It was crazy...
2) I would see neon green and purple beings and objects made from dots.
3) I would see sounds. Made me fall in love with EDM
4) Complete ego dissolution.
5) This one is weird. I felt as if blueprints were beamed into my head from somewhere in the universe one time. I just sat there and my eyes swelled with tears and my jaw dropped. I still need to build this thing...

I got my medical card and started to smoke often. It's expired now and I've really cut down quite a bit. I think I'll cut it out completely and come back to it later for an epic experience

Is there anyone here who finds weed to be way too terrifying to ever abuse?

Whenever I smoke, I feel like I'm skating on the lip of some terrifying precipice of schizophrenia and psychosis, even if it's a low dose. My perception of reality gets wildly distorted, things seem like are part of a larger, ominous pattern. I can't really be around people because I get scared and really paranoid.

The only place I can really comfortably be high is in my bed, staring at the ceiling, because the stucco pattern tends to arrange itself into shifting, rainbow patters that I can get lost in. Those kind of hallucinations are constant when I'm on weed.

At high doses, it becomes almost unbearable. The last time I smoked was a few weeks ago with my girlfriend, before bed (who could ask for a better setting?) and I completely flipped out:
The entire universe outside the room vanished, I became painfully aware of the fact that our little room was the only thing in all the universe. If I tried to conceptualize the concept of 'outside' all I came up with was blank, black, nothingness. It was unbearably claustrophobic and to top it all off, random things in the room started telepathically beaming sinister intentions into my brain.

Thanks God my girlfriend was there to help me get through it.
It was worse then any bad psychedelic trip I've ever had.

So, will I never find myself abusing weed? No, probably not

Blessings
~ND

Sounds like you have an enviably low tolerance.

Weed is paranoia central and nightmare incarnate if you overdo it... quite easy with the turbo grass which we've had since the 80's in Cali, but are now everywhere. When THC content is up to 40% in some cases, it is really hard to not OD if you are not already really tolerant. Even stuff in the high 20's is too potent for a "once in a blue moon" stoner to take a single full hit IMO.

If I were you, I would probably take quarter lungfulls in a vaporizer... waiting between tokes for the first to hit... and not redosing until you are really coming down.

You should be happy you are a cheap date.

My worst psychedelic experience was also from weed... I made a cake with a QP of bud, and made it too yummy. Each piece was like an eighth of weed. I don't even know how many I ate... scraping the pan for the crust was the kicker... I wound up hiding in a tree trying to make myself pass out so I would stop cartwheeling. Was so zonked I didn't even notice when a native local came and peed on the tree... I actually thought the mist was refreshing until I opened my eyes. My alarm at being pissed on scared this guy good... he ran down the street screaming with his pants around his knees.

Hehehhehe. (bad trips are always better in retrospect... or at least they make good bar stories)

I think abuse is really in how you think about it, your mind state. Cannabis is very seductive. It's so easy, enjoyable and relaxing that is it challenging NOT to become a habitual user. For me, it takes being aware of this. I pay attention to how I am feeling about using it. If I do it a few days in a row, I can feel it kind of creeping in. No longer do I want to do it, it becomes more of a hunger. All in all, it's not that bad. While the potential for abuse is there, it just takes a firm stance.

I basically reserve it for the weekends, and usually about every other weekend at that. When I want a mind blowing experience, I am usually ready since I have no tolerance. For other folks, there really is no issue being a daily user. I kind of draw the line though, between a daily user (say evenings), and an all-day daily user. I suppose even the latter works well for some folks.

I guess my advice is, remember who is in charge. You call the shots, she doesn't.

Interesting opinions on abuse here. Mine is prety simple:

You start abusing a drug when you beginn to adapt your life to the drug instead of adapting the drug use to your life.



40% of what? The flower? I guess that would be impossible?!

Up until the last 15 years I would have agreed with you... only the best hash was that strong. Though hash was always easier on me than super strong weed... perhaps due to the other plant materials or prevalence of chemical fertilizers (even in weed people swore was organic).

But as this Dutch research article shows ( http://www.researchgate....e/9fcfd4fdffb305f7fc.pdf ), there are in fact weeds that are showing 40% THC. The Abstract doesn't mention it, but in the 4th paragraph of the Intro, you will see the references to two studies showing weed had reached that level by 1998 and 1999. Mind boggling, I know...

But it is not just Holland. Recent reports from Australia of 40% ganj have gotten people who didn't know that this is not new, to speculate on Aussies having the strongest grass in the world.

All I can say, is that the in crowd of California's ganja scene have the best weed in the world I have ever smoked hands down. Not just the strongest, but the best tasting, most aromatic, stickiest... and also the healthiest... as well as the largest variety. (not just a ton of differently named but similar tasting stuff like you have in many places... including the 10 Colorado dispensaries I visited)

I am now ganja free... and intend to remain so. But I have been a cannabis connoisseur since well before my first Cannabis Cup visit in the 80's or my handful of times as a judge.

It doesn't show that. It says



Come on...40% from the whole flower? That wouldn't work. Maybe 40% of a small part of a flower, which was covered in trichomes. And even than this is not very likely from what I've learned.

I've been on a weed forum with many people from cali for some time to learn about extracting. Maximum yields there hit the 30% - 32% mark. And from this 30-32% by weight of the original buds the extract was made from, only about 65% or so was THC.

If one would make an extract of a flower which has 40% THC content, one would yield about 60% or 70% of extract by weight from which 20% - 30% would be oils and waxes and stuff. This would mean the flower would consist of only about 30% plant matter. Can that be?

Oh to feel that warm all encompassing cannabis glow again. I generally use mj for restless leg syndrome (actually something that dmt remedies for weeks after just one journey) and it thankfully never loses its effectiveness for that however the positive mental effects of floaty free thought and euphoria change to just a relaxed numbness and slight anxiety, upping the dose just increases anxiety, multiplying it sends me on a psycedlic terror ride, thoughts crash into each other and absurd visions flash behind my eyelids. THC in some strains now can be ridiculously high. Once had a bubblehash of jackflash, unbelievably potent.
Usually changing the strain helps more especially from indica to sativa or vice versa but I like many dont really get that opportunity.
I believe it also subtley surfaces things from the subconcious and can help you address them in a relaxed state of mind however I dont think its healthy to have the subconcious so exposed for too long. Holes in the aura indeed, as was discussed earlier in the thread.

Well my friend, I can only say that you may want to dig up the studies in question and ascertain how they reached their conclusions. I have seen the 40% figure bandied about a lot online... this doesn't make it true, but it does suggest there is something to it. The article in question is a genuine research article from a known University in Utrecht.

The second article I linked to said that when THC levels get that high that other cannabinoid levels drop to basically nil. Thus making high THC pot terrible for MMJ users. Conversely, the super high CBD pot from Israel has very low THC.

I haven't personally conducted any studies, so I won't stand here claiming anything. But I will say that plants need very little material to hold their shape and store water. Most things are mostly water. Mushrooms are only 10% shroom and 90% water. Even a complex human being is like 70% H20. My impression of a resinous bud, well trimmed from leaf and shake, could be 40% THC. Especially if the other compounds had gone down to .1% as the charts in the article show.

Hi there HF

so i am currently 19.
i started smoking a bit when i was 15, a few days before the end of my freshman year. my sophmore year, i realized it was a super awesome thing (possibly becuase of the amphetamines i was prescribed at the time), and tried to get high as much as possible. pretty much like that until my last day of my senior year, when i got a job as a dishwasher.

a few weeks later, when the paychecks came out, you can guess what happened. this continued the whole 9 months i was there, and spent practically all of my paycheck on that, including the money of my "other" job (boooo).

i considered myself highly mentally addicted, i tried many times to only smoke twice a day, in the morning and the evenening, and i couldnt do it.

alas, i was busted. 6 months down the road of soberness, i still find myself wanting to abuse it, and no access to tell if i would go through or not.
however, i even more so want to use it responsibly and respectfully as a meditation tool, or the very rare toke to add a lil something to the moment.

pretty much, id rather learn from my mistakes, and use it rather than abuse it.
i know this is something mainly for me to figure out and work out, but i may be struggling.

any tips HF or anyone?

also id like to add that my marijuana abuse has in many ways resulted in a positive thing, and could continue to do so, if i could just tame it...

Yep, you are right. I should do this some time.

I'm always higly sceptical when it comes to those THC percentage values, 'cause one never knows how they were determined. What I ask myself for some time now is, are there standardized test procedures in Cali, so that those percentage values from different tests are even comparable?

Yeah MG, weed is kind of amazing in that it can even be beneficial for a long long time while abusing it.

It is hard to say if there is a way to use it responsibly once you have been addicted to it. It always seems doable. When you return to it from a long absence, it seems innocuous enough... and you can keep its use down to minimal levels... especially if you don't acquire any supply and just take a toke when a spliff passes your way.

But... I have to say, this honeymoon phase rarely lasts long. Eventually you break down and it devolves into daily use. There are people who seem to be able to keep it in check, and there are those who seem to not be able to. Perhaps weed addiction shares this feature with alcoholism. All I can say is that once you get deeply into an all-day, everyday habit, it is very hard to ever have a "healthy" relationship with it again. Lord knows I tried.

For me, it is clear that I should not smoke weed. The pleasant and useful return to cannabis is not sustainable for me. I think all drugs that have tolerance issues are addictive in this way. Need more, acquire more, have more, use more... and so on.

Sorry if that wasn't the answer you wanted to hear.

i appreciate the advice and experience you have provided me with and seem to encompass.

i knew if i was to attempt to tame the beast, it would be hard.

of course, i have to try, and i pray i can do it responsibly.
however, your advice has convinced me to stray even more carefully than i was planning.

thanks again,

PS i just realized i kinda hijacked the thread

I don't think there is one standardized method. If you read the rest of that pdf, you can see the method used in that particular study. Of course, they weren't testing for the highest THC levels, and didn't find anything themselves that high. In their samples the highest weed was about 30%.

But I am sure the methodology for testing would be rather similar. Capillary gas chromatography analysis with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID)

Like this thread. It's so familiar all of this .

Short summary: Started smoking at 16. Became daily user at 18. Between that and about 26 I smoked every day, all day long. Then started to do it only in the evenings. Gradually I decreased the amount, so from 8 a day to let's say 2. Right now I'm 30 and still smoke it every day, though only in the evenings - sometimes I relapse, however this get's rarer and rarer.

Hardest part I find to quit tabacco and only smoke spliffs. Right now I smoke or vaporize MJ when I'm done with the day and before sleep one or two with tabacco. I learned that although it's not the most cleanly habit, smoking it with tabacco helps a lot to cool down - to get the feet on the ground. And in that respect the whole addiction thing serves purpose. Early on it also kept me out of trouble, now it primarely helps me to let go of things.

And then there's the thing were MJ is the least trouble of all addictions. It doesn't wear you down or kill you in the end, like a lot of other substances. Though I sometimes deteste being 'addicted', on the other hand not being on caffein, alcohol, painkillers, antidepressants - you name it - is the flipside.

MJ is a great mistress and I love her . In time I am confident to build up a more healthy relationship that isn't based on dependance.

One of the things that got it started was to grow my own weed.

i MUST know this recipe.

please hehe



PS edibles never worked out for me, regardless of the amount i wasted or then amount of recipes i tried.

I think abuse of a substance begins when the negatives begin to outweigh the positives in your everyday life. This is a personal thing as some people may see the idea of sitting around the house watching re-runs of Xena the Warrior Princess while eating packets of potato chips all day as a positive learning experience.

Here is a link to an article that may be of interest to those who just cannot kick the weed. It looks to me to be like naltrexone for cannabis users.



http://www.nhs.uk/news/2...abis-addiction-cure.aspx

I guess recieving a punch in the stomach, by a friend, everytime one lights one up would have the same effect. No need for fancy substances here.

My experience with cannabis, and I have taken breaks pretty regularly. IS KEEP THE ADDICTION AT BAY! If your feeling a little addicted then stop! And when you use the plant regularly, dont use it in a manner that is addictive. Don't see it as getting intoxicated, treat it like a psychedelic experience that it is. Because in my experience when I do this, the marijuana experience just gets more intense the more I smoke it and the more I treat it as a sacred thing. Just like all the other psychedelics you can take.

I think this is the big problem. Maryjane wants to be recognized as a powerful lifechanging experience. And it is if you let it. The implications of this plant are very profound if you look for them.

Just my 2 cents!

Peace and love.

Just keep toking with respect, and respect will be given!