SWIM is having trouble controlling his cannabis habit. It is a true addiction. He realizes that there could be entheogenic value to the substance if used infrequently, but he wonders if there is anything inherently valuable to this plant since there are other substances out there that reach further into the mind than cannabis could ever reach. If frequently used, this plant KILLS motivation, as SWIM has learned.

I know most people here are not recreational pot smokers anymore, but I am interested in whether or not anyone actually gains anything from the experience that cannabis can bring. This includes oral usage, which I assume would be more beneficial.

If you want to stop using cannabis
caapi tea can help you reset once you quit

I used to smoke cannabis a long time ago,
it taught me a lot
but these days I am much better off not smoking

I have a few friends who I have helped quit their addiction by giving them caapi until they feel completely reset and have let go of this plant.
it usually takes a week or two.

if you feel like you need to let go, do it

MJ definitely has entheogenic value and I've found it to have the ability to take me much deeper than I had previously realised. I've recently had profound experiences with this plant, which surprised me. But it is imo too easy to abuse; and overuse has negative side effects: lack of focus and clarity being the most debilitating. One thing that spice teaches us is that focus and intent are paramount, In There, as well as Out Here.

How do you know when you've moved from use to overuse? Only you will know that, and it seems by the very nature of this post that you may already know. Recognising a problem is the first and most important step in dealing with it.

safe travels friend

I think there is a massive difference between hydroponics and natural weed. I come from Africa where there is a lot of quality natural weed. Well, this was up to 20 years ago. Durban Poison, Swazi Reds, old school Malawi Cobs... although I smoked like a madman then, one could actually smoke a lot more of it. We would walk around with bags of the stuff and chillums.

We never got lazy though. A little blunted and hazy around the edges, but we were still pretty active.

Then I moved to Europe and it was all Hydroponics. Hydro weed is so strong and the buzz is totally different. I don't enjoy the high of hydroponics, it's too introspective, too debilitating, to strong, to jagged. It's a high, not a stoned. Also I find hydro weed to be compulsive and I would find myself going through withdrawal. I'd be racing home just to skin up. It also became a nasty crutch, I would smoke myself into oblivion so as not to think about why I did this to myself. It was a nasty loop.

If you want a spirital experience, Ayahuasca or DMT. If you want to be lazy and hungry and frustrated then keep on smoking weed.

To answer your question, I don't think there are any gains from habitual weed smoking.

Yeah the times I have been in Thailand and we got hold of some naturally grown Thai stick and it reminded me of why I used to enjoy weed in the first place, the hydro stuff these days is far too strong and as you say just knocks you for six, whereas the Thai Stick I could smoke a joint, and go about my business with just a nice glow about me, I think if I could get that all the time then I would probably smoke it more often, whereas these days I only touch it on rare occasions.

Methtical

Just stop. Thats it. It is hard but I had to do it, I went from smoking an ounce every week or 2 to smoking nothing for 3 or 4 months. It was taking over my life, all I cared about was weed..and it started to feel very much unlike medicine and more taxing on me psysically. I do find value in it when I use it about 1 or 2 times a month, but realy I dont even care for it more than that anymore. After going without it for many months it was like I lost any craving for it..the first week away from it was hard and I had some mild withdrawl type symptoms, but I was a very very heavy cannabis smoker..and after that first week I felt much clearer and happier about things in my daily life. I always said cannabis was an antidepressant, then I sort of realized it was actaully bringing me down farther and farther and I was just addicted to it.

Drinking cacao helped me to stay away from it at first.

I also grew my own weed organically..I still felt burned out and stuck on the stuff, smoking it all day long..just not smoking any at all was the best way for me.

Ive gone through this process and am going through it again, weed is just too easy to abuse, if one has the will power to just use it here and there, then thats fine, but as i said, its too easy to abuse.

Give it the kick, and dont go back I say.

Tssss..
not fair.

Cannabis has brought me the best i have to offer. no doubt about it. thanks to her i am a very different person, much better for myself and the world around me (and yea, 'better' is relative. i dont wear pink glasses)

You should have listened to her when she was screaming and yelling in your face: dont abuse me or you will be sorry!!!
Dont blame her. blame yourself...
and have some respect.

get some quality hash and do your homework ; )

I did exactly as fractal did. Just went cold turkey. Literally just stop I know it's hard but can you really not just not buy it? Make sure any mates that are usually joking around with it saying aww cmon lets go halfs etc etc actually know you are wanting to stop and to be respectful.

I was smoking about a 1/4 a day between 2 of us and after such a long break, i can smoke some whenever i want it. But then i don't crave it. It's great! doesn't even ruin my work ethic anymore haha.

Tbh it all depends on dosage really; when I've been in social circles where people are smoking weed constantly, and thus me with joint passage, I can notice after a week or so the signs of 'burnout'; throughout the day not having much energy, increase in negative mental effects such as anxiety etc, and the solution to these problems is to simply stop smoking any weed for at least a few days to let all the cannabinoids clear out of your system and return back to the sober balance.
That said though, I'll usually just smoke a small hit in a pipe every few hours if that and carry on with the day using it as a mild enhancer, and typically using it as a 'reward' so that I still have an incentive to be motivated, I find that with cannabis it pretty much just 'amplifies' most things, so if you 'want' to not do much/relax etc then it'll provide that, if you want to use it as a psychedelic it'll provide that, if you want to use it as a mild cognitive boost it'll provide that. Every week or so I might actually get 'stoned'/heavily affected by it, but I can definitely see that doing that every day/all the time can be detrimental to your mental health.
So basically, I can see some potential problems with high dosages/continuous smoking without any breaks, but if you're just attentive to your internal wants and needs and take some nice long sober breaks sometimes then I personally can see it as a positive creative boost and a positive enhancement to my life.

If you manage to use it only once or twice a year, cannabis has an incredible value and then it's one of the most enjoyable things in the world.

The magic wears-off quickly though.
I quit using it, because i felt seduced by the stuff.

And then it's more like a vampire than an entheogen because it drains all the life out of you.

You can gain whatever you want from cannabis or say that its sucking away your life. Which one do you want?

No weed smoker that I know is a casual user. They do it everyday, a few times a day. I am sure there are those who love it and can do it occasionally and not have it slowly turn into a daily fix, but I have yet to meet that person. That's why I just say no. I have enough trouble staying away from changa.

I can second the value of caapi.

I had to quit due to life demands and an overall feeling that semi-habitual use was was taking me nowhere worthwhile.
It is easy to deny MJ's shortcomings while still using, as many of my friends sadly still do.
But after even a few weeks off, the benefits of abstaining are HUGE.

Caapi tea or even just smoking a few bowls a day of un-enhanced bark kills almost all desire for MJ.
I had a friend quit precisely because of caapi and spice.

SWIM doesn't know any pot smoker who isn't a compulsive daily smoker either. SWIM is around the stuff on a daily basis as a means of income, and that is one of the reasons he has been using it for a while.. but lately his lungs have been getting worse and he is up all night coughing if he even smokes one bowl.

It is time for SWIM to move on from cannabis, as it serves him no more use.

Would occasional oral usage be wiser?

I believe weed has many uses. But using it habitually isn't a good idea.
If you can't wake up and say "I'm not gunna smoke for a month" out of the blue then cut down.

While it won't give you full on realizations like many other drugs, it puts me in a good mood, even after the effects wear off, and often I realize small details that I wish I had realized when I was sober.

If you want to learn more from it, then smoke larger amounts less often. Smoking half a gram every day will just keep you buzzed and foggy all the time. While smoking an eighth once a week will allow you to learn much more and not be high all the time.

Also mixes well with many drugs psychedelics. Seems to keep you calmer and rather than going "Oh shit theres spiders everywhere" You can sit back and be like "man, look at all these spiders. Thats pretty cool, man."

I dont like telling people what they should or should not do..its not my place and it used to piss me off. But I can honestly say I see all the same problems I used to have in people around me who smoke daily and they swear they have no problem...I used to feel the same way. They cant get through a day and feel good or happy without having to smoke, and if they cant get any, they are not always nice to be around and will even waste their day searching for it and put off other things..they avoid situations where they interact with non pothead people, and they even need to smoke it while they drive, zoning out and endangering the lives of other people..they will rather buy weed and eat candy for dinner, than eat properly if they cant afford both..I just used to HATE the feeling of trying to chase after the nex cannabis buzz that got me nowhere anyway..It actaully bothers me somewhathwo some f my frineds cant even come and hang out at all without having to smoke constantly, as if being sober sucks ALL the time..but people used to feel the same way about me, and it wasnt until recently I understood them.

When I smoke now I actaully trip..and I mean that...I TRIP..to the point where I dont even want to go back there for a while..I dont buy it ever so I dont have it around, and the fact that I have no tolerance and I get such a mental warp from it is a deterant..sometimes cannabis is just real unpleasant now without tolerance. Its a very distinct psychedelic experience, that can be grating and cause much paranoia and anxious feelings. I keep it that way and there isnt much appeal..

I find that daily exposure to cannabis takes away the anxious and mind warping quality that it can have when you smoke it infrequently. I think this is the reason people continue smoking it daily.. It is more "pleasurable" and recreational if it is done every day.. but in exchange it kills motivation and makes you want more. It loses its "entheogenic" quality and just turns into a lazy type of feeling.. and eventually you don't feel anything at all..

It is a trip allright...
And because of the strange and tricky nature of the trip it can actually be difficult to use wisely. It is an art that needs to be learned and mastered. It requires discipline. Same with mushrooms for that matter, although these are less alluring. And i can imagine various forms of dmt usage also require some sort of knowledge and experience in order to navigate and avoid pitfalls and distractions.

I dont use cannabis socially. Instead i will use it for reflection and pondering, such trips take me some hours and can have real breaktrhoughs. Not in hyperspace, but in my way of thinking. Cannabis surely allows for some great out of the box thinking, imo she is the master of perspectives.

As i can read you all know what to watch out for with cannabis. And i guess a some point we all needed to break with her. But it would be a waste to leave it at that. You (myself included) finally learned to navigate... and then turn your back on her? What a waste...

you're smokin the wrong shit if you get lazy.. there are LOADS of different strains out there and for me everyone has its own twist. ever tried smoking hashish instead of weed? its a much cleaner high. it doesnt fuck up your thought patterns so much.. hashish goes much better with meditating. when i smoke weed i cannot read a book afterwards.. when i smoke hashish in a decent way its no problem.. i even remember what i read the next day. usually cannabis products are just way to strong nowadays.. back in the 60s weed used to have 3-5% thc.. if you scored 7% it was otherworldly.. now weed ranges from 15% to almost 27% sometimes even stronger.. its no wonder that you feel side effects.. my guess also is that not only the thc is being increased through all this hydro shit but also some of the other also psychoactive compounds found in it are getting to higher levels.. humans werent meant to smoke shit like that.. grow your own! dont buy! what you buy is mostly money oriented production. grow your own then make your own hashish! smoke little.. get yourself one of these tiny heads.. if you smoke little sometimes the effects take up to an hour to take ahold of you.. be patient. experiement with micro doses. try eating instead of smoking.. getting high is all about the dose.. and of course the strain.. most people dont even know what theyre talkin about. theres very little people who smoke hashish or weed and actually know how to use it wisely! ayahuasca can teach you to use it wisely. take ayahuasca and let it tell you. weed is medicine and can have quite astonishing effects.. a friend of mine once had an OBE with eating 0.3g of nepalese hashish. if you need recipies just pm.