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Problems With Weed
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I have been smoking both normal weed & skunk for about 1 year and a half / 2 years on and off and never had any problems, but last week i done 1 roll up to myself, and straight after i smoked it i felt terrible, and about 15 mins later i was sick, i could hardly get up the strengh to move and was just trying not to close my eyes and keep my brain thinking about things, or i would fall into this deep roller coaster type feeling.
anyway, about 40 mins into this, just sitting on my mates bathroom floor, i mustered up the courage to go get into a bed in his house, 20 mins laying down and i was ok.
But then this weekend just gone, me and a friend bought a 10ns, and it was strong strong stuff, so anyways we was out in my garden he had 1 roll up of it, and i had another, and i stopped half way through, and budded out the spliff and said i will smoke it later, anyway i then drank some water my friend got for me, tried to stand up, and nearly fell flat on my face, my friend helped me into my house but my body just fell straight onto a table, it was an intense feeling like someone was standing above me, and pushing my whole body down. i felt terrible, felt like i was going to be sick again, i then started to panic and told my friend to call 999 as i was really bad, laying on this table twitching rigourously. he didnt call them lol. anyways he helped me to my sofa and i lay there for about 2 hours, awake, but sweating perfusely.
Can anyone tell me what is happening? and how to solve it.
I wont be doing weed or skunk untill the summer now when my exams are over. But can someone try to shed some light on the situations.
They were both the 2 worst experiences of my life. on the second one i genuinly thought i was going to have a fit of some sort.
anyway, about 40 mins into this, just sitting on my mates bathroom floor, i mustered up the courage to go get into a bed in his house, 20 mins laying down and i was ok.
But then this weekend just gone, me and a friend bought a 10ns, and it was strong strong stuff, so anyways we was out in my garden he had 1 roll up of it, and i had another, and i stopped half way through, and budded out the spliff and said i will smoke it later, anyway i then drank some water my friend got for me, tried to stand up, and nearly fell flat on my face, my friend helped me into my house but my body just fell straight onto a table, it was an intense feeling like someone was standing above me, and pushing my whole body down. i felt terrible, felt like i was going to be sick again, i then started to panic and told my friend to call 999 as i was really bad, laying on this table twitching rigourously. he didnt call them lol. anyways he helped me to my sofa and i lay there for about 2 hours, awake, but sweating perfusely.
Can anyone tell me what is happening? and how to solve it.
I wont be doing weed or skunk untill the summer now when my exams are over. But can someone try to shed some light on the situations.
They were both the 2 worst experiences of my life. on the second one i genuinly thought i was going to have a fit of some sort.
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Comments
I've smoked the stuff forty years now and it can still knock me sideways ...take me by surprise and flatten me out.
It's called having a whitey.
Learn to respect the stuff by smoking tiny amounts in one skinners and putting them out half+/ way through or before.
Smoking weed seems to have become more than ever about getting shit faced ...only smoking the strongest available.
The sad truth is this attitude robs you of the many different effects and different strengths and strains that ...should be ...available but seem not to be mnore and more.
There are some beautiful mild types which act like stimulants ...stimulants with bright colours inside your head ...types that give crystal clear thinking.
Creative moods spiritual moods and the list goes on.
It seems now to be ...if I aint hammered it aint any good.
Learn how to smoke it now ...or walk away.
It sounds like you had quite a bad reaction. As the strength of cannabis varies dramatically, and as Moroccan Roll suggested, if you are going to smoke then try just a small amount at first then see how you react when the effect kicks in, especially if you know that it's a particularly strong sort.
If you are worried about this happening again then visit your GP or contact TalktoFrank who offer confidential and professional advice.
In addition, Erowid has a large archive of articles from people who've had a variety of experiences using cannabis - including difficulties and panic attacks that may be of use.
Also have a read of our cannabis and your health article on our site.
Stay well,
C.
Given the scenario this is unlikely to be just stress related, and is far more likely to have been your first experience of panic attacks. There is a long history on this board of people coming on with exactly the same things, and about 7 years ago the same thing happened to me.
My advice is quite straightforward - I would stop smoking weed. There is now a large and growing body of evidence to show that marijuana use, particularly since the change in cultivation methods of the actual plant itself, is highly apt to produce symptoms of anxiety and panic.
That 'roller coaster feeling' (which is exactly the words I first used to describe it) is something like this; we have a thing called the 'fight or flight' response in our brains, which responds to danger - it evolved over thousands of years to let us know how to react to things that might threaten us.
When this mechanism is triggered, it releases large amounts of chemicals such as cortisol (which keeps you alert and stops you falling into deep sleep) and in particular adrenaline (the one that makes your heart beat faster, your muscles react quicker, and gives you the rollercoaster feeling in your stomach).
We don't know precisely yet why long or even short term marijuana use is so good at provoking this feeling, but I know from bitter experience that this can be terrifying. It's basically a malfunction - your brain has gone into danger alert mode, but there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to run away from or fight with, so you either make up things or just get this feeling of directionless fear or anxiety.
The problem is that this isn't something that you can just ignore - your brain doesn't work that way, and it can be just the start if you continue to smoke. Anxiety occurs frequently with depression, and the later is the sort of thing you don't see coming, don't know it's there, until you're deep into it and it can have a drastic effect on your life.
I would suggest you've probably reached a point at which you should probably think about giving up, point blank. Cutting down might be a good thing, but to be honest stopping altogether would be the best thing.
I think that is over stating the risks associated the cannabis, the newer strains seem more readily to cause issues (see explanation below) but I dont think they a 'highly apt' to cause problems. Cannabis is still for the majority of users a low risk drug, however there are some who seem either for mental health or genetic reasons to be more at risk.
It seems that it is the mixture of CBD and THC which makes the difference. THC is a pure hallucinogen where as CBD is a narcotic which has sedative effects and is associated with the more 'heavy' cannabis.
Modern growers have reduced the amount of CBD in their buds through selective cross breading, however because a lot of commercial cannabis is picked late in the season (when the hairs are darker) there is still some CBD in the plant. This is because the later the plant is picked the heavier it is, and commercial growers are after weight and not really all that bothered by the quality.
Some newer research suggests that CBD seems to have some sort of anti-pychotic properties which help regulate the minds response to the THC. In fact there is a bio-medical company which is looking into using it alone as a medicine.
However it is very much early days in the research to do with cannabis, the only more definite conclusion which has been reached is that early heavy use of cannabis (before the age of about 15) is linked to mental health problems later in life.
In answer to the first question I would suggest that a break is a good idea, if you are going to use again (and that's entirely up to you) I would recommend very small doses at first, and see how you react.
Agreed in general terms, but in this specific case my advice still stands. The body of evidence that exists (and apologies if this wasn't clear at the outset) indicates strongly that for those who DO experience problems, cannabis IS highly apt to cause problems in the predisposed and vulnerable, particularly with repeat symptoms linked to use.
Given the symptoms arising, and particularly if this becomes a repeat thing - giving up is the best thing to do for people presenting with reproducible symptoms.
Fair enough, it was just that in your post you made it sound like it was the same for all users which isnt the case.
But about 6 months ago I started smoking again aftre a break of around 3 months, not smoking anything at all.
Well when I had my first cone again 6 months ago (in a bong), and nothing really happened, lol. Thinking, hmm thats weird, so I had another one. 15 minutes and still not really feeling much effect, I had another... and errrrrr..... Whop !! Yea it all hit me, lol
I passed out for 30 seconds or something (my mum and dad ) were with me, thankfully. When I came to, I'm laying on the bed, my head was spinning uncontrollably and my heart was racing so fast, and sweating, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
My mum called the ambulance, she was so worried. So was I.
The ambulance arrived, and well..... they thought it was kind of funny, gave me some oxygen and said don't smoke too much next time, it can creep up on you, lol.
But if I've been smoking continuous for say a week, I can down a couple of cones one after the other and it's party time.
But yeah, if you've had a break for a while, ease your self back onto it slowly.
Not nice
maybe, around my area in north london, there is alot of talk about the batch that i had a problem with, every1 who picked up off this dealer in that week was saying what a strong batch it was