Why is it so polarizing?
Even people who used to smoke a lot just can t anymore, myself included: I used to exclusively smoke until my early 20s; Now even a couple tokes make me either feel self conscious or totally overwhelmed and „braindead“.
Others have the exact opposite effect, where it makes them super relaxed or even forget all their worries to a point that they need to stop to confront their problems.
In: Biology
In my experience, Sativa strains are activating, high energy and can cause anxiety. Indica strains are more narcotic, mellow you out. I don’t use sativas and have had little trouble with anxiety since I made that change to indica only.
Simply, it’s because everyone’s chemistry is a little different, and the same chemicals will not affect everyone the same way.
For example, antihistamines makes most people sleepy which is why they are used in over the counter sleep aids, but some people get wired by them instead. Also, people with ADHD take stimulants to help them calm down.
If you’re nervous taking it then it usually ends pretty bad. I tried some once and it didn’t really do anything for me, I wasn’t really interested in having more. My friend was an absolute wreck that night when they had some. Not really been interested in having it again.
This happened to me, and I’m 90% sure it was because when I smoked a lot in college I didn’t have a care in the world. Once I got older my mind was full of stresses and responsibilities and I couldn’t enjoy being high anymore.
…BUT ALSO, now when I do smoke I do 1:1 THC:CBD strains and it’s much more relaxing without the paranoia
it’s self medication, it’s like asking why it’s a bad idea to do halucigenetics when you’re already prone to bad thoughts. THC infuences certain pathways in the head, and some mental illnesses have already messed with those, causing *different* reactions.. It’s why stimulants work differently on ADHD people
There is a great book called **Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction** by Judith Grisel. She is really interesting because she did a ridiculous amount of drugs when she was young, sobered up, and became a neuroscientist who studied drugs.
She has a concept called the B process, or when the brain returns to homeostasis after a high, depression, etc. The bigger the high, the longer the B process as your brain returns to its regular status. You could also call this coming down, sobering up, whatever. The point is that as you get older, the B process gets harder on your brain.
She doesn’t delve into chemistry or in-depth studies, just explains that neurologically what goes up must come down.
From personal experience: if there is something to worry about, anxiety is high. If there is nothing to worry about, then it’s just comfy
Sometimes I’ll have an exam, and after studying for the exam a bit I’ll get a bit high, and then once I’m high I just decided to keep studying cause the anxiousness is killing me
But once I keep studying, the anxiety goes away, because I know I’m over doing it and don’t have to worry. Then it comes back when I stop
Moral of the story, smoke weed to improve your grades!
People often forget that cannabis is not a depressant, its categorized as a hallucinogen. Your state of mind and expectations have a massively outsized effect on the experience. Alot of people begin to have negative experiences as they get older because as you get older you pile on alot of stress worry and anxiety and bring them with you into your buzz. To get the stress relief your talking about requires letting stuff go yourself when you go to relax, the cannabis wont do all of that for you.
Thats how ive always seen it atleast.
Because it’s a drug and drugs impact people very differently. Alcohol for example is more poisonous to some Asians or those of Asian descent with a specific genetic variant. Causes flushing and a lot more ill effects than those without that gene when alcohol is consumed. This is just a single example of a single drug interaction that will vary off a single genetic factor.
It also is not generic. Saying weed is like saying alcohol. What kind is being used is important. You can get weed that’s equivalent to beer or weed that is equivalent to moonshine and everything inbetween.
Generally people who suffer the real ill effects of weed are those who don’t smoke often or at all and when they are or do it’s the moonshine variant or a whiskey variant when realistically they probably want or should be trying the beer variant etc
Weed or THC is complex and has about 426 complex chemical entities.
These bind to your receptors and can effect everyone differently and even a single individual can have wildly different responses to the same dose and different strains.
Alcohol has alcohol, It gets in your blood.
People with similar BAC% levels will have similar effects.
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