Sativa psychosis and effective counter-measures

[ProducedRaw]

There seems to be a huge elephant in the room in the ganja smoking community regarding cannabis induced psychosis. Let's face it, getting wrecked off a strong sativa is a hell of a lot of fun. But let's be honest, it has side effects and is clearly not in the realm of the effects one would expect to get from soft drugs. There are various studies which demonstrate how pure THC causes otherwise healthy subjects to experience psychotic symptoms. My personal experience has been that these strains can be harmful unless used with caution. I've been in rages, paranoid states, deluded and severely insecure as a result of not understanding what I was doing to myself. But hey, with experience comes knowledge and with knowledge comes power.

Taking a pragmatic and greedy approach to the problem (I want to have my cake and eat it too, dammit), the solution is to supplement with anti-psychotics. I previously tried to address the symptoms by supplementing with various vitamins, minerals and amino acids but they seem to treat the effects and not the causes. The most readily available anti-psychotic is probably a nice indica strain, though this is not always possible to procure. I recently found out that hemp and hemp seed oil contain significant quantities of cannabidiol, which means that there is a legal, easy to get remedy. I've already experimented with using indica strains to bring me back down after a sativa session and they work great. The psychotic symptoms of several days' worth of sativa usage can be reversed within a day of smoking an indica. Has anyone tried using hemp or some derivative thereof to achieve the same effect? What doses did you have to use?

Why are we still deluding ourselves into thinking that all cannabis is created equal and is equally safe when it's blatantly not? Honestly, I feel cheated by our drug culture. Just like the idiots at school lie and say that all drugs are evil and will destroy our lives, so the retarded drug users delude themselves into thinking that everything is safe. Both are blanket approaches to the issue and both are flat out wrong. The truth is in the middle.

 

[Bomboclat]

Id try to combat your theory, but I think you as a person just shot my argument down.

If you smoked too much:

Eat something
Fap
Take a nap

I wouldnt necessarily call is "psychosis" though....but I mean...ahem....

 

[ProducedRaw]

...conducting a clinical trial into the effects of orally administered delta-9-tetrahydrocannibol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis, when two of their male subjects experienced impaired psychomotor functions and severe anxiety typical of cannabis-induced psychosis.

Sauce: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050419105717.htm

THC is clearly a psychosis inducing compound. It is therefore rational to assume that the primary effect of strong sativas, which have almost no cannabidiol to counter the psychotic effects, is in fact a mild psychosis. It is not unreasonable to assume that long term dosing will transform this into a moderate or even strong psychosis. We have countless anecdotes of people developing transient anxiety spectrum disorders after prolonged cannabis usage on this board.

Taking drugs to experience symptoms usually associated with mental illnesses is nothing new. They are often fun and enlightening when they are temporary. Ketamine reliably creates conditions which are similar to schizophrenia. Psychedelics do something of a similar effect. Stimulant highs are basically mania. Highs from CNS depressants resemble clinical depression. Let's stop beating around the bush and call a spade a spade.

 

[Chainer]

the solution is to supplement with anti-psychotics.

No. No it's not. I suggest you take your own advice [below]. Also this is not a "glaring" issue - this is something that a very relatively minor amount of users have reported. We have a thread that keeps track of this issue, specifically one for synthetic cannabinoids, because this seems to be much more common.

Honestly, I feel cheated by our drug culture. Just like the idiots at school lie and say that all drugs are evil and will destroy our lives, so the retarded drug users delude themselves into thinking that everything is safe. Both are blanket approaches to the issue and both are flat out wrong. The truth is in the middle.

Bluelight has always been about the middle ground - harm reduction and education. You haven't been cheated by anyone but yourself, finding out about what YOU are consuming is ultimately something YOU have to do. BL has been around long enough, with enough threads about the risks of drug usage and the possible positives, for anyone who cares to see. The information has been made available. For instance, our thread about this is the MEGA Paranoia / I need a Break / Quitting Thread. Also, this would fit a bit into Drug Combinations with Cannabis.

I'll let this float for a bit, but I can already see where it's going.

 

[MikeRWK]

A little off topic but can you smoke hemp/seed oil and get enough cbd to relax you? thc makes me paranoid and i had to quit smoking weed becaue i was an irritable insomniac

 

[euphoricc]

i smoke everyday 4 0r 5 times a day like a blunt in morn bong bong bong bowl blunt i dunno thats me never had any side effects lol except being high!!!! but.........aint that the fkkn point!

 

[ProducedRaw]

@Chainer

I disagree that it's not a glaring issue. My personal opinion is that most sativa users, especially daily users, are unable to perceive the negative side effects that they are suffering from, just as I was unable to identify and attribute them to the relevant cause until I had enough knowledge to make the connection. I've seen this happen dozens of times. The cannabis using community is rife with denial. Then again, so is the alcohol using population and ditto for all the other drug subcultures out there, and even humanity in general, so maybe this point is moot.

Having said that, it's quite possible that my emotions are affecting the way I'm wording things here. Perhaps I'm just resentful that my circle didn't give me fair warning. Maybe I'm angry at myself for not doing my homework.

I also disagree that an anti-psychotic is not an antidote to psychosis. The whole issue can be easily avoided with the right strategy. Why do things the slow way and wait when you can take a shortcut which has no negative side effects? I feel that it's a pertinent point since it's in the spirit of harm reduction.

 

[Chainer]

While it may not have the same media attention that MMJ has recently garnered, we have, at length, discussed the possible issues and conditions that can arise from heavy cannabis use. The popular theory here that I've seen float around over the years of modding CD is that cannabis, particularly heavy sativa dom strains, can intensify underlying psychotic issues. I've personally known friends with, for instance, bipolar disorder, who have claimed that cannabis helps them with daily life, and people with the same disorder claim no assistance, but in fact, that it makes their symptoms worse.

If you haven't yet, I strongly suggest checking out the [MEGA] Quitting thread. There are also a few others that would probably interest you, UTSE, try "psychosis" or "psychotic" - discussion has arose in depression related topics as well. I think there would be some information you'd be interested in there.

I also disagree that an anti-psychotic is not an antidote to psychosis. The whole issue can be easily avoided with the right strategy. Why do things the slow way and wait when you can take a shortcut which has no negative side effects? I feel that it's a pertinent point since it's in the spirit of harm reduction.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear on this point: What I meant was that an anti-psychotic is not really the answer to cannabis-induced psychosis alone. One of the most important things you need to ask yourself is, at this point, do you want to even consider using a drug that has caused / will cause you so much pain simply for the high it provides? Do you want to treat the damage a Sativa has caused with an Indica? Let us remember, cannabis, truly in a majority sense, is a recreational drug. Not just that, but remember that ALL cannabis is really a mild psychedelic - sativa or not, it has the potential to fuck with psychotic conditions. Yes, cannabis can, and has, been applied as a medical medication, but this is not always the case, and in all honesty (as much as I am for legalization and MMJ), it's primary benefits are for those of us that are sick beyond curing.

I understand your distaste for misinformation and the lack of good information. I myself became horribly addicted to opiates via my pain management doctor, which eventually led me down a path of heavy opiate abuse. Although I have a legit need for heavy pain medication, I decided it was better to live unreliant and in pain then completely reliant and numb to everything. Not to compare the two (as I hate the comparison, though it may have it's points), perhaps it is time to consider quitting cannabis.

On a very relativant note, I made THIS POST not long ago when addressing people on the "cannabis does have negative effects / does not have negative effects" camps. As I said, this is far, far, far, from the first time I've read a thread like this. I just have yet to figure out where exactly I'd like to place it, or if I'd like it to float around for individual responses.

 

[ProducedRaw]

The thing is, psychotic symptoms have been induced in healthy subjects upon administration of pure THC. This isn't necessarily about underlying mental illnesses. It appears to be a primary effect of THC itself.

Common sense would agree with your assessment of the situation, in particular, about considering quitting altogether. I still feel inclined to take a different approach. Maybe I'm just hard-headed. I believe that recovery from psychological addiction is only possible when one learns to master said addiction. I've talked to former coke-heads who don't trust themselves to be in the same room as a pile of white powder. This, in my eyes, is not recovery but merely hitting a pause button during a tragic scene. Ofcourse, this means the scene remains tragic. Sativas tend to inspire the imagination like nothing else, they have a real value. They also have diminishing returns as time goes on (e.g. people developing anxiety after years of smoking). If the mechanisms are well understood, then there is no reason why they cannot be manipulated.

We're getting into personal philosophy territory here, but my picture of the situation is as follows - a person is altering their neurochemistry through high-level cognitive processes which translate into actions which result in ingesting exogenous chemicals. Those cognitive processes can be expanded to account for the mid and long term effects of those actions in the same spirit as our automatic homeostatic mechanisms do. Unlike the automatic processes, our cognitive ability is far-sighted and capable of much more interesting things. In other words, instead of retreating from the problem, I consider tackling it head-on to be a more effective approach (having the cake and eating it). We all started smoking for a reason, because we felt that it had benefits. This is about treating the causes of the negatives and getting that good return on investment back.

I feel that this thread has value in discussing how to manage and reverse these symptoms for those who want to take a similar approach. We're gonna do it anyway, might aswell work out the safest and most effective way to do so.

I've been reading through the threads you suggested. It's amazing how many people run into these problems. It's also scary how long it takes some of them to recover through non-action. Makes me wonder about the mechanisms behind that lasting anxiety, and, more interestingly, how similar long term changes can be made in a positive direction.

To add something to the proposed discussion, I've found that piracetam and aniracetam are effective at treating the memory deficits caused by heavy smoking, since cannabis can cause acetylcholine deficiency and those racetams improve the functioning of those receptors.

 

[Artificial Emotion]

Taking pure THC is nothing like taking the huge plethora of cannabinoids present in different strains of cannabis. Injecting pure THC in a subject and then observing they are showing signs of psychosis tells you almost nothing about the effects of smoking or eating herbal cannabis.

No offence, but I think you should stop trying to play psychiatrist.

 

[Chainer]

The thing is, psychotic symptoms have been induced in healthy subjects upon administration of pure THC. This isn't necessarily about underlying mental illnesses. It appears to be a primary effect of THC itself.

Two things that stand out to me, having not recently reviewed this at all - the first is THC in it's pure form is rediculous, are we talking lab administered liquid? If so, of course psychotic symptoms will be observed. Second is that cannabis is a psychedelic, and a heavy dose to a non-user (read: healthy) would be like spiking someone's drink with 5 hits of acid (well, not quiet, but you get the analogy I assume) - you're going to be able to observe some extra-ordinary effects on the body and mind. First that comes to mind is panic and anxiety.

On that topic - I simply don't have the time to re-write all I have in these other threads - I'd suggest any questions turn to the panic/anxiety mega thread. It is *VERY* common that people have to quit smoking for no apparent reason, sometimes 10 years into their use, sometimes 10 months, due simply to anxiety/paranoia. This, I feel, can easily be attributed to psychotic behavior (paranoia).

I believe that recovery from psychological addiction is only possible when one learns to master said addiction. I've talked to former coke-heads who don't trust themselves to be in the same room as a pile of white powder. This, in my eyes, is not recovery but merely hitting a pause button during a tragic scene.....
If the mechanisms are well understood, then there is no reason why they cannot be manipulated.

I do see a fault in this logic. I, for one, would not enjoy being in a room filled with dope/oxymorphone cut up and ready to blow. I can for sure resist the temptation, but I would *not* want to be in that situation... The reasons could fill a list, but off the top of my head, I'd say because of mental w/ds and cravings that stay with you for years. The mastering of the addiction is by hitting the "stop" button.

What you are describing is exactly what I hear my old dope-head friends say about their own addiction... sadly, it's just someone trying to rationalize their continued use. If you keep saying to yourself "No need to stop altogether..."... well, you can rationalize however you'd like, but I think you are bright enough to see the broken logic. I usually hear this from people who know that they have an issue, and know that quitting the (any) habit would be hard, so the user comes up with logic to allow use in the future, or prolong use. I've done this myself in the past.

I'll let the thread float for a bit, but don't be too surprise it if gets merged into an alike thread.

 

[rave_itsrealfun!!!]

I agree with what you are saying about cannabis use and denial but I feel the only effective counter-measure is abstinence. The cannabis community is in outright denial, the drug is quite damaging, and this has become extremely obvious to me through meditation, the use of other psychedelic drugs, and the chronic use of pot itself over many years. So I don't quite understand why there is so much praising and acceptance of the plant by the community of its addicts. It has fucked me at times, and a lot of my friends too.

In fact I have never come across a legit medical user in my life (I'm just saying they are rare) - in my experience it is in nearly every case a recreational high that burns people out, and in some cases turns into a progressive addiction. Upon abstinence there will be significant long term improvements in health and cognitive ability for pretty much everyone who does it a lot. The thing is most stoners never abstain for long enough to noitice these positive effects - they don't happen overnight.

I have been off pot for extended times (months) - long enough to be free. I'm absolutely fine - I'm actually really outgoing and vibrant. On the stuff I'm pretty much mute. I smoke it purely out of a compulsive addiction, for no reason that makes sense. It is a euphoric, dissociative drug that has a down. No anxiety, no paranoia, just a rebound effect of pure rage and despair that occurs for a day or so as I come down off it and keeps me smoking. I am brainwashed to give drug dealers money but there is no doubt in my mind I will pull through and stop this year.

I just find it strange that I have avoided addiction to everything else apart from this one little vermin that follows me everywhere.

 

[ProducedRaw]

I'm willing to explore the idea that this is simply denial. I do feel my logic getting slightly muddy when thinking about this, which is a red flag, really. Let's turn it into a testable hypothesis. If I am addicted then it should be impossible to control the usage, so the test will be if I can abstain from sativas until, let's say, the end of April. The second part of the test will be if I can then smoke for three days and stop.

This scenario reminds me of Paul Erdős and his use of amphetamines:

After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[13] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use.

I just find it strange that I have avoided addiction to everything else apart from this one.

Amen to that, brother. It's almost embarrassing to be caught by something so seemingly small.

Digging deeper into the issue, I think that we all take drugs to modify our personality to fit a subjective ideal. I'm not entirely sure if recreational drug use can be distinguished from self-medication at all. I've put considerable time and effort into identifying underlying nutrient deficiencies. It has paid off to a large extent. I think and feel like I'm ten years younger. Ofcourse, the other side of the argument is that the subjective ideal is in fact a delusion - that we're asking for the impossible hence having to use chemicals to achieve the effect. It's still an attachment to an idea, after all. I'm honestly not sure as to which side is more accurate or if the reality is a combination of the two. Drawing a clear line between them seems to be exceedingly difficult. There's also the argument that addiction is impossible to avoid altogether. After all, the runner doesn't feel right without his exercise, the PR girl needs that cup of joe to get her going and the artist has a compulsion to create. Maybe it really is all down to what you're willing to trade. Or maybe the right way is just like the Buddha told us, that is, through detachment.

 

[Chainer]

If I am addicted then it should be impossible to control the usage, so the test will be if I can abstain from sativas until, let's say, the end of April. The second part of the test will be if I can then smoke for three days and stop.

This was exactly my point. God, I've heard that phrase so often... "It's not a problem if I can... X" And being addicted has nothing to do with impossibility to control usage... if that were true, nobody would ever quit any drug. This is something you won't have a proof for, but you will either realize or know the answer. Quitting is not suspending. Also you are talking about JUST QUITTING SATIVAs. How do you not see how poor that logic is?

Also, don't look for the symptoms you'd look for with Amp w/d, for instance. That's unrealistic.

 

[rave_itsrealfun!!!]

For myself, sobriety is the subjective ideal. There's no reason to alter my personality with drugs - I am more than capable sober. I just fell into the rabbit hole of addiction somehow, and it is almost embarassing that I've sniffed all these crazy lab chemicals but this seemingly benign plant has got me by the balls.

What you describe definately rings true with my past alcohol use. Even the place of alcohol in society (at a university party you look weird without a drink in your hand) is enough pressure to get some people to drink, apart from the lowered inhibitions caused by the drug, which everyone is after of course. That drug is so popular because nobody wants to be shy around strangers but a lot of people are due to a biological reaction (stranger anxiety) that was useful in tribal times but messes people up these days.

With pot it's just so confusing. I can't understand why I smoke it. However, if one surrounds themselves with stoner friends as we often do, opting not to partake in smoking pot causes unnecessary confrontation. Cessation of cannabis use causes a lot of social and physical changes, which the body resists. The thing is I smoke 90% of my pot alone.

I think it has to do with how the body resists change. When I'm doing yoga, my body will protest if I'm in a really deep stretch. When I'm off pot and my neurochemistry is readjusting, my body resists that change and the idea to smoke marijuana pops up in my head, just like the idea to get the fuck out of the yoga asana will pop in my head sometimes. It is possible to transcend these simple neurological mechanisms, however smoking pot strengthens it. Constant vigilence.

That's not to say doing yoga won't make me more flexible, just as abstaining from pot will destroy the part of myself that craves it. However the reinforcement/redevelopment of the compulsive tendency from a single use is extremely strong, even after months of cessation as I've learned. This means that I have officially ruined cannabis for myself by abusing it, which is something I must accept and really isn't that big a deal.

 

[ProducedRaw]

This was exactly my point. God, I've heard that phrase so often... "It's not a problem if I can... X" And being addicted has nothing to do with impossibility to control usage... if that were true, nobody would ever quit any drug. This is something you won't have a proof for, but you will either realize or know the answer. Quitting is not suspending. Also you are talking about JUST QUITTING SATIVAs. How do you not see how poor that logic is?

Also, don't look for the symptoms you'd look for with Amp w/d, for instance. That's unrealistic.

But indicas do not have the same negative consequences, especially the brick weed I've been smoking. Why would I give up drinking tea if it's not causing a problem? This approach aims to be pragmatic, not idealistic.

I hate nitpicking like this, so I apologise in advanced, but I feel that it's unavoidable here:

ad·dic·tion   [uh-dik-shuhn]
noun
the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
Origin:
1595–1605; < Latin addictiōn- (stem of addictiō ) a giving over, surrender. See addict, -ion

This implies that addiction is essentially an inversion of control, where the substance dictates the behaviour of the subject as opposed to the subject dictating their own behaviour. Is someone who uses cocaine twice a year addicted to it? Surely the devil is in the decision making process, where if the priority of the drug rises above essential survival functions then an addiction is present. Surely learning how the mechanisms behind this work and interrupting them is a valid approach to the problem. I hate mystifying things, dogma and acting on superstition. I get the feeling that this arm of the discussion could go on indefinitely, want to agree to disagree instead?

@rave_itsrealfun!!!

The body and mind really do seem to hate change, with a passion. That last bit you said about the redevelopment of compulsion being strong sounds like a structural change. I remember reading that strong memories are formed when people get high on powerful drugs (in other words, new connections are formed between neurons). Perhaps this is the underlying mechanism at work here - reactivating those circuits causes one to resume where they left off, since the structure is still present. I'm also currently looking at the effects of meditation, which seems to be capable of making structural changes to the brain. There are plenty of anecdotes of it being effective for treating addiction. I wonder if the structure can be reverted this way.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/p...=mediation-correlated-with-structura-11-01-22

 

[F1n1shed]

Pretty interesting stuff here, and yes a lot of pot heads are in denial me included. Moderate use pretty much never affects a person negatively in their normal life, that's the good part about pot. But slowly by slowly people usually spiral into pretty frequent use or even daily, that is where negatives start coming. But once your already in the position of smoking daily you already have the mind set of thinking of how much of a harmless plant this is. This thread has made me think twice about my usage, i definitely see and knew that my daily usage was doing me no good. Yet like a sheep i would keep going down to the medical club and re upping, anyways hopefully this thread gives me some will power to put this stuff behind me.

 

[Ecstuhcy]

Psychosis involves some form of delusion, I find cannabis causing this to be highly misleading. I can be wrong though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis

 

[Sublime947]

lol, i think the OP is overreacting. psychosis from marijuana? are u fucking kidding me? weed can have it's negatives if abused too much but saying that it induces psychosis is just plain silly. smh

 

[Ecstuhcy]

lol, i think the OP is overreacting. psychosis from marijuana? are u fucking kidding me? weed can have it's negatives if abused too much but saying that it induces psychosis is just plain silly. smh

Weed is so popular just because you can't really "overdose" on it, a case of psychosis with weed alone? no. with other drugs mixed? maybe.
EDIT:If you ever tryed Benadryl you'll know what psychosis is "some what" like.