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"Hard" drug use affecting cannabis high.

T

Tikhil

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 19, 2010
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Burlington Vt
I'm posting this here as the incident is well documented in drug specific fourms and I'm hoping for an attempt at a chemical or physiological explanation for the event.


A god deal of hard drug users report a change in the effects of smoking cannabis that seems to coincide with the use of another drug.

Specifically -

Opiate users seem to be the most common to experience this. Many say (a close friend of mine being the first I had heard speak on the topic, but many on bluelight seem to agree) that after being addicted to opiates pot is too intense a high and is unpleasant at best. My friend was a huge pot head before becoming addicated to oxycotin, after she could not take 2 hits without freaking out.


Many benzo users say they can only smoke when fucked up on a good deal of benzos.

But the posts that got me were from the E fourm, many users said that after rolling several times weed brought dark thoughts. I've kind of noticed a similar event myself and was wondering who has felt this, who has NOT felt this (after years of concurrent use) and why it may be true.
 
After I started using stimulants (speed & meth) I started getting paranoid & anxious from weed. The problem got worse when I moved on to opioids. Now that I'm on suboxone and don't smoke very often, I can usually enjoy weed in the right setting. I still get some racing thoughts and mild paranoia once in a while, but nothing so major that it would keep me from enjoying the high.

Psychedelics have helped a lot in that respect, also better self esteem and healthier lifestyle.
 
Psyches are not hard drugs, but I heard many cases where people tried psychedelic, and then after experience ended, and they smoked cannabis, they somehow started tripping.
 
Yea, that happens to me all the time and im pretty cool with it.
As always, the side effects of psycs is acceptable lol.
 
kobilica said:
Psyches are not hard drugs, but I heard many cases where people tried psychedelic, and then after experience ended, and they smoked cannabis, they somehow started tripping.
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Says who? There is no strict definition of "hard drugs". Pot is probably the only drug that everyone would place in the "soft drug" category, but beyond that different people will consider different things hard or soft.

Sorry, I know its off topic, but I just thought I would mention it.-DG
 
i to have witnessed this happen to people i know i believe this is probably more a psychological thing and not a pharmacological thing

i think a lot of times people cant handle the paranoia of weed. what i think it is is that people using those drugs (coke, meth, opiates, benzos, alcohol) heavily and for an extended period of time get addicted and weed takes a back seat some even stop using weed all together and spend all there money on what ever they are hooked on.

i suppose that being addicted to a drug makes pleasure the central part of the drug experience so paranoia is an even less desirable quality then it was before to the point that they may be scared to try weed again.

i suppose when they go back to weed after an extended period of time the bizarre and abstract nature of weed makes them feel uneasy and frightens them. no ones gonna subject themselves to an unpleasant experience. in short they forgot how appreciate the trippyness of weed like they did when they first started and it just freaks them out.

i also think frequent users of psychedelic drugs are better at dealing with paranoia then people who dont do them at all or rarely use them and primarily use other drugs.. i guess hectic experiences and bad trips conditions the mind to deal with paranoia better and thus makes weed more enjoyable to users of psychedelic drugs. some freaks like me dont mind paranoia at all and actively seek out bizarre and alien drug experiences and kinda enjoy the weird paranoid thoughts

i kinda miss how blazing was such a trip my tolerance to weed is way too high and the experience is much different than it used to be. all it more or less does is relax me and help me focus. whereas before it was so abstract so strange funny and just a total adventure.

im seriously considering taking a long break from pot. to get that magic back

nehow i gotta go n blaze :P PAYCE
 
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I'm an opiate addict and can't really enjoy marijuana anymore, without having a panic attack. I believe it has to do with your adrenaline system being changed by opiates. Opiate agonists inhibit the release of norepinephrine, so your body compensates by upregulating your epinephrine receptors. I'm sure when you smoke weed it causes your body to release some norephinephrine. With your receptors upregulated you are very sensitive to norephinephrin. This causes ur heart rate to increase and your respiration. Panic attacks have alot to do with your breathing. If your breathing in too much oxygen your body goes into a panic because your carbondioxide levels drop to low and your oxygen levels go up too high. I notice if i'm able to control my breathing during a panic attack, my anxiety and panic drops. Though it's hard to control your breathing when in a panic because your body is telling u to breath faster, to get more oxygen.

After abstaining from opiates for a while i'm able to smoke weed again without freaking out. I think because my norepinephrine receptors get downregulated and i'm not as sensitive to adrenaline anymore. This is the theory i have come up with from reasearching.
 
daddysgone said:
Says who? There is no strict definition of "hard drugs". Pot is probably the only drug that everyone would place in the "soft drug" category, but beyond that different people will consider different things hard or soft.
Click to expand...
I remember in Colombia, where coke is trivial and available for the price of potatoes, pot smokers (the "marihuaneros") who cluster in some city centers pass as rather dangerous hard-drug addicts. It's all a question of from which angle you look. Returning to the subject, some LSD trippers smoke pot on top of a LSD high that they feel is too strong. They say the pot acts as a benzo would, to soften the high.
 
^ Nah, it goes the other way for me. 'cid + maryjane = one hell of a trip
 
Most definitely. I used to toke tons of amounts of pot with no ill effects such as anxiety/paranoia.

Now if i want to enjoy some sweet MJ, i take about one to two tokes, and thats enough for me.
 
Speed and pills killed weed for me, what used to be fun became paranoia/anxiety inducing shit that I want no part of anymore :(
 
xxl said:
I remember in Colombia, where coke is trivial and available for the price of potatoes, pot smokers (the "marihuaneros") who cluster in some city centers pass as rather dangerous hard-drug addicts. It's all a question of from which angle you look. Returning to the subject, some LSD trippers smoke pot on top of a LSD high that they feel is too strong. They say the pot acts as a benzo would, to soften the high.
Click to expand...


LOL, really? I was more worried about the glue huffers in Bogota and Medellin etc
 
bit_pattern said:
LOL, really? I was more worried about the glue huffers in Bogota and Medellin etc
Click to expand...
The glue huffers are another age group, usually kids. This is not to say they're can't be killers. Although personnaly, if given the depressing choice between being attacked by glue sniffing or crack smoking kids in Cali, Bogota ("gamines") or Sao Paulo ("trombadinhas"), I would rate my chances of survival better with glue sniffers. This is because glue sniffing stuns the little beasts' mind while crack revs it up to criminal height.
 
After I got my first signs of HPPD from a bad DOx trip I began and continue to see many more visual disturbances whilst high. That's all I've noticed though, the abuse of Cannabis is what has changed the high more significantly for me.
 
That's interesting because I used to smoke a lot and I began experiencing paranoia from cannabis around the same period as I began playing with codeine. But the trigger drug was fluoxetine, all hell went lose when I smoked a joint on this horrible day.
 
I experience panic attacks now after I became pretty addicted to alcohol, this one makes sense though due to the relaxing effects of alcohol. During bad hangovers and withdrawal I have experienced some pretty intense panic attacks. Now i can't even smoke weed even though I haven't been drinking.
 
I suppose this could be true for some people. It seems like the majority of people who are potheads eventually get the whole aniexty and paranoid thing. I've used all the drugs under the sun but was only physically addicted to one once and that was short lived. I don't know what it is about pot but i've loved it for years and years. Even after using tons of other drugs I still think marijuanas high is the best and most funcitonal out of all others.
 
Cannabis is the only drug I can simply no longer handle. I was a daily pot smoker for many years, but in the last several years nearly every experience with pot has been unpleasant and much more intense than it used to be. I think it has a variety of causes but can't exactly put my finger on anything. I have extensively used(and abused) a variety of drugs (pot, a variety of psychedelics, coke, speed, opioids, etc etc etc) and I can't see any of them not playing some role in this problem.
The psychedelics have resulted in some mild HPPD, which is exacerbated when I smoke pot. The strange thing is that now if i were to smoke a reasonably sized bowl I would be nearly incapacitated, while i could easily handle a large dose of lsd, mushrooms, mdma, or really anything. Anything but pot. Doesn't make sense. This has probably resulted in my compensation with other chemicals (like opiods) and is just generally a pain in the ass. I miss being able to smoke a joint and relax.
 
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