reason for weed paranoia

[mellowfellow420]

makes me wanna get Lyrica aka Pregamblin for my anxiety even more ... especially now that i quit taking that Zoloft bullshit

 

[EUGNX]

you get anxious and paranoid about because you've made a bunch of bad decisions in life due to your wasted days using drugs and you can't help but dwell on past actions

 

[superelephant]

you get anxious and paranoid about because you've made a bunch of bad decisions in life due to your wasted days using drugs and you can't help but dwell on past actions

Learn to forget.

 

[Smokass]

I don't know if this has anything to do with the chems in the brain, but i've found that when i feel like i'm "too high" it pushes that feeling out of the picture when i do some pushups or get up and run around...just get the blood flowing. Also beer. Mostly beer. but the first one works quite well also.

 

[eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

I too was a big smoker, now only ocassionally.....never get paranoid because of mind-set i'm in at the time when i want to smoke

If you put your mind towards relaxing while you are stoned even before you do you will be less paranoid if at all

2 shots of gin

Spoken like a champion !!

so whats the most effective means to counteract that effect?

Tell yourself to reeeeeellllaaaaxxxxxxx (mind-set)

Yeah that makes perfect sense dude, guy smokes type A weed most of his life, thats his idea of a weed high, along comes type B and when he's not experiencing the same high he gets a bit sketchy.

lol

I think the main reason for paranoia is the fact that bud is illegal (most everywhere). So committing an illegal act, combined with heightened mental processes and awareness, can lead to some serious fear. I wonder if those who have marijuana cards in Cali get paranoia anyway..

Thing is, if you can accept yourself, and are around people who you know are good, the fear should dissolve (if exist at all).

Of course, the whole GABA explanation is the real real answer, haha..

Very true as above ^^^

mind-set

 

[bz.]

Mostly beer

"When alcohol is introduced into this system, its immediate (i.e. acute) effect is to add to (i.e.potentiate) the inhibition caused by the GABA."

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web1/Kim.html

 

[killo]

smoke indicas. sativa dominate strains are known to cause paranoia.

For some reason I get more anxiety from indica strains. There's something about the stoned, lazy "high" that puts me out of sorts.

A pure sativa gives me nothing but good vibes, positive energy and laughter.

Although most strains these days are hybrids, IMO I'd rather have a pure sativa or pure indica. I hate hybrids, they always give me anxiety.

I need one or the other for a good high.

 

[rickolasnice]

I think the main reason for paranoia is the fact that bud is illegal (most everywhere). So committing an illegal act, combined with heightened mental processes and awareness, can lead to some serious fear. I wonder if those who have marijuana cards in Cali get paranoia anyway..

Thing is, if you can accept yourself, and are around people who you know are good, the fear should dissolve (if exist at all).

Of course, the whole GABA explanation is the real real answer, haha..

That's not true atall.. I'm sure that in some, hell.. even alot of cases this can be a major contributing factor but there are people that don't sit around obsessing over breaking the law. Me being one of em. I happily sit around rolling joints on the street.. i've walked past police smoking a joint and laughed about it.. i used to pretend to be pilling out my nut just for fun when tlkin to the police.. And what about when people are in their own home and get paranoid? Or at a party? There is a biological reason that someone starts gettin paranoid.. wether they then link that to being worried about police is irrelevant.

Edit: I get paranoid ALOT.. but the things i get paranoid about are are things like loved ones safety / people feeling negatively towards me.. I get paranoid about the way i react to things and what i say.. etc etc..

 

[Dark Ambience]

^^ valid points.. e.g. there is no paranoia when you take MDMA and it is illegal

I think it does contribute somewhat however...

The best answer Ive seen here is that of mindset.. weed is a mild psychedellic after all.. weed enhances your state of being.. depressed/bad high, paranoia

 

[rickolasnice]

I think it starts with cannibinoids affects on gaba and dopamine.. then because of the psychedelic nature of the drug.. it will carry on feeding off of itself making it hard to get out of that train of thought.

 

[significationof?!?]

I've read somewhere that some cannabinoids show (very slight) activity on the kappa-opioid receptors. Kappa-opioid activity creates feelings of dysphoria, hallucinations, paranoia, dissociation, psychotomimesis...
Salvia divinorum acts mostly as a kappa-opioid agonist, and some synthetic opioid analgesics know for their unpleasant side-effects (Butorphanol, Nalbuphine...) show action there too. I find the effects of salvia to be quite consistent with the description of kappa-opioid activity, and if the cannabinoids that act on kappa-opioid receptors are more competitive than salvinorin A, that would explain many accounts of salvia just not working after cannabis.
So if some compounds in cannabis really do act as a kappa-opioid agonists, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the cause of (or at least contributes to) the dreaded paranoia.

Cannabis: The Genus Cannabis
A Google book preview (I didn't know those existed?) of Cannabis: The Genus Cannabis (David T. Brown, 1998 ) about kappa-opioid activity and cannabis. The same book says cannabis has nothing to do with GABA, but it's 10 years old, so I wouldn't bet my hand on that.

I can't call myself an extremely experimented cannabis user, but I have a trick against paranoia: whenever you seem to freak out, remember that it's very normal, and laugh about it! I usually burst into laughter when I realise how stupid it is to ruin that beautiful state of mind with unfounded paranoia.

 

[Coolio]

There's basically no way to eliminate acute weed paranoia. The cannabinoids in it can cause a literal panic attack, and the only way to cure that would be something like alcohol, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, etc.

Obviously if you have experience with rigorous mental, emotional, or spiritual training (like yoga or meditation) you might be able to keep from ever getting paranoid on weed every time. But if you are that well trained, you wouldn't be having the problem in the first place.

 

[Gerbee]

I think it has to do a lot with the atmosphere. For me, it doesn't matter if I am smoking Sativa or Indica, I have to be outside, up and walking to not feel any anxiety, but if you stick me in a room alone, or even with 10 people, I freak out. When I am sitting in a confined place and don't have to do anything physical my mind wanders, and thats when shit gets out of control. It hasn't always been this way either, I had been smoking for a couple years before weed started giving me anxiety.

 

[TheAppleCore]

It seems that most of the anxiety I get on cannabis stems from trying actively coax myself out of being anxious - I then realize that I'm being swept up in a ridiculous self-perpetuating cycle of madness, and once I realize this, I'm able to break free. Bouts of joyous stoned laughter ensue.

Just focus on your environment, and observe the strange & fascinating things that are happening to your mind whilst under the influence of the drug, and you'll be cool...

 

[bz.]

The original idea was to create paranoid experience, not to prevent it. May sound a bit strange, but I find the idea interesting and would like to experiment with it.
:D

 

[drug_mentor]

I don't know the answer to this question but I have always found it funny how the general public percieve heavy pot smokers to be laid back people without a care in the world. In my experience nothing could be further from the truth. The only more anxious, stressed out over every little thing people that exist are heavy stimulant abusers.

 

[Cadet]

Bz,

first tell me what you plan on gaining from inducing a paranoid state, and then I will tell you how to achieve it.

-Joshua.

 

[rickolasnice]

An experience ^ ?

Speed + sleep deprivation + cannabis = paranoia.. although i don't recommend this.

 

[Tsukasa]

The paranoia is due to the dopamine release, which is indirectly caused by weeds effect on the opioid system. Too much dopamine causes extreme salience otherwise known as paranoia. The inhibition of GABA in the basal ganglia actually attenuates conditioned fear.

 

[Cadet]

To all that have had unsatisfactory results with the use of cannabis due to anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, or any other stress related side effects, this post is directed towards you.

It is in my belief that although marijuana may act as a trigger for paranoia in some people, it's not the bullet, safety switch, clip, or even the gun for that matter.

(I will try to put this all in the analogy of a gun to help illustrate my belief on this whole upsetting subject.)

Being anxious and or paranoid, as well as having panic attacks will be as if you were to fire a gun at your face. Now, in order for that gun to actually go off and kill you, a few things must first be in place.

One, you will need a gun. In this analogy the gun will resemble one's own life and natural biochemistry.

Two, you will need a need a clip. The total capacity of the clip will resemble the amount of times a particularly traumatic life event will be able to cause a significantly stressful episode to occur.

Three, you will need a safety lock. The status of the safety lock will resemble the existence or nonexistence of a peak in the threshold of one's own tolerance for stress and or trauma throughout the course of his or her entire life.

Four, you will need bullets. Bullets will resemble the individual events in which memorable amounts of stress may have occurred, or even prospects of what may occur.

Five, you will need a trigger. The trigger can resemble anything that might resurface a stressful event (load a bullet) from the chamber of our past experiences, even if it is a chemical trigger due to the temporary lowering of the tolerance threshold for a seemingly mild or even forgotten past stress related event (marijuana for instance).

Okay, so now that we have set our parameters for this analogy, lets try to put them into place and see if the process does not concur with everyone's own situation.


On the day you were born, you were given a gun (life). We all have different types of guns. Some have clips that hold many bullets, some that don't, some have safety locks, some don't. But by a certain age there are two things we all have in common about our guns, bullets and a trigger. And once that clip fills up, the next bullet we put in (stress, paranoia, panic) sits nicely in the chamber, ready to fire. So all it takes is something to trigger that stress, and it will fire right at you. So many of us often use drugs to help unload the clip of stress we have built up. But the problem occurs when the clip begins to fill up with stress that is directly related to the use of a drug.

How can this relate to your experience?

I will give a few explanations for why your gun may have fired on you, but for anything I leave out you can respond directly with your specific case and I will try to see if I can fit it into my understanding of this problem.

One, you may have started smoking grass to relieve stress, (unload the clip a bit) and it may have worked for a while. But then a new bullet entered the clip, only this bullet of stress was directly related to your use of marijuana. Perhaps you were running out of money and you knew you shouldn't be spending it on smoke? Or, maybe you had a close call with the cops, and knew that if you were ever caught your life would be badly wounded. Or, you could have been spending to much time doing things that were ultimately unproductive while you were high, such as playing video games (unless that's how you make your living). Possibly you were beginning to fail in school, and it had once been important for you to do well, or at least it was important to your parents. It could also have been that your health was concerning you. Or, a loved one's disapproval. This list can go on and on, so to spare some time I will cut to the chase.

Our body's are all different and vary in sensitivity to our circumstances. But in no means are we flawed by being depressed, anxious, stressed, angry sad etc.. All of these feeling are simply our body's own natural response to the status of our well being. When we cut a finger or twist an ankle, the pain and discomfort is only our body doing it's job in warning us about what needs to be prioritized for our own well being. And the same goes for when we feel emotional or mental discomfort. If weed fires your gun, please don't blame the weed.

Marijuana is an amazing natural herb with huge potential for pleasure and benefit in anyone's life, but the most important thing is to listen to your body. So just because weed makes you paranoid is no reason to say you should never do it, because that would be depriving you of something great. All it means is that you need to asses what your body needs and attending to that before the weed. If you know you don't have the money for weed but you buy it anyway, chances are you will feel stressed when your high because your body is telling you that you made the wrong choice. Make the money and then enjoy. Eliminate the problem, and then reward your self with weed, or even be productive on weed. Your body will then begin to see productivity in cohesion with your use of herb and give you signs that it's a good thing in your life (pleasure).

In a nutshell: Don't load your clip with bullets related to weed. This creates a paradox and your body rejects the drug. Why didn't Marley have a problem? because weed helped him make the music that helped him live well. His body rewarded it.

-Joshua.

P.S. Sorry if this was bullshit long. I just don't like to see what I feel are misconceptions about herb confirm people in believing that they can't benefit from it.