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What class does cannabis fall into for you?

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DexWeedAndMe

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If I told you, I'd have to kill you
Now, I'm sure the good majority of people on BL are aware that cannabis is the one drug which can act as a stimulant, depressant, psychedelic, or some combination of the 3. My question is, which of these 3 classes do you see the most effect from?

I personally see a good bit more of the psychedelic qualities than anything. Especially after a good tolerance break, I've been known to get pretty "trippy" after smoking a bit. Also, closer to bedtime, I notice it gives a good depressant effect. In fact, I get quite the bad bout of insomnia when I run out. Maybe it's from a lack of good Sativa strains around here (mostly mid-grade for this fellow, so there's no way to tell one way or the other) but I rarely get a nice stimulated buzz from whatever buds I may be smoking at the time.

How about you?
 
Different strains are going to have different effect obviously. I really dislike classifying drugs as either stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogen. It's misleading and essentially tries to pigeonhole a drug into a specific category that isn't particularly meaningful. I like to put cannabis as its own category.
 
Cannabis' most redeeming quality in my eyes are it's anxiolytic properties (anti-anxiety). I'm taking a shot in the dark and going to lump that in with depressant as I assume that's what's going on in my body when the racing thoughts start to quiet down and separate themselves from each other.



Alexander Shulgin said:
I like to put cannabis as its own category.
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I feel the same way. The effects are so various, so diverse from one strain to the next (and even sometimes varying from one specimen to the next of a single strain) that it feels wrong to pigeonhole marijuana into a single class of psychoactive substance.
 
For me the come up is always stimulant, but it has to be higher quality weed for the psychedelic effect to kick in. If it's good weed I get CEVs like you wouldn't believe.

The after effects are always depressant for me, especially the next day. It's like a weaker version of having done an amphetamine, which really sucks.
 
It depends on the situation and the bud. If I smoke around night I'll get a very depressant type of high and just get really tired, if I smoke a lot of any strain (more or less with different strains) I get a very psychedelic kind of high, if I'm dosing small and its during the day that's when the stimulant properties really show up.
I always consider it a psychedelic, but of course its not in the same way as LSD is. When I categorize it in my mind I tend to put MDMA and bud in the same category--psychedelic but not like other psychedelic drugs, they can be used/abused in far different ways.
 
DexWeedAndMe said:
Well, pardon me for apparently attempting to "pigeonhole" cannabis. Anyone care to close this?
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What the fuck?

CD is sure is full of some temperamental fuckers these days, taking offense where clearly none was meant. This can be a good thread and doesn't deserve to be closed.
 
Different people using cannabis in different doses/strains in different settings, report effects that can be classified as stimulant, depressant and/or psychedelic, most people would agree?

I don't think we can generalize and say that the effects fall mostly into any of the 3 classes, for the general consuming public. People seek the effects of one of the classes by choosing an Indica, or Sativa, or using in a different setting (in a darkly lit room, in a ritual fashion for example) on purpose to get some desired class of effects. But that doesn't make cannabis fall squarely in neither class.

From my own experience, I've had stimulant/mildly euphoric effects, as well as depressant effects sometimes. Relaxing/anti-anxiety effects, everytime.

Psychedelic? If by "psychedelic" it's open eyed visuals and out of body experiences, entity contact, then I've never had them on cannabis alone.

My most impressive experience on cannabis involved a combination with syrian rue tea and I had a severe body load/unload that coaxed me to get on the bed. Serious closed eye visuals followed, I stopped feeling anything except my neck and face. The closed eye visuals got so vivid and ridiculous, constantly morphing to new images generated from who knows which corner of my mind that I interrupted the image sequence by opening my eyes. Really. If I closed my eyes again it would repeat. Not unlike vivid dreaming, although different! And also different from shrooms and other more classic psychedelics (LSD,DMT,mescaline/cactii). I think it's different because the onset of those psychedelics has a distinct sequence of effects that is mostly absent from any of my experiences with cannabis. Not an unpleasant experience anyway, this canna+syrian rue one.

B..But! Alan Watts considered cannabis a psychedelic on par with the others I mention above. Can't argue with his knowledge.
 
Usually stimulant or depressant depending on the strain. Rarely if ever psychedelic unless combined with something else, if I start to trip off weed alone I notice it straight away which unfortunately cuts the trip short.
 
Stimulant and psychedelic for me. Then sedative when it wears off. I find it strange that a lot of people equate it with relaxing and chilling out, usually I only get this after an hour or so. The first hour at least is usually a strong buzz that can be really good or really bad dependant on the situation and my mind set.

I am also interested that a lot of people describe it as having an anti-anxiety effect. Its the opposite for me. I need to ensure that my environment has minimal stressful stimuli before I even think about smoking weed.
 
For me it is physically stimulating and pretty strongly psychedelic in terms of altering consciousness and promoting self confrontation and awareness. The experience is fairly intense for a couple of hours before fading into relaxed and chill. Differences between strains is pretty irrelevant for me in terms of the experience of the high, it's more for connoisseurish enjoyment, but I find the experience I have is a lot more dependent on me - have I been smoking too much weed lately, am I already high, have I been taking care of myself, where am I, what's going on, am I hydrated etc. - ever since becoming a doper I am so physically oriented, my body is very sensitive to what goes in it and I am aware of that, nutrition is so vitally important in my life and it is easy to screw up but I wasn't like this before weed, it's a permanent change though.

When I smoke a lot of weed, the distinction between sober and high becomes blurred, and getting high can turn routine. This makes it more enjoyable in some ways, and less enjoyable in others. Tolerance rapidly drops, therefore weed anxiety also drops (well, latent mental issues that I probably medicate with weed for begin to surface, I just am less prone to having worrisome thoughts that I am on the verge of having a heart attack after taking 5 consecutive massive bong rips), and within a day of sobriety I am able to get incredibly high again.

Weed is anti-anxiety for me in the sense that I get anxious without it when I am going through periods of heavy smoking, and weed relieves the anxiety that I feel when I haven't smoked in a couple hours. Yes, I am aware that I have issues, who doesn't. So really, it is a strong source of anxiety in my life - even blatant physical anxiety over the present state of my body when I'm baked - but it can make me more relaxed in certain respects as well, as we all know weed most definitely has some "chill" aspects to it, so the effects can be pretty complex. That does not necessarily mean it is a negative thing - pot induced self confrontation and anxiety has helped shape who I am today.
 
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Salutations DexWeedAndMe,

DexWeedAndMe said:
...stimulant, depressant, psychedelic... ...which of these 3 classes do you see the most effect from?
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It's not too clear to me that i can answer this question as formulated. I consider vaporized dry cannabis flowers enhance my mood until tolerance kicks in, eventually. Which suggests i'd better not inhale when i require a "boost", because then that would indicate i'm probably on the "Dark Side"/"Down Slide" and hence this may announce a dull evening... As for psycho-active effects i'd tag mine as "euphorisant", hardly psychedelic and certainly nothing close to experiencing hallucinations. For all practical purposes dame Marie-Jeane simply enables/enhances something which was latent before, in some way i must actually "work" in order to enjoy her contribution(s) fully, as for music for example. To me the substance acts like a "facilitator" (read "bridge") and this wasn't part of your initial enumeration in any case, yet i hope my reply still fits somewhere somehow!

Ah yes, and there may be "T-Breaks" following "Couch-Locks" when circumstances agree...

=D
 
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If I smoke quite a bit of any strain in a session (I only smoke good ol' dank), then I can get very strong CEVs, even more intense than most psychedelics I have tried. When that happens, I am extremely stimulated. Couldn't sleep if I drugged myself. If I smoke less, then I get the sedative effects.
 
I classify weed as weed. It has characteristics of several different classes of drugs but it's in a league of its own IMO
 
Jibult said:
What the fuck?

CD is sure is full of some temperamental fuckers these days, taking offense where clearly none was meant. This can be a good thread and doesn't deserve to be closed.
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Woah, chill friend. I took no offense whatsoever. I tend to be a rather offensive person, so it's rare one can offend me. Quite the opposite, really. I felt as though others were bothered by the question, so rather than offend others, I simply recommended it be closed. My apologies if it created issue.

I can see how one may say they don't like to classify it into one effect grouping, as cannabis really is a very versatile drug based on its wide variety of effects.
 
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