Cannabis that people are using for anxiety is probably making it worse
wsj.com
wsj.com
Then at some point I started to grow up and my mind changed and weed started to make me extremely anxious and paranoid. I would take long breaks and then try it once a year or something and it would make me feel so disoriented about life it wasn’t very fun at all. Still get flashbacks just writing about it now.
Haven’t smoked for 10 years and don’t miss it. It was probably just another escape mechanism for me anyway given my circumstances back then.
But I do know other people (some who used to be friends) that had similar experiences of having their feelings/psyche amplified to unbearable levels.
If it helps you it’s great (especially if you have a really bad condition) but otherwise.. it’s an absolute waste of time and just numbs you to all-familiar state.
I used to support legalization and was a proponent of patient first planning and sales interaction.
Instead it's used as a cover to run the dispensaries as covert pharmacies.
Doctor visit style. You go in, wait in a lobby, one patient at a time, describe your ailments or symptoms, describe the effects you desire and they make suggestions on which strains and products would be best for you.
Weve gone recreationally legal since then and most stores are still set up this way.
Some are dropping the pretense and are full on commercial outlets now. None of the pagentry around medicinal help. Just wall to wall shelves and a line out the door.
Noticed this recent change just a week ago when my local shop switched from patient-based to full commercial when they demolished the privacy wall and just serve people as fast as possible now.
Not sure which is best. I did always feel the previous model was a bit shady.
> Doctor visit style. You go in, wait in a lobby, one patient at a time
This has less to do with pretending to be medical and more to do with physical security. It's a cash business; think through how you'd rob a dispensary. If the employee escapes and you're the only customer in the room, you aren't taking hostages. The "examination room" is a mantrap.
If they're starting to not do this anymore, I'd take that to mean they finally found insurance to cover their more-substantial losses.
The store near me had a lobby about 10x100ft. There was a simple glass door separating it from the shoppping area which was just counters around the perimiter and pegboards on the wall.
The shopping area at this location sometimes had more than one employee working, sometimes they would handle two patients at a time. Perhaps 3 people at most back at a time.
They just removed the wall and pushed the counters and pegboards up into the lobby. From outside the building you look inside and every wall and shelf is filled with product.
I really do think it was just above moving more product.
The shopping-in-captivity experience is not shared by any other business-- not your bank, not your pharmacy, not your doctor. It's inefficient as hell, yes, because if you picked out $5000 worth of product and tried to snatch it and run, you wouldn't make it through that door-- they have to buzz you out. Mental hospitals and prisons work like this, being high-security facilities.
There's nothing in the room at my local dispensary that you could throw through that glass, assuming it's even glass at all.
For a while, they couldn't even get payment processors to take cards for them, so they'd be sitting on mountains of cash. They couldn't get insurers to cover cash losses from robberies.
My dispensary's guards used to be armed. They no longer are. They stopped carrying around the time the place started taking debit card payments. Liability for guards shooting civilians over property crime is not a risk anyone accepts willingly. (I don't even think my bank's guard carries a sidearm. Retailers are told by insurers to give robbers whatever they want to make them go away without further incident.)
I have never seen a buzzer or any way to stop people from leaving these secure rooms. They were just privacy - the swinging glass door I mentioned above I don't even think locks.
You wouldn't be doing a snatch a run before or after - guy at the door still has a gun.
I would be equally horrified if someone told me they were drinking vodka daily but “just for their anxiety”, or having four glasses of wine a night to “treat their insomnia”.
And now I hear ads on podcasts listing its benefits. Honestly it sounds like people just wanted it legalised for recreational use and the medical uses were a good cover.
I don’t think cannabis should be illegal.
The folks I do know that get value from it seem fine. But could they maybe benefit from a therapist rather than wallowing in stress on their own/with friends? Eh yeah also probably true.
Generally speaking as I've gotten older pot in general just makes me anxious. Most of that is likely because CBD and related components have been bred out of pot and today's strains are mainly for the hard core regular users who need the stronger stuff to get the effect they want.
Hopefully as legalisation takes hold the market will cater to casual and first time users, and offer a variety of experiences besides the fairly stupefying effect of strong pot.
I remember the first time I smoked pot, at at about age 13, well. My high school dealer who was the same age thoughtfully sold us what was mostly leaf, but it was the nicest, most interesting stone which gave the world a nice fury/fuzzy texture and made you laugh.
These days your first time is more likely to approximate being plugged into a mains socket, with no way to disconnect for a couple of hours.
But I think there's something else going on besides just strength. The first time this happened to me was when it was illegal, about 15 years ago in my 20s. I was a daily smoker and and flower vape user.
About 7 or 8 years I moved to California, started smoking again. It was fun, turned into a daily smoker and started getting anxious about life. And just drifted away from it. I was taking dabs, and used a bong pretty regularly, all fairly strong. I'd take a few hits from a bowl and not enjoy it. The change was in the last few months and pretty sudden.
Not to diminish your positive results, but this seems like an overstatement to me. We do not have a universal cure for anxiety, even if we have treatments that work for some.
Hm, maybe because cannabis is cheaper and more readily available? I am extremely wary of becoming dependent on a substance that either my doctor or my insurance can cut my access to on a whim. Hell even when cannabis was illegal, it was still usually easier to procure than certain head-meds--which themselves are of dubious long-term efficacy and carry substantial risk (looking at you, benzos and opiates).
Like this is just a totally asinine stateme to me. Would you rather chief blunts or take a lamectil.... rappers dont brag about prozac
Personally I was prescribed Celexa and had an extremely adverse reaction involving an inability to sleep properly and terribly lucid dreams. However, Lamictal worked great for a quite a while until it was priced out of my reach.
For some, 10mg of THC as needed, typically every other night, works well and is cheaper with less side effects.
A cure for anxiety will take a change in society. A Political solution that encourages community, inclusiveness, and towns/cities that aren't broken by design.
/s
In my case I’m lifelong bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
I’m definitely not a doctor. You shouldn’t trust medical/psychiatric information given in any internet comment though.
And to paraphrase the other commenter, “didn’t realize I needed to get your permission to write about something without the proper qualifications”.
you don't resolve anxiety by adding more capacity to endure it (resilience.) Instead you need to address the root causes— most often maladaptive strategies learned in childhood that need to be relearned and corrected, and then once you are no longer creating the negative emotional material because you're living in a better way, you generally need to support healing/recovery from holding the anxiety however long you did. This often involves recreating or revising relationships with close loved ones.
adding more capacity to tolerate almost always makes things worse in the long run. you don't need a bigger tank to hold more poison, you need to stop creating or consuming the poison, and then you need to detoxify yourself to get rid of what you've already taken in.
disclaimer: I am a psychotherapist but I am not acting as anyone's therapist by sharing this, which is my opinion.
This is not to suggest that resilience is the only option for anxiety, or that it’s the best option in general or any specific case. But I do believe that if we’re discussing the problem of widespread anxiety, learned resilience ought to be part of the discussion. In many ways, it is a more practical (and personally actionable) response to widespread anxiety than waiting for sweeping societal changes which are unlikely to materialize.
For anyone who thinks these claims might be controversial, I’ll cite some leading authorities that most readers will trust not to misrepresent the scientific consensus:
According to the American Psychological Association, “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands…. Psychological research demonstrates that the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced.” https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
The Mayo Clinic says that “resilience can help protect you from various mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/resilience-train...
Harvard Medical School faculty offer a course specifically on building resilience to manage anxiety and mental health: “If you’ve ever felt stressed, burned out, anxious or sad, you’re not alone. These moments are challenging and make it difficult to find a way forward. However, you can use science-backed tools to help manage these experiences and the emotions that come along with them.” https://www.harvardonline.harvard.edu/course/building-person...
I give my own reference below and a quotation from it.
“A meta-analysis found a moderate positive effect of resilience interventions (0.44 (95% CI 0.23 to 0.64) with subgroup analysis suggesting CBT-based, mindfulness and mixed interventions were effective.”
I loosely agree, in the sense that the current common view is too focused on making the individual bear their own cross. But in a literal sense you are wrong, in that there are many who are helped by pills.
"Your mental health issues cannot be solved by anything short of a societal shift."
I agree that there's a lot of things we could change as a society to meaningfully improve mental health but that takes time and people need assistance now. Personally, I've temporarily relocated to Barcelona for my mental health and physical health because being able to walk anywhere without needing to fight cars is an incredible gift to me - the lower barrier helps me walk longer and more frequently. I wish more of the world was like this - but it'll take a while to accomplish that.
Anxiety is a valid emotion that’s trying to warn you that your surrounding is not good. If anxiety is happening at the scale we’re seeing in the world, then calling it an individual problem is outright wrong.
Anyway, my point is, “I’m a victim” isn’t a reinforcement to anxiety. It’s an understanding that what you’re feeling is a valid emotion and to work around it rather than try to actively combat it on an individual level.
This is a byproduct of mass/social media exploiting that mechanic in individuals to keep people tuned in. Fear, obligation or guilt gets to 99% of people. Let's talk about Fear.
Everyone I know with anxiety issues is terminally-online or, before the internet, tuned in to the news every waking minute of their day. They are hyper-aware of the dangers of the world and are always in a falsely-heightened state of arousal.
It makes the world feel smaller and more dangerous than it actually is. It sucks that people are dying in Ukraine. But you don't live there, and have probably never even met a native Ukie. We aren't supposed to react to danger on the other side of the planet. But we're exposed to it and more nonetheless while powerless to do anything about it. It's reinforcing helplessness.
No animal can function this way. It would eventually become so skittish and paranoid it will start making mistakes, and run directly into the crocodile pit while trying to escape a yapping poodle.
The ignorant aren't immune to anxiety because they're retarded; they're tending to the lot in life they do have control over and reacting to dangers that directly threaten them.
The worst self-induced anxiety offenders are the ones who seek out other peoples' conflicts to involve themselves in.
How would that explain all the social anxiety out there?
It's cool that your relocation helped, I totally get the city routine helping people like us, walking, real food, pretty stuff to look at, culture, all in fingers reach, consider ourselves lucky for the experience of life quality improvement.
These are all downstream from the points mentioned.
> Personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution. (Carol Hanisch, 1970)
If you think strictly unidirectional, you‘ll end up at the Big Bang as the root of all suffering, and what would that achieve?
That’s besides the other factors I mentioned - if you look at studies of what substances pathogens in the stomach and microbiome produce, it turns out they can really cause anxiety. My take is that anxiety can be a multifactorial issue and a local minimum that one needs to climb out of actively. Accepting life as suffering might not give the impulse to get the necessary help.
1. GABA 2. Serotonin 3. CBD
CBD is not just THC which is somewhat not effective but other amines such as one in chocolate that gives you the runner high.
My bias is that 50% of ADHD'ers have anxiety disorders due to noradrenaline running high..in my case I take GABA, L-theanine and chocolate to control it.
I would think these two would make anxiety worse?
GABA and L-theanine make a lot of sense as these will directly impact the glutamatergic system and are well known to improve anxiety (and are also synergistic with stimulants especially caffeine).
I think this is partially the case. I think the glutamatergic system is messed up which causes the release of too much norephenephrine and dopamine.
After a while this causes down-regulation and the actual neuron pathways develop "bad connection" e.g. the frontal lobe develops bad habits/poor motivation.
At this point you're stimulated via norephephine but you have poor motivation/focus because of the dopamine tolerance.
---
NAC is an interesting candidate you might find interesting as it directly effects the glutamatergic system. I was recommended this by my doctor and had a good personal experience (I'm not a doctor, etc).
Weed does wonders for my depression but unfortunately makes my anxiety worse but it does help some people. Especially high CBD strains.
Mescaline, found in cacti, is basically a cure for my anxiety. A single dose once every 6 months or so keeps it at bay. It’s illegal, and movements to legalize it are all money grabs and won’t do much to increase access (the ballot measures for psychedelics are all backed by a single PAC who are interested in $$$$$ from treatments and training). Sorry for the rant lol
> Last I heard pot has a large number of substances which have not been studied for impact on health.
Probably about as many as are in an average bowl of stew?
As much as people hate to admit it, booze and cigarettes are much better for coping with anxiety, and Cheaper Than Therapy as the kids like to say.
It's like the fearmongering around MDMA, which claims that there will be delayed harmful effects from meddling with your brain chemistry, but hundreds of millions of users and decades later where is the widespread harm? Arguably it proves that it's one of the safest drugs on earth.
Of course controlled studies are rigorous, but widespread use must also lead to widespread harm if it exists. There may be hidden harm because it's a small effect on a large population or only harms a small population, but that just means it's relatively safe.
True, it could be safe, but how long does it take for lung cancer from smoking to appear?
As usual, more and higher-quality data would help elucidate the source of the protective effects.
> The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) study (2018) concluded that long-term cannabis smoking is substantially associated with increased respiratory symptoms (i.e., cough, phlegm, and wheeze) and more frequent chronic bronchitis episodes than experienced by non-smokers.
[snip]
> By contrast, recent outbreaks of respiratory illnesses associated with consumption of mostly unregulated Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing vaping products have so far resulted in 2807 hospitalizations and 68 deaths in the United States, with additional cases being investigated in Canada (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2020, Government of Canada, 2020).
> E-cigarette vapor contains many of the known harmful toxicants found in traditional cigarette smoke, such as formaldehyde, cadmium, and lead, though usually at a reduced percentage.[25]
From a quick search: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34643
"You can't use a coping mechanism to heal from an issue/ wound/ trauma. It's basically just replacing one addiction for another."
I'm paraphrasing. But I agree with that statement (which isn't to say that healing is an easy or simple process).
however, I would be extremely shocked if cigarettes and alcohol are better for it than weed. cigarettes are basically buying yourself low-level intermittent anxiety, and alcohol, unless you’re a genuine alcoholic, is just a rollercoaster of ups and downs that will likely result in future memories for you to be anxious about. that’s my experience anyway
Every person I've ever known who smoked pot for some "health" thing was a rolling dumpster fire.
I consume CBD and high THC options through ingestion of oils and vaporisation of flowers.
(Not saying GP is correct, as I'm not interested enough in the topic to know if their take on the research status is accurate. But your anecdote -- while great for you -- is not a basis for making generalizations.)
For folks in those situations it can be a true blessing.
Its the exact same thing with morphine, opiates. On one hand they're the scourge of society and abuse of them is a real problem, but for a soldier dying on the battlefield from horrible injuries, or someone dying of the unbelievable pain of sickel cell, in those situations we call it one of the best inventions ever, so much so it'd inventor/discoverer was given a Nobel prize.
Long story short, I've known some. But they all died of cancer. Thanks for putting them down.
However, though I am not super steeped in this, I do know there are some prominent exceptions. I think CBD for epilepsy is one. There is an FDA approved CBD treatment for epilepsy, brand name epidiolex (had to google that).