my boyfriend smokes pot...

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

Hello,

I'm writing to ask a question. I'm 38 years old and have never smoked pot before, but my boyfriend does. He's been smoking off and on for about 19 years or so. Sometimes, if he has a bag of weed, he'll smoke constantly until it's gone. More often, he'll just smoke a little bit with friends. I think he's even taken several years off completely.

Since we began dating, he's cut back a lot. Now he smokes a couple times a month--but not to the point of getting totally stoned. I've told him that I'm not comfortable talking to him or seeing him if he's high, and he respects that. So, now he waits about 4 or 5 hours to call me after he's smoked. This week, I've noticed that, while he's usually an awesome conversationalist, the things he's discussed in our conversations have been boring and shallow, and centered mainly on himself. He's also seemed really distracted, and our conversations have been noticeably shorter than usual. I asked him tonight if he'd been smoking this week, and he answered in the affirmative. My first question is this: can getting high early in the evening have an effect on a conversation hours later? I'm especially looking for any scientific evidence (medical articles, etc) that might support (or refute) this.

Thanks for any input!

Sincerely,
Pot-smoker's girlfriend

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi Unregistered Guest and welcome to the forum.

Pot is a drug that stays in your system a very long time, so I am sure him smoking a few hours before you meet is having some kind of effect, how much I don’t know exactly, I think you are probably the best judge of that. You know what he is like with and without it, trust in your instinct, I am sure you know the difference, I am sure you are not imagining it. Anyway that’s just my take on it.

Take care, thanks for posting and please keep us posted.

All the best

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

Thanks for your reply. It's definitely affecting his communication/interpersonal skills. He doesn't believe me when I tell him, and he thinks I'm making too big an issue of it. As he's usually pretty logical, I'm going to try to find some medical research to back up my claims.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

That’s ok, many drug users don’t believe their using is affecting them, that’s something that goes for a lot of people that use all kinds of different of drugs, that kind of denial is very common, but you know the difference and there is plenty of evidence to back it up, if you Google it I am sure you will find plenty of research and reports, I have posted numerous pieces of research in numerous threads in regards to the effects of pot, but I will start a new thread that is just dedicated to that where we can all share the research which we find:

http://www.forummatters.com/forums/s...juana-Research

There is plenty of scientific research that proves the numerous negative effects of marijuana, I found all that lot in just a few minutes, there are also numerous real life stories on numerous blogs and forums including this one, although getting the people who use it to believe it is another matter and can be particularly difficult in regards to this particular drug, there is a bit of a paranoid conspiratorial type mentality, that believes every single negative thing that has been proven about marijuana is automatically a complete lie, as if it’s part of some kind of mass conspiracy. I know I thought a bit that way when I used, many dope smokers do, anyway you can show him some of the material I have linked to in the above thread for a start if you like and take it from there.

Take care, thanks for posting and please keep us posted on how it goes.

Good luck

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

"although getting the people who use it to believe it is another matter and can be particularly difficult in regards to this particular drug"

Oh, don't I know it! He insisted that I was over-reacting because I'd never been around him after he smoked. And he was also kind of angry that I refused to be with him on days he smokes. Basically, he said I was trying to manipulate him into quitting. Because he stopped buying and smoking incessantly at home, and now only smokes "to be social" with two of his buddies, he felt I was being "draconian" in my interactions with him, and that he should be entitled to smoke once in a while after promising not to buy.

So, to see what was really up, I agreed to visit with him one evening after he had smoked earlier that afternoon. He was convinced I would see how perfectly normal and sober he was hours later, and that the visit would allay my fears and clear up my misunderstandings. Yeah. Right. I went over there, and his eyes were little beady slits. He was still totally high, even though he didn't realize it. And, although he is usually quite a good kisser, he totally sucked that evening. I mean, totally. Basically, my visit with him confirmed my fears, and added some new ones.

The next day he asked me how I felt about him smoking pot after visiting with him the night before. He was surprised to hear my response. And the bad kissing report really got him thinking--because he believes that pot makes him a better lover. Ummm...I'm guessing that it doesn't...

Anyway, thanks for the links, but I'm beginning to think they won't make a difference. I've tried sharing some things I've read with him, but he is convinced that he is on target and the rest of the world is whacked. (Ummm...yeah...because being high give you such great perception...) Just as you indicated in your response post. He also believes that it is perfectly normal and socially acceptable to get high. Ack. The weird thing is that he went for a period of seven years without smoking. I just don't get it.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Yeah it’s a really tough one, people who smoke it usually have a totally different view of it than those who don’t, to most of those who do so it is completely normal and they really can’t understand why anybody could think otherwise, to those that don’t they usually see it as not much different to people who constantly use any other drug, personally now that I am clean I am not keen on been around people who are on anything and that includes people who have been drinking, it’s like you are just on completely different plains, you are not going to appreciate or find funny the things that they are because it’s the drug that’s making them feel that way and you are not on the same chemically induced trip. The really crazy thing about the use of marijuana in my opinion is the way that many marijuana users view it as if there’s drug use i.e. alcohol, cocaine, speed, lsd, ecstasy, ketamine, ect, ect and then there’s using marijuana and they often don’t consider the one as having any similarity what so ever to the other, as if marijuana isn’t even a drug, in fact I have read that one the internet hundreds of times “marijuana isn’t even a drug”, it’s a mentality that those who don’t use it will probably never share. Anyway whatever the rights and wrongs of it are and who ever is right and wrong the bottom line is from what I have seen the two usually don’t mix together that well, I don’t know if you have noticed but drug users of any kind often only mix with other users of that drug, it’s often the only people they want to be around and the only people who can stand to be around them. I hear from many different people on CannabisRehab.org saying that their partner is stoned all the time and that they have had enough and I always say only you can decide whether you want to be with them and that it’s a decision only they can make, but the reality is often if one person is using drugs all the time and the other person isn’t and if that is something that is unlikely to change then it probably isn’t a very good match and probably doesn’t have very good prospects for the future.

Anyway I am not saying don’t try, by all means show your boyfriend whatever material you can in the hope you can change his mind, but no I too am not convinced it will make that much difference, in my experience things have to get pretty dam bad before the message gets through that something isn’t right, which is a dam shame as by that point a drug user can have got themselves in quite a state, I know I did.

Anyway take care and good luck.