Would You Consider Me To Be An Abuser Of Marijuana?

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

I smoke marijuana pretty much everyday but am not afraid of taking breaks for tolerance and do it often. The thing that sets me apart from the other people on CannabisRehab.org is how it effects me. I am happy and do better in school then I did before I started smoking. Sometimes marijuana is the main thought of the day but only when I have nothing else to do and no-one to hang out with. Smoking keeps me feeling relaxed throughout the day, but I only smoke past 5 or 6pm. I use it in place of my prescription which was giving me very bad side effects. It has worked perfectly and enhanced my life in every regard, am I what you would consider an addict? If this is what being an addict is then I would recommend it to others on SSRI medications.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

To be honest I am not entirely sure, there are a number of factors involved, you may want to check out:

http://www.forummatters.com/forums/s...d-to-marijuana

That’s what the US psychological association would consider an addict, you do say you are smoking it pretty much every day, so that may be a sign of some sort of habit. But and considering that like almost everything else in life the term addiction may be a little subjective especially if you consider it to be something you are taking for medical reasons. The lines can become blurred when you are talking about someone who “needs” it as a medicine instead of been a recreational user, but the one thing I would say is that although there are many conditions like MS for example that pot may genuinely be a good treatment for, I personally seriously question how good cannabis is for problems like anxiety and depression if that’s what you are taking the anti depressants for, while some may find it helps in the short term, a lot of people find that in the long term cannabis often makes anxiety and depression worse, from what I have heard and experienced I would not recommend it for any mental health problem. However we can all react to it differently maybe this isn’t the case for you. Like I say although there may be a number of conditions that it may genuinely help with, there are parts of the world like California for example where it is just getting “prescribed” for absolutely everything, including things that in the long term it may actually make worse, I do wonder how much of this is just plain old fashioned drug use under the banner of medical treatment, it’s something that can apply to other types of prescription drug use and now marijuana is available with a ticket perhaps that too and like all prescription drug use there will always be people more than willing to “prescribe” and sell it to you. There’s big money to be made selling drugs whatever their legal status. Anyway that’s another matter, sorry I am probably staring to digress, I don’t think you said that your marijuana was prescribed, just that you were using it instead of prescribed medication.

Anyway the main question isn’t are you abusing marijuana but is marijuana abusing you, after all that’s all that really matters, but just because you are feeling fine now doesn’t mean it won’t start to take its toll in the end, I was fine for a good number of years but unfortunately it did mess me up in the end, however the main thing is to monitor how you are reacting to it and if it does start to mess you up quit before it gets any worse, so as long as you are doing ok that’s the main thing, not labels like drug “abuser” or what not.

Take care, thanks for posting and please let us know if you do feel you need any help or advice.

All the best

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

Sadly I am not a registered medical user due to the strict mmj laws that prevent people getting it for behavioral issues. My use keeps me relaxed and without most of the social, sleep, and overall anxiety that eats away at me constantly. I will continue to medicate even though it is illegal since prescriptions do not work as well for me. I expected your rehab group to be very ignorant, I am pleasantly surprised that you guys realize that some people use it medically to calm down and stay sane/functional.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi again

Yeah it’s such a tough one with the drug as we all can react to it so differently, if it is helping you then I am cool with that, I really am, the main purpose of CannabisRehab.org isn’t for people who are using the drug and not having a problem, but more those who are, which can happen to some, although I will always warn people to keep a very close eye on themselves in the long term, especially when it comes to mental health, I can understand why the laws in your area restrict people with behavioural issues from getting it prescribed as just like with any trippy type of drug, if you are a little bit emotionally unstable it can give make you worse, I know it did with me, in the long term that is, I found that it would make me feel better in the short term while I was actually on it, but long term it just messed me up. But anyway if you are doing ok then that’s fine, just try to keep an eye on yourself and be honest with yourself about how you are actually doing. Anyway you sound sensible I am sure you will keep an open mind and stop doing it if you need to.

Take care and all the best.

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

Well I definitely do acknowledge that it is not good for everyone. I had a friend who couldn't control himself and would smoke a quarter in a week and do serious non-medical drugs with it. I thank you for admitting that marijuana is a good medicine for some people, I honestly expected a response telling me to detox right now or I will go down a "bad road". I have found that not all the drug is trippy, I grow my own the drug that has very good anxiety killing properties to it so I should be in the good for that. I am curious to know how much you smoked a week and what quality? I am convinced that everyone has a certain amount they can handle before it causes issues in their life.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi again

Oh I completely over did it, we are talking like an eighth a day of very strong stuff, which I know probably isn’t the norm for most people, but then again there are people out there who use this kind of amount, a lot of the people who I smoked with did, and although it’s probably not the norm, it’s probably more common than many would think, a lot of people here do find it gets out of control and they end up smoking pretty large amounts. Everybody can use in a different way and can tolerate different amounts, the amount each of us can handle before it becomes a serious issue can probably vary for each of us.

Personally based on a lot of the experiences that I am aware of I still probably wouldn’t recommend it for things like depression, anxiety or anything to do with mental health especially in the long term, don’t forget the negative effects can take a while to catch up with you, from what I have experienced personally it can be absolute poison and I hear from many others who say the same. But if you say that the drug that you grow and smoke and that in its self can make a very big difference, different strains of the drug can vary considerably especially when it comes to the effects they have on things like mental health, if you say you are experiencing a beneficial effect then who am I to say that you aren’t experiencing what you say you are, anymore than you are to say that I didn’t experience what I say I did. The extremely different ways we use and reactions we can have when it comes to this drug is probably the thing we need to recognise more than anything else. I think the biggest mistake may well be the black or white perspective that everything has to be either or, pro or anti. There’s probably far too many people with extreme views when it comes to this drug either one way or the other. I know my views may seem pretty negative in regards to it, but am I only speaking in regards to the experience I have had and the stories that people post here, most of which do involve it having a negative effect as that is why they are here in the first place, this place is for people who have experienced the negative side of the drug so that is what you are likely to read. But I always try to advise keeping a balanced perspective and be honest about how you are reacting to it.

Take care, thanks for posting and all the best.

[PrincessHighway]

This is the problem with pot. I'm sorry, Guest, but it does effect you like it effects everyone else, I bet most people on these boards can recognise their past naivety in your words....How long have you been using? Pot is one of the most insidious drugs in that it does just this....You start off and it's manageable, so you think it's not a drama, you may even decide that it makes you a better person....But it doesn't, all the while it's chipping away at your brain function, your motivation, your finances and your personal relationships. Frankly, you are an abuser of Marijuana and unless you stop tomorrow, you WILL reach a point in your life where it will be a huge problem. You don't genuinely believe it makes you do better in school because that is impossible. You tell yourself that because it kind of justifies it, when you get older, you'll justify it by saying things like you can't sleep without it. I sounded exactly like you when I started, even telling myself I was smarter because of it, but twenty odd years later and realise how young and stupid I was back then and I regret the day I ever laid eyes on the stuff. No-one is completely immune to pot, if you're experiencing the good things, you will also experience the bad ones.
Replacing your SSRI medications with pot is just plain foolish, frankly, and makes me even more confident that you are going to run into problems because of your use. Marijuana is linked to depression and mental illness, and most reformed smokers will tell you that they've experienced one or the other first hand. You are not special in that you can use pot to no detriment, you're special in that if you've been prescribed SSRI's, you are actually even more susceptible to the pitfalls and problems than most other people. If your SSRI's are causing you problems, talk to your Doctor. Self medication is rarely a helpful thing.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

No you are right our friend who has posted isn’t special and while I agree with a lot of what you said and kind of tried to say many of the same things myself, but in a perhaps more subtle way, I try not to be too forceful when communicating with people who obviously have such a different view of it to that most of us here do as I find you usually don’t get very far, I find you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, maybe I am right maybe I am wrong, but perhaps it’s good that it is expressed both ways, but anyway without digressing into that although nobody out there is superhuman it does seem like it’s something that does affect different people to different extents, brain scans show some peoples brain are more vulnerable to harm from drink and drugs than others, some people have a predisposition for it to trigger mental health problems more so than others.

While I wouldn’t say that it won’t have any kind of negative effect what so ever I sure it probably does even if it’s quite subtle, but our friend who posted may not be as vulnerable as others and I still think it is possible that it isn’t affecting him as bad as it may have affected us, or at least yet anyhow, and bearing in mind I am giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he is been honest with himself about the effect it is having on him, which I know isn’t always the case when it comes to drug use, but assuming we believe his reported experience just like we are asking him to believe ours, the key word here is still yet, I operated quite well for quite some time, but when I really started to notice the negative effects they hit me hard and while I was continuing to use did so at a rapidly increasing rate, so assuming he is right about its effect so far it doesn’t mean things are guaranteed to stay that way in the future. I bet many of you out there were fairly ok for a good while. But again the way in which it creeps up on can be different for different people, some people may go from been ok to it suddenly triggering panic attacks for others it may be a gradual decline over a much longer period of time. But anyway although I like many of you have had an extremely negative experience and would strongly stress all of the warnings discussed in this thread, I also try to keep a balanced perspective at the same time, it’s hard when you have had an extremely negative experience to do that I know and personally I think marijuana does deserve a worse reputation than it has especially with many young people, the last thing I am trying to do is go easy on it or encourage people to do it, if you read the things I say about it in these hundreds of posts I don’t think I do that, personally I think that with perhaps the exception of people who are in serious physical pain the vast majority of people are much better off without the stuff and I still think it can be absolute poison when it comes to causing mental health problems, but I try to maintain some balance at the same time, the problem I have these days is that the older I get the more I can see both sides of the argument, anyway maybe I am right maybe I am wrong, perhaps I should be putting it as you do princess highway, I suppose we all have our own way of dispensing advice, I just don’t want people to think I am recommending the stuff as you can probably tell I wouldn’t be running this place if I did.