The Recreational Drug Thread (quote)

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

even the simplest champion of drug legalization, upon the most fleeting of ruminations, could handily contend that this lasting anxiety has not a shred to do with marijuana - as drug-related or otherwise, any especially bad experience can potentially result in such a disorder.

Well, if the chances of having a bad experience is significantly higher while high on marijuana and that the drug may enhance the experience so that it becomes worse than it otherwise would have been, isn't that worth mentioning?

Just for the sake of argument, let's exaggerate a bit and think hypothetically that there's a new drug out and if you take it while you watch a horror movie, it can turn what would otherwise be a spooky film into a living nightmare. I would think of that as important information about the drug.

edit :

Another source :

Many of you will wonder why we are doing an article on marijuana. Many people would not even consider marijuana as having any connection with anxiety and panic. But it has. Marijuana is recognised as being one of the causes of panic attacks and anxiety, and we think it is important to highlight this.

Many people argue for the legalisation of marijuana. Certainly it is seen by some as a harmless 'soft' drug which seems to have very few ill effects. However, more and more research is looking into the short and long term effects of cannabis / marijuana.

Some people may use marijuana with little negative effect. For other people, it may trigger an effect that will impact greatly on their lives. Many people will use marijuana just once, and as a result can experience on ongoing panic attacks, dissociative symptoms and anxiety. Other people may use marijuana for years before experiencing their first panic attack.

Young people today know little of the adverse effects that may result from the use of this drug. However, more and more people are now presenting with panic attacks or anxiety disorders which were triggered by by the use of marijuana.

Anxiety Panic - Article Marijuana

That's just taken from a panic attack site, not a scientific article. However, these stories are not as rare as some people think. From a search now, I read several. Interestingly, a lot of people also use marijuana in order to deal with anxiety, so I guess it can also have the opposite effect. However, people who get paranoid on the drug might wanna be a bit careful is all I'm saying.

[BoopieJones]

I had a few bad experiences while high. Well, once I was drunk and high and did something very stupid that I still regret. After that, smoking made me uncomfortable and yes - anxious. I stopped doing it because I did not like it anymore, it just made me feel terrible. Starting back up I was determined to seem "fine" while high - which made me very quiet, paranoid, but I was forcing myself to be alert and to be in control and to seem like I was fine (I wasn't normal or fine, I was high), and then one day I smoked and it was strong, and actually I was very happy but I started getting panic attacks, I thought I was going to die. But after that, smoking has made me just relaxed - still quiet, somewhat happy, but I always put a really big guard up. I always smoke with people I don't fully trust, it makes the experience terrible

[anticipation]

what fucking idiot watches a horror movie when they're on a mystery drug?

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by anticipation

what fucking idiot watches a horror movie when they're on a mystery drug?

An ignorant stupid ****er, of course.

Wayfarer, it seems to me your unbacked claim that there's no more chance of experiencing anxiety, paranoia and panic attacks on the drug than off it is just denial. It's normal, I've seen it before .. people who smoke a lot glorify pot and don't want to think there's anything wrong with it.

Marijuana is known to induce anxiety in some individuals. While most users of the herb do not experience significant anxiety issues, it is not an unheard-of phenomenon. For this reason, it is often advisable that people with GAD or a predisposition towards anxiety attacks avoid the use of marijuana.

I'm a 21 yr. old male who has been suffering from (though, never diagnosed) what I believe is anxiety and panic disorder. I first experienced these very intense feelings after smoking THC (the chemical in marijuana resin) in a pipe of an old friend of mine. Ever since then, I've been afraid of taking any medications that can alter my personality (social drugs, antidepressants, tranquillisers, etc.); therefore, I've been living with this disorder for almost 5 years now, with no medication, but it's getting worse. I feel like I'm living in a nightmare or dream all day long... afraid of everything, and anything that can happen. It's like I'm there, but I'm not. Things that should seem familiar, seem odd and frightening. My mind never rests, I am in a state where my mind seems to play tricks on me (almost a paranoid, terror feeling). Though I do get attacks of sudden panic or anxiety, the symptoms of these are lingering in my life ALL the time, everyday and night.

After a 4 month hiatus, I decided to lift heavy weights. I did this for about 20 minutes, then i stopped with my heart racing and breathing fast as it naturally would be after a hard work out. I then did something completely idiotic,.. I took 3 hits of a marijuana joint. Within 2 minutes, my heart rate (which was already fast) SKYROCKETED and went SO fast and then after 2 minutes of that, I was left gasping for air. This went on for 16 hours!

I havent been the same since, I have daily bouts of anxiety , stress and panic attacks. DAILY.
my symptoms include:

racing heart
chest pains
throbbing in neck (pulse)
plugged ears
shortness of breath / hyperventalation
sweaty palms
diarreah
muscle tension in back neck chest stomach
headaches

The answer is absoluty yes when i was in my teens and early 20s i smoked alot of weed the last few times i smoked i had very bad panic attacks. My Dr told me that all the weed i smoked trigger the panic attacks which i get all the time now so i had to go on meds to keep them in check. Which i will probably have to take for the rest of my life. Weed changes your brain chemisty over time so my advice to you would be to stop smoking now its not worth it belive me

Originally Posted by http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/substance_anxiety_disorder.htm

Marijuana-induced anxiety usually occurs at high doses.

Originally Posted by http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/evidence99/marijuana/Health_1.html

It has been suggested that marijuana is at the root of many mental disorders, including acute toxic psychosis, panic attacks (one of the very conditions it is being used experimentally to treat), flashbacks, delusions, depersonalization, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, and uncontrollable aggressiveness. Marijuana has long been known to trigger attacks of mental illness, such as bipolar (manic-depressive) psychosis and schizophrenia. This connection with mental illness should make health care providers for terminally ill patients and the patients themselves, who may already be suffering from some form of clinical depression, weigh very carefully the pros and cons of adopting a therapeutic course of marijuana.

In the short term, marijuana use impairs perception, judgment, thinking, memory, and learning; memory defects may persist six weeks after last use. Mental disorders connected with marijuana use merit their own category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV, published by the American Psychiatric Association. These include Cannabis Intoxication (consisting of impaired motor coordination, anxiety, impaired judgment, sensation of slowed time, social withdrawal, and often includes perceptual disturbances; Cannabis Intoxication Delirium (memory deficit, disorientation); Cannabis Induced Psychotic Disorder, Delusions; Cannabis Induced Psychotic Disorder, Hallucinations; and Cannabis Induced Anxiety Disorder.

I'm not saying "I hate weed, don't do it, it's bad for you, you'll get sick". I'm just saying excercise caution.

[debaserr]

on your final thought: yea, like any other drug under the sun.

on the rest: TL;DR

[Blue]

I had a friend who had a bad "panic attack" with it. I've even had small ones myself, and I personally believe quite firmly that it's in your head. I've calmed myself after I started to have some anxiety, because I realized I was making it worse myself by thinking of what could be happening. I hear all these stories of people saying "I thought I was going to die." That in and of itself is a big reason for the anxiety; these dooming thoughts that seem to propel you further and further down. Being high while having them not only makes it easy to believe something like that is actually happening, but also makes it easy to continually push forward. I think it's all in the mind of the individual; you make yourself believe those things are happening, and in turn panic yourself. Then you believe you have this or that, and sometimes that leads to people thinking they need medication for it. I don't know. I guess at the end of it all, I believe it's all in your hands. You can let fear control you if you let it, it's all up to you. It's not the marijuana, it's you.

[Guybrush]

^Of course it's in your head. We don't get scared for nothing. However, the truth is that people more experience anxiety on cannabis than when sober, so anxiety and cannabis use has a positive correlation. Maybe it lowers the threshold for when people get scared or it leads to a consciousness where scary thoughts have a much higher emotional response. Maybe someone who are at higher risk than normal of suffering from anxiety have good reason stay away from the drug.

You have experiences yourself and a friend who suffered a panic attack on the drug that seems to be related with taking it. I don't see why it's so hard to connect the two. Saying it's in your head doesn't exclude the effect THC also has on your head.

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

heave together an assemblage of all the truly heartbreaking, pot-related memoirs you can get your mitts on, if you so wish; the fact of the matter is that not one of them provides any empirical evidence that marijuana, in and of itself, is a cause of anxiety.

I posted those "stories" on purpose because I thought some people would relate to it more than a scientific abstract. However, I figured you might criticize the sources - and rightfully so, so I did a search for scientific studies. Here's a quote from an article published in BMJ, one of the most influential and widely read peer-reviewed general academic journals in the field of medicine in the world.

Originally Posted by George C Patton, professor of adolescent health a, Carolyn Coffey, epidemiologist a, John B Carlin, director of unit b, Louisa Degenhardt, research fellow c, Michael Lynskey, visiting research fellow d, Wayne Hall, professor of bioethics e., "Cannabis use and mental health in young people: cohort study", BMJ 2002

Results: Some 60% of participants had used cannabis by the age of 20; 7% were daily users at that point. Daily use in young women was associated with an over fivefold increase in the odds of reporting a state of depression and anxiety after adjustment for intercurrent use of other substances (odds ratio 5.6, 95% confidence interval 2.6 to 12). Weekly or more frequent cannabis use in teenagers predicted an approximately twofold increase in risk for later depression and anxiety (1.9, 1.1 to 3.3) after adjustment for potential baseline confounders.


<--- snip --->

What is already known on this topic
Frequent recreational use of cannabis has been linked to high rates of depression and anxiety in cross sectional surveys and studies of long term users

You can read the paper at this address. The abstract part is a summary for those who don't wish to read all the methods, discussion and so on. -> Cannabis use and mental health in young people: cohort study -- Patton et al. 325 (7374): 1195 -- BMJ

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

no, the truth is that people can experience anxiety on cannabis, just as they can experience anxiety while walking down to the end of their bloody driveway.

This is your claim :

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

one is, in fact, no more liable to have a negative experience while stoned than he/she is sober

I've quoted people's accounts of having negative experiences on the drug who afterwards suffered from anxiety disorder. Other MB members have so far posted at least 3 accounts of themselves or others experiencing anxiety or panic attacks while high. I've quoted and linked to sites and a scientific study that say that cannabis can lead to Cannabis Induced Anxiety Disorder and that people who use cannabis recreationally are at greater risk at suffering from anxiety.

At this point, I don't care what you believe anymore. It's like trying to argue evolution with a creationist. If others here who do experience paranoia while high read my posts or if people who consider themselves nervous are thinking about smoking, then I hope reading my posts make them a little more cautios than they otherwise would.

Sometimes I feel like every regular pot smoker is a propaganda machine for the drug. While there are plenty of good experiences to be had from it, there's also a dark side to it - like there is with any drug. If you mention it in regards to alcohol, people say "yeah, that's true". Do the same with pot and every smoker turns against you.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by toretorden

This is your claim :



I've quoted people's accounts of having negative experiences on the drug who afterwards suffered from anxiety disorder. Other MB members have so far posted at least 3 accounts of themselves or others experiencing anxiety or panic attacks while high. I've quoted and linked to sites and a scientific study that say that cannabis can lead to Cannabis Induced Anxiety Disorder and that people who use cannabis recreationally are at greater risk at suffering from anxiety.

At this point, I don't care what you believe anymore. It's like trying to argue evolution with a creationist. If others here who do experience paranoia while high read my posts or if people who consider themselves nervous are thinking about smoking, then I hope reading my posts make them a little more cautios than they otherwise would.

Sometimes I feel like every regular pot smoker is a propaganda machine for the drug. While there are plenty of good experiences to be had from it, there's also a dark side to it - like there is with any drug. If you mention it in regards to alcohol, people say "yeah, that's true". Do the same with pot and every smoker turns against you.

I didn't mean to imply there wasn't a dark side to it. It somewhat turned on me at some point, because I was more or less abusing it. I was using it for the wrong reasons, and I was doing it with a very poor frame of mind. That was the initial cause for any anxiety. I won't disagree that people prone to anxiety, or without much mental strength may be more likely to have those kinds of experiences on it though. I guess my point was, whether you're high or not, you are in control. It's when you make yourself believe you're not that you lose it. That goes for being high or sober, but yes, being high can make you more susceptible to it depending on your personality and mental state. But like I said, it's ultimately in your own hands.

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Blue

I won't disagree that people prone to anxiety, or without much mental strength may be more likely to have those kinds of experiences on it though. I guess my point was, whether you're high or not, you are in control. It's when you make yourself believe you're not that you lose it. That goes for being high or sober, but yes, being high can make you more susceptible to it depending on your personality and mental state. But like I said, it's ultimately in your own hands.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

my contention is not that the prospect of marijuana use resulting in anxiety is unimaginable, but that essentially any human experience can potentially result in anxiety - thus rendering any kind of forewarning redundant. that's all. i really don't think we're in enough of a quarrel here to even call for such a drawn-out argument.

As stated in my last post, the claim from you that I've arguing against is your claim that being high does not increase the probability of experiencing anxiety. I don't disagree that a simple activity like going fishing for some may be trivial while horrifying for others.

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

...though i find the notion of a "dark side" to marijuana rather laughable, on an entirely privy level. i've had far darker experiences with caffeine.

That's good for you and I hope it stays that way.