Everybody says it, all the damn time!! “smoke weed carefully, as before you’ll know it….” WHAT??!! What will happen, I ask as my voice echos back to me!! So this month I thought I’d look into this a bit more and really evaluate whether smoking cannabis could lead to a life of depression like everybody seems to be warning me about! First of all the sentence just seems really strong, and very harsh to begin to with the end destination begin DEPRESSION!! However I don’t know who you are reading this and what life has thrown at you, what you’ve been given or not, what troubles you, or anything about you to be really honest. With that being said I appreciate that you may have the best life in the world and things couldn’t be going smoother and being more awesome, and yeah you smoke weed and if this is you then you’re probably more fortunate than some others who really struggle to live life properly always being hampered by the drug. Personally speaking, I’ve experienced both i.e times when I was on top of the world, being productive, successful and smoking weed and other times, when I’ve been low on energy and motivation and have been hampered by a daily addiction to smoking cannabis. So what’s the deal then?
“Cannabis isn’t addictive BITCHH!! You’re just a …… “
Yes I’m sure we’ve all had this shouted at us by somebody, who ultimately gets overly defensive when this subject comes up. Ok, Mr. Defensive we hear you alright, shields down now please? The argument about anything being addictive if you do it all the time is quite true, but for nearly all weed smokers it’s the dependancy that’s creeps in that is the killer and really turns this whole thing into a problem. In this day and age you’ll see so many people smoking weed everyday you’d be fooled into thinking that it’s legally sold on the high streets, and forget that the drug is totally illegal. Which don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong protester for the legalisation of cannabis, as it’s roots of why it’s illegal in the first place are all corrupt to the bone. Addictions are just patterns of behaviour that we repeat regularly to a point where once on becoming wary and desire change the we experience a difficulty in adjusting this pattern.
Are you Depressed and smoke cannabis to hide everything wrong in your life?
You’ll know if this is you! Be honest with yourself for a moment, is this you? If you’ve been strong enough to admit this is you, then you’ll already know what I’m about to say and the rest will come as no surprise, IT’S TIME TO QUIT UNFORTUNATELY 🙁 Look maybe even for a little while, till you work things out, but the truth is if you got problems in your life that DESPERATELY need fixing right now, and instead of doing so you find yourself just smoking weed everyday and finding solutions to problems that don’t really need fixing, this is probably your sign to quit right there. Think of it like this, when you’re studying for a exam isn’t the thought of doing absolutely ANYTHING MORE APPEALING than actually studying for that paper. This form of denial can be really damaging to you as you’ll end up neglecting your problems so long you’ll put yourself in danger of the possibility of never fixing those issues, or creating a situation of years of neglect that’ll be impossible to get back to where you wanted to go, or even worse by the time you realise what it is that your truly wanted in life, there’s no time. “What?? I’m not dying fool” True, maybe you’re of perfect health but then maybe it’s others around you that you may have wanted to show that you’ve made something of yourself before they passed away. Ok admittedly this is real general stuff here, and may not apply to you at all but as for the smoking weed part, that probably does have a lot in common with you the more open you are to the topic.
I Just Picked Up Last Night
Having you been smoking all your weed till it’s gone saying “THIS IS MY LAST JOINT!!! NO MORE AFTER THIS!!!” To then wake up the next day with MASSIVE cravings for weed, later that night phoning anybody up that’ll give you a joint. Put your weed aside, don’t smoke it. The people who really enjoy the best of the both worlds will have large quantities of MJ securely stored away in some draw somewhere, and wont touch that stash until the right occasion comes up where they feel like getting high. If you’ve like me, and the temptation to smoke is too much then donate that shit to somebody, having a last minute smokathon will only make it harder to give up for a bit. If all this is just too hard for you and you really don’t know the answer to anything, well then lemme help you here:
- Write down a list of things you want to accomplish by the end of the week
- Try and complete items on the list
If you find that you’ve not managed to complete a single item on the list and you’ve “COINCIDENTALLY” been smoking everyday and “COINCIDENTALLY” been finding other “more important” things to get on with then that list, then as a good friend I’m gonna tell you, “YOU NEED TO QUIT SMOKING WEED FOR A WHILE”. It sounds harsh, maybe cos I put it all in capital letters, but there’s no easy way to tell somebody this, so capital letter will have to dol. Trust me, I say this cos I’ve been on both sides and I can really report back and say that I’ve been there when shit just isn’t getting done, and people / parents are on my case and I’m making excuses pulling my academy award winning speeches about “how my life is great” and “everything is going to plan”.
In this harsh cut throat world, the buying majority look for qualities in their dealer such as ease of purchase, higher “on average” quality of weed and most importantly value for money. Now every now and again, your dealer will start to see dollar and pounds signs everywhere and as that smile goes across his face, it’ll confirm that he’s just been infected with GREED! When this happens you’ll unfortunately be stung once, and then left with the problem as you pick up this month’s batch of weed you’ll notice it’s either considerably smaller in size or the potency of the stash compares to smoking soil from a compost bag from BnQ. Either way, everybody knows when their dealer is trying to pull a swift one for in the dealer head it’s time to improve on the usual return on investment but then just as he tries a natural law of DEALER HIJACKING kicks in and the tables are turned.
Lets be honest, doesn’t even matter if you live in the most affluent area for there’s a weed dealer on every street corner if not 2 or 3 just hanging around. So John has just picked up a crap 20 bag but really there’s nothing he could have done about it, until he hears his mate complaining about the same thing as he’s been stung in the same way followed by realisation that it wasn’t a one off, and like a takeaway meal half eaten and a few days late, the dealer’s gone BAD! Now public consensus regarding the quality / cost effectiveness of a dealer is very important, as important as having a good rating on Ebay, for if it isn’t people simple wont buy from them. So in this way, your dealer whom for one second got too comfortable with his business, all of sudden becomes the public villain. At this point any other dealer just doing a basic job, will almost seem the saint and one or two buys in will become the public choice number 1 and just like that the greedy dealer loses all his business to the new guy!
So what to do if this has happened to you, and your once BELOVED, TRUSTED, DEALER whom you would boast about to your friends has finally become BAD, remember one thing. In the end “all dealers eventually go bad” as much as we try not to think about it, it’s the reason we have so many of their numbers in our address books, for where one fails, falls and ends up in prison another will pick up their mantel and carry on their work till the same fate becomes of them. So unlike a dog, a dealer really isn’t for life and if illegal drugs you force to pursue be ready to associate with these types of individual.
No we’re not talking about football?!? This is HOWIQUITWEED.COM and we’re only talking about passing on a joint packed with luxurious cannabis, cos that’s what we do here!! YEAP this month’s article we’re looking at spliff passing etiquettes! We’ve discussed in the past 
In Europe generally one rolls a spliff for themselves and sits around others and smokes it themselves, very much like lighting a cigarette or pouring themselves a drink. Perfect example was what I observed in the coffeeshops in Amsterdam where most of the people either seemed to be smoking their own joints or had a joint resting in the ash tray. Now the origins of the “PUFF PUFF PASS” phrase from general googling seem to come from America with many attributing this to them rolling a joint with pure weed no tobacco. It’s like passing around a hit which makes sense to pass it on before you find yourself knocked out on the ground. Strangely in the UK, I find a mix between both cultures with some choosing to roll one joint for the group and others rolling individually.
If you’ve all picked up a stash of green, it does make more sense to roll up a joint and pass it around and share the experience. This in reality is more practical and makes more sense then using some scales to divide the weed and then proceed to make your individual joints. However if you’re already in the position where everybody has their own weed supplies and is in a position to make their own, then it’s far more practical to do that.
Skinning up one group dubee is like everybody drinking from the same well, everybody sharing the same concentration of the spliff , getting high at the same level at the same time, i.e GETTING HIGH TOGETHER!! Nobody can turn around and say “I’m smoked more than you!!” This sharing experience is why many feel that smoking weed bonds people together and why drinking doesn’t always. The advantage is however you get problems as discussed in the article 
Most people don’t really concern themselves about the details and just have a rough idea about how much weed people around them are smoking. This is usually just an approximate, and can go up or down depending on people circumstance / parties! However there’s that moment when a desperate time of there being no weed around for whatever reason and the truth about people start to come out.
Que the music, “Just The Two of Us” The addicts all reunited with that weed and all a sudden things are cool again between everybody. However you are left with a real understanding of who the real POT HEADS are and those who are just smoking here and there. Everybody will generally claim to smoke what is deemed the socially acceptable amount i.e be it for smoking the smallest amount in a week or in certain groups getting ample respect for smoking loads.
Now this is the problem, sometimes it’s more than just a few cranky dudes, sometimes it’s just one person who acts completely over and above the craziest and suddenly you realise something extra about them that you hadn’t before i.e that they are more addicted to the drug than you possibly could ever appreciate. Their dependancy on the drugs has grown to levels of complete instability where they are smoking secretly and privately 24/7. I had realisation about a close friend of mine who revealed themselves to me a full addict with a complete 24/7 dependency. He would smoke rolled tobacco cigarettes all the time, but what we’d never see is that he’d be putting small amounts of weed into those rollies, enough to do on undetected by people around him. In this way in time being effectively a 24/7 weed smoker.
It always happens the same way, once she would complete your sentences while you complete her joints while looking into the twilight sky. This truly was love and this is how you guys got together – it was magical. A short time goes by and then one day she says it “don’t you think you smoke too much weed?” BOOOOOM and from there it’ll only get worse I promise you! As more time goes by the situation only gets worse, and you find yourself having to justify why you smoke weed, whether it’s good for you or not etc etc blah blah blah. This is a very common situation however you are not alone to have suffered this peril and many have come out of this situation with good stories to tell. So what to do now?
You’ll find loads of them online, YouTube etc so sit your partner down and with the most of tack and subtly get them to watch some of these, hopefully if you’ve chosen the title well it’ll explain things better than you could ever possible do. However that said you should be encouraged promote open conversation towards the topic also as many people see alcohol as a completely social acceptable activity and still frown upon the consumption of cannabis. We naturally discuss this a lot on www.howiquitweed.com, but you should make it your responsibity to show your partner that these “facts” and statistics are mearly government propaganda so that you buy their drugs that make them money. Ultimately remember that winning here will only mean that you’ve proven that alcohol is as much as a drug as weed, except one being related to millions of deaths a year and the other alot of lazy mohfuckas who can’t be fucked to do anything, but smoke weed and jerk off all day.
As gently as possible maybe you should share your experience with them as to why you smoke it and what you get outta it. It may be the case you don’t want to corrupt your other half as purposely trying to get them hooked on a drug isn’t ethically right. That’s probably not the best way to go as you have no way of knowing how getting them on weed is going to effect them. It could be that they aren’t like you and they are unable to control their drug habbit leading to you guys to breaking up and leading to that person being left with a unhealthy drug habbit. That said lightly introducing them to as to why you smoke is a completely different experience altogether, and done responsibly will share your reasonings to what you get out of it. You could also take them to your local legal or tolerated smoking establishment be it in Amsterdam or California, and show them another side.
Sometimes opposites attract and sometimes they don’t, sometimes people change but whatever the situation, sometimes if things really aren’t working it’s just easier for both parties to just call it a day. People get together for all sorts of different reasons some during times of duress and difficulty, others while their guards are down i.e say on holiday. If compromise isn’t working out for you, and you’re just find yourself out right lying to your partner i.e smoking blunts when they aren’t there, and turbo brushing and mouth washing your ass eventually isn’t going to work.
Calling the people of The United Kingdom, lets unite to ask and answer this one question! So lets start with the basics appreciating that smoking weed in the UK isn’t exactly as luxurious as our european brothers in the Netherlands. Whom are now followed by those in California who are under gaps in their country’s constitution are comfortably smoking A Grade Medical Marijuana with no fear of legal repercussions. So what about us, calling you ESSEX crew, LONDONER’s, MIDLAND FOLK, and SOUTHERN & NORTHERNERS what do you have to say about this?
I’ve no doubt the reality is a mix bag of stories of some smoking the finest strands at great value, along with others forced to smoke green buds, sadly having little as in common with real thing but just the colour , or commonly know as SHITASS WEED!! So what’s the truth behind the myths, where does our weed come? Or is it more likely everyone is picking up the same shit from the same people without realising? i.e. A bloke picks up a couple of Oz’s from ‘some guy’ who’s doing him a good price per the ounce for some “niiiiice some grown init” you investigate?? however it turns out to be another dude supplier, selling the green stuff doing sadly no weed??? HOWEVER Eureka!! – your mate Dave has a guy called Justin who’s dealing some ‘nice shit’, so you go visit this guy in good faith!! You meet, he passes you the goods, all is well until you have a look at what you’ve bought or how more accurately how little you’ve bought. You ask the dealer, “errr it’s a little on the light side isn’t it?” he then replies with the infamous line “…. nahhhh but it’s good thoughhhh.” For more explanation on why 
It turns out that the majority of the weed grown and sold in Amsterdam is no longer grown in the country. If the rumours are to be true, the stuff is actually grown around Germany, Belgium Spain, and shockingly England!! ENGLAND??? really ? The last part I find highly unfeasible, as exporting the shit back to Holland makes no sense – risk wise, compared to finding remote parts of France and Europe generally where you could just drive to Amsterdam in 3 or 4 hours. There has always been a mystery regarding the growers whom supply the shops in Amsterdam as it’s still illegal to grow Weed in Holland. All we know is that each shop employs runners, whom ensure each shop’s weed inventory never goes to low, or above the maximum allowable capacity thus these runners go from shop to shop topping there supplies. As for where the origin of the stash is, no questions asked! It could be quite feasible that people are exporting around Europe, as the land mass is expansive and thus harder to track this kind of activity.
Can’t speak for the rest of the island, but in London weed is random in it’s quality? I’ll explain.. Sometimes we get the really good shit, which you’ll know cos you’ll take one toak and be momentarily transported to a island with parrots in the periphery! “DAMNN!” exactly, compared the stuff we’ve all been smoking, this shit is the SHIT!!! and like that, before you know it there’s good weed on the street again. You smell it, as you walk to the shop, smell it everywhere, SUMMER IS HERE (even though it’s november, it doesn’t matter) The good times are here, and though you know they wont last for every, best not to think about it, just enjoy the weed!! The weird thing is, how the quality slow starts to deteriorate or does it? Are you becoming too familiar with the buzz, or does that stash everybody seems to have just get old and before you know it, the Weed’s shit again.
We all remember the last time we managed to lay off smoking the ganj for a while, however sadly we also remember how long ago that was!! Yeap annoyingly these days you’re not fully being able to enjoy your smoking sessions as that niggling feeling from your sub-conscious keeps reminding you “did you say that was your last spliff for the week?” What you too huh? Alas what is needed is some good ol’ reminders why taking a break is REALLY WHAT YOU WANT, even though you want a fat spliff more lol!
So by fighting through 2 weeks of not smoking a thing, knowing there is a “dubee of all dubees” awaiting you at the other end, when that time finally comes to your lips connecting to that lite joint, they’ll be nobody to spoil your joy as you take toaks of glory. Of course the idea as always to keep it special, by not smoking all the time but hell that just doesn’t seem to happen. Firstly if you’re expecting this to happen naturally then you’ve probably not thought about this and are expecting too much. Remember be it golf, tennis or tidily winks if you don’t practice something you’ll never get better at it, so if past efforts have failed don’t let that bother you as you’ll only have lots to learn from the reasons you did fail. Learning to take periodic breaks is only something you can get better at doing, and only then will be something that could start happening naturally.
hey, i’m better when i’m high!! blah blah” I’m sure you think you are and have made it that way but we all know weed isn’t a stimulant i.e. why driving etc on drugs is illegal, because inducing a sedative is highly unlikely to improve your driving ability, in between yawns. Please stop telling me being high is anything other than what it is, cos like you I love getting high. There is an argument with strong sativas, but even then the fundamentals of how cannabis affects our brain is effectively the same – we wont discuss this here.
Normally when you plunge inside yourself and find the courage the pull out strength / ability to go for a while without failing pray to addictions. So you’ve done it, finally managed to quit for a while, so logically if you’ve been able to abstain from doing this then there should be no reason why you can’t stop doing other things, and infact learning those new methods are probably worth doing now as you’re believe it or not, your brain will be more excepting to it!! Time to start running more or start using that cycle that just sits outside your backyard doing nothing. Really go for your diet this time you’ll probably find you’ll get further than you ever thought you would have done. The science behind this is that once you set your brain to learn mode, you’ll be taking in information easier thus making sense to batch task.
So you’ve been smoking every day and dreaming of that quite break that never came – stuck in a loop huh? When this happens you either go one of many ways, 1) you actually do something and quit for a bit 2) you keep putting off quitting till tomorrow which also is the same time you’re gonna start your diet 3) You go into deep denial and justify your lifestyle and behaviour as being “normal” If category one is your thing lucky you, with categories two and three being effectively the same thing, i.e. whether you’re in denial or not you’re still smoking weed every day and lets not fuck around here IT ISN’T GOOD FOR YOU. Also note this advise comes to you from a lover of the herb and I believe that like pizza or anything if you eat it everyday it probably isn’t gonna taste as good as it would if you eat it like normal people do i.e. now and again. People chase highs by yearning for stronger and stronger gear without realising that their bodies have become completely resilient to getting high on any level leaving only THC infused insulator crystals just about doing the trick.
For some being in this repeating pattern of addiction repeatedly for years and years have almost laser etched into their brains their drug addition lifestyle and the thought of trying to unlearn something as profoundly drummed into you like that can seem daunting. Good news for those worriers, it’s just a worry and nothing more than that, for learning anything, i.e. even things you’re trying to unlearn is the same as just learning something new. It doesn’t seem like it, cos you seem to know so much about this topic how possibly could be like new? Well that’s the thing you’re learning to act and behave in a completely brand new way and of it’s verture of being new that validates it.
“Don’t you think you’re smoking alittle too much these days?” she asks concerningly, BATTLESTATIONS!!!! RED ALERT, DEFENSES TO MAXIMUM CAPTAIN, BRACE OF IMPACT .. you deflect the question with lots of well argued, reasonable points like “No, it’s fine, i’ve got everything under control, my life is great, I don’t do it that much, you’ve just seen me doing it a few times, it’s a concidence” You deliver your lines, a performance worth appauding, the other person accepts the well tuned answer and the conversation moves on, you move down to YELLOW ALERT and as you were. Addicts will seldomly appreciate that the drug has changed them in someway, but the change happens so slowly and smoothly it’s hard to really detect until you get in really close. The formulae is usually the same, person A starts doing drugs, they get hooked on it, and get stop doing it, fall off the wagen effectively, people start to notice. You fight them off for a while, and justify the rest in your head – until you really fall off your rocking chair and then if people love you the close ones will be knocking down your doors while you try to escape them in your drugged up shroud. Can you admit it’s over? Your friend and family have now all found out about your junky lifestyle, there’s no more places to run to, nowhere to hide. Even six of your finest LSD tabs will not and cannot offer you refuge as your brain will keep going back to that place you want to run and hide from. Sorry dude, it’s offer, but the good news is we’re coming to save your life.
When you’ve been messed up and taking some crazy shit for x,y,z number of days the chances are you’ve probably completely forgotten what it feels like to be you again, you know what i mean, sober you? remember you at your most powerfulest? Of course, chances are you’ve forgotten how that even feels. Remember something, being sober as much a mindset as being on a drug. Many believe smoking weed enhances them? Do you believe drinking does the same thing?? Is that why you can’t drive for shit when you’re drunk or high of your balls, can’t remember a god damn thing, great way to be before an exam right?? Or how about even just being in a conversation.
A bunch of dumbass motherfuckas on twitter all attacked me last year, saying that “nahh fool, weed isn’t additive” You guys are all fucking morons and don’t know what you’re talking about. Anything can be addictive, the trick is not to get addicted to the point you don’t enjoy doing it anymore. If someone you love is lost to drugs, I’m sorry i have no real advise but to say don’t give up on them and keep offering the way out cos they may take it.
So you’ve just smoked a fat dubee with some others and man are you high!!! However something isn’t right, you can’t quite put your finger on it, for people are talking around you and you want to get into the conversation but for some reason you have thought about what you’re going to say, weirdly in advance, and now waiting your turn for person talking to stop so you can say your ten pence worth. “However what if the conversation has moved on by then” “People will think I’m a loser or really SAD!” “my comment might not be that funny??!” “fuck it , I wont say it, play it safe ” So in this way you say nothing at that point & generally in the conversation, and the thoughts just build up in your head to the point where the resultant effect of loads of brain chit chatter is like a stream of tennis balls being fired at you, i.e you can deal with a few tennis balls right? but after about 5 minutes of constant barrage they will eventually hurt you, and like so thus you’ve caved and now are listening to your brain double guess everything you’re doing, throwing questions of doubt at every opportunity! Ultimately really not being able to make a single statement with any real belief or confidence! AH man you’re really not having a good night, and who can blame you, for the weed has made you paranoid! Many people decline when offered cannabis as they very openly admit that it makes them introverted and very self conscientious.
So what’s going on here, why are some people being effected like this and others not – some take it very personally and feel it makes them less of a person or perhaps implying that they as an individual have more paranoid tendencies than others. Now this could be totally true with the person quite potentially being more paranoid in nature, however generally speaking as an assessment this is completely an overkill as getting paranoid on weed is far more common than the likelihood of that individual having a paranoid delusions or being mentally ill.
We as the human species are extremely diverse in all our varieties, so logically it is extremely feasible that the receptors in our brain are also as diverse in how they react to different chemicals. Just from my experience alone, I’ve seen different body types being sometimes more or less resilient to smoking weed i.e. with some people requiring stupid amounts of cannabis to get high and others getting “MASHED!” on just a few toaks. Levels of weed tolerance is a fairly intuitive thing to notice when smoking weed with others as generally you’ll have smoked the same weed, along with similar quantities, however some will be noticeable higher than others. The opposite can be argued and proven with some weight when mearly just being around people getting high, i.e. through social matching and mirroring a person’s mind could be fooled into thinking they are high, a level of conformity by just just being surrounded by fellow weed smokers. Using the mind argument you could also argue opinion is an important factor with the possiblity that two people could be equally as high as each other however only one person admits to being high whereas the other quite legitimately is wanting to get more stoned until they classify themselves as high. Thus when you bring individual perspective into play along with actual body chemistry it’s difficult to really determine which is effecting a person more and in this way is very similar to the nature versus nuture argument. So we’ve explored how the “Perspective versus Chemistry” applies to weed tolerance, however this is equally as applicable to how the weed effects your brain and your mood i.e whether you’ll experience paranoia while high.
Many smokers commonly talk about how being in social environment the conversation is set by the group and is always constantly moving thus the person is so distracted he/she doesn’t really have the time to think negative / self loathing thoughts until they’ve returned home and now are sharing a moment with themselves. Regular smokers are probably used to this phenomenon and have without realising have built their own tolerance to ignoring any negative brain chatter or if the occasional negative thought does arise, it’s just dismissed as “ahh i’m high whatever!!” While some adopt even simpler common methodology by just keeping the TV on or play some computer games or have some interesting YouTube preloaded to watch after the spliff to keep yourself entertained (“distracted”) from those voices that come from your stoned sub conscientious. There’s no fixed rule that says that only negative thoughts come from up there however if you are having moments of jubilation and euphoria then we’re all happy for you but if you’re reading this article it’s odds on you’ve probably experienced the negative and wish to explore why.
If this has happened to you or persists on being a thorn in your side, DON’T WORRY for this is much more common an issue than you are probably aware. From my personal experience many of my close friends and relatives whom I regard as extremely balanced individuals with positive outlooks on life when extreme peer pressure finally makes them cave to sharing a joint with the group do suffer in these ways. I’m not really sure which argument I agree with from “smoking weed will free your mind but bewarned what could emerge” implying that everybody gets it, but regulars are better skilled to handle it OR “it depends on who are you and what you smoke – some weed does x,y,z to person A and not to person B”. In my personal experience I’d say it was a combination of both. Unfortunately this isn’t really a topic that can be nominally investigated as the perspective aspect relies strongly on underpinned opinions. These opinion are based on people’s foundations on which varies a lot on their differing life particulars, with that said stay tuned to this article for I’m keen to try out some experiments of my own to build a firmer conclusion on this subject.