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.
Paranoid personality?
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.
Body & Brain Chemistry
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.
Different Strains of Cannabis
In the article “When we speak about weed should we generalise?” we discussed in detail the two defined distinguishing categories of cannabis being Sativa & Indica, where the former was a brain high and the later a body buzzing high and showing how different strains of weed can radically change how the overall effect. Within these two catergories we then have possible hundreds of differing types of weed from maximum strength pure T.H.C based Isolators, from high to mild skunk varieties, or high to mild hasheeshes each having their own effect. Changing the varient of weed that a person wishes to smoke could completely change their buzz and general experience from a cold one to a warm happy one!
Power of the Mind!
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.
Closing thoughts
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.