Weed warning signs?

February 6, 2024 4:47 AM

I have been smoking for a year or so, since it became legal where I live. I sometimes wonder if it is affecting me negatively in terms of mental health and motivation. But it is hard to tell (reverse placebo from the cultural conditioning? And when I take breaks from it, I don't notice a huge difference). Are there any warning signs to look out for that might tell me that weed isn't for me?

I have read this previous question which has answered some things.

I smoke recreationally, not for medical reasons. Although I do enjoy that it helps me to sleep.

I sometimes get the feeling that weed makes me slower, less motivated – not talking about while I'm smoking or even the next day – more just a general thing that kind of persists as long as I am smoking a couple times a week.

Have tried a few tolerance breaks and to be honest, I didn't really notice much of a difference. I wonder if I am just being conditioned by the stereotypes of lazy stoners?

There is a lot of information on the web but they seem to be either really pro or really anti – thinking for example of the trees and leaves subreddits.

Now that I have written all this down, not entirely sure if my question is clear but anyway...

To sum up: is there anything I can look out for that will tell me I'm on some kind of slippery slope down into irresponsible weed use?

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

My doctor told me yesterday to try to switch to edibles. (Because no doctor would tell you it's ok to breathe burning plant matter). Another doctor told me that weed is linked to dementia when you're older. I think those are the main slippery slopes.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:57 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]

Are you not participating in activities you would usually participate in, and getting high instead? That's a slippery slope. Weed should be a compliment to your life, not a substitute for it.

I take tolerance breaks a lot (I am on one right now!) and I notice a difference. The lazy stoner is a stereotype I hate because I know a lot of very ambitious and motivated cannabis users myself. People who are athletes use it for recovery. Quite a few folks get really into arts and crafts while high. There is nothing wrong with using weed to relax, but if you are using it to relax and sleep as you mentioned, then limit that use to right around bedtime. If you're smoking during the day and are feeling this way, then maybe this is not when you should be smoking or ingesting cannabis. If you really want to smoke during the day, find cultivars high in limonene. (Ignore the cliches about indica and sativa. They are inaccurate. Terpenes drive the experience. Not the "strain"--also inaccurate.)
posted by Kitteh at 5:29 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]

Added that if you can swing it, get yourself a subscription to CannaKeys which has all the current cannabis research for medical conditions to find out whether or not you're being fed a scaremongering lie. I use this a lot when writing about cannabis. It's not pro or anti; it's just the available science.
posted by Kitteh at 5:31 AM on February 6

I'd personally examine the reasons why you're smoking recreationally (I have to do this with myself occasionally.) For example: are you smoking it because you're enjoying it, because it's habit and it's there, because it's something helping you get through an otherwise down day... That sort of stuff.

I would also change up what kind you're smoking and see if that makes a difference. Some work really well for creative endeavors and doing things, others just make me want to sleep. (And how strongly they do those things can be affected by time of day or time of month and other factors too.) Are you just buying whatever is cheapest or sounds interesting, or are you looking into the effects of the different strains you're buying?
posted by Saucy Possum at 6:52 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that you are asking this question suggests you are not entirely at peace with your weed use and that’s a completely acceptable reason to stop. If your intuition tells you you’re less motivated, I’d be paying attention to that. Have you ever tried giving up in a more extended way, say for several months? Might be an interesting self-experiment.
posted by Weng at 10:37 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]

yeah, take a month off and maybe keep a diary about how you feel, how you sleep, etc? i think it's a good project, you may even identify what it does to you but still think it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:52 AM on February 6

One pretty clear warning sign is increased general anxiety.

Weed is like a lot of recreational drugs in that the effects they're desired for are something of a loan: not a problem if you can comfortably make the repayments but a bastard of a thing if you can't.

Keeping some kind of log of usage can be a wise move. It's much easier to nip a potential spiral in the bud if you're routinely checking your usage rate across a longer time span than memory is reliable for.

Also seconding everything said above about the desirability of using rec drugs as an adjunct to other pleasures rather than any kind of substitute for them, and the increased risk of serious disease from smoking anything compared to eating weed.
posted by flabdablet at 10:54 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]

Less motivated... to do what, exactly?

It has a psychoactive effect for sure, and the flipside of being more mellowed-out is that you're not going to be motivated by anxiety when you're consuming, and you're going to potentially have an unpleasant withdrawal/rebound effect of anxiety if you're a heavy user that quits cold turkey. I don't think anyone can claim you're a heavy user if you're taking a standard dose a couple times a week.

So... what is going on in your life that you need the anxiety or the "motivation"? Or that anxiety of any type hits you so strongly that THC consumption is a brief cure & you're worrying about not pushing yourself hard enough when you're under-the-influence? And it also sounds like you have trouble sleeping without there being a physical diagnosis/reason for that? (another thing that anxiety touches, and not gently)

No judgment and no panic here... sounds like you need a good therapist to go along with your weed consumption.

Generalized anxiety is very common, and it's impossible to not internalize all of the "reefer madness" nonsense that has been pumped into our brains over the years, so you're double-freaking-out a bit over seemingly nothing. Your question almost directly states that you understand that you are anxious about this without knowing what the cause is, while admitting your suspicions seem irrational (vis-a-vis "reefer madness" and conditioned stereotypes). You sound very intelligent, but you also sound like you're uncomfortable for no reason. A therapist can help you navigate generalized anxiety to go along with your totally-normal weed consumption -OR- can professionally validate the unlikely scenario that you don't mix well with moderate consumption of THC.

Good therapists are hard to find, and I bet there are infinity-number-of-questions on AskMeFi about that. I wish you luck, and do not settle for a bad therapist even if it's hard to find the next one.
posted by brianvan at 11:28 AM on February 6

Any difficulty at all quitting. If you can go off it for a month and don't miss it, you are probably okay. But if you feel anxious or crave it or you don't know what do without it, and especially if he feel entitled to it, or start to have a slightly euphoric feeling that you were so silly to be concerned you were using too much, and you're absolutely in the mood to light up right now, you are headed for trouble.

Also watch out for an increased tolerance for the downsides. If you used to think smoking made your clothes stink, but now you think it doesn't, or if you used to worry that it made you cough, but now the lozenges take care of the daily coughing jag, you are fooling yourself.

Dependency can increase exponentially every time you quit. The bad thing about dependency is that once it starts the cannabis stops working. Instead of feeling a nice buzz, you just don't feel the withdrawal. The benefits go away entirely. Your vulnerability to being dependent seems to be a matter of luck. One person can use casually for a decade without any sign of dependency, another person starts increasing the dose or looking for something stronger within two weeks of starting using.

Nth, that the only good way to use cannabis is to find a reliable source of reliable edibles.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:27 PM on February 6

What with cannabis being such a fun and forgiving plant to grow and propagate, and LED grow lights and silent PC fans now being so readily available and so cheap to run, the most reliable source of reliable edibles for a lot of people could potentially be their own closet and kitchen.

I've long held the view that if you're using more weed than you can grow yourself in a discreet indoor space, you're using too much weed.
posted by flabdablet at 11:02 PM on February 6

How do you get the feeling that it makes you less motivated if you don't notice a difference after you stop consuming it? What metric are you using to judge how "motivated" you are, and motivated to do anything specific or just a vague feeling?

I think the answers to those questions will also answer your question as to whether your use is harmful, that point being when you can identify areas of your life that being negatively affected.
posted by firefly5 at 9:01 AM on February 7

I don't know much about smoking, more about edibles, but I know there's a big difference between sativa and indica. Indica tends to have the kind of results you're talking about for a lot of people I know, sativa doesn't. I would try sativa if you can and see if you have different reactions to it.
posted by corb at 9:32 AM on February 7