Paranoid pot smoker

[eb123]

i used to smoke alot of pot, now the past 3 years i almost complety cut it out. probaly every couple months ill smoke a small amount..  The reason i stoped it wasnt fun anymore and it got me paranoid, but lately it gets me really paranoid, my brain is moving a mile a min. and i get sick, i start analyzing everything to the extreme and i wish i never smoked. im not a pot head just smoke to try to relax and i have stayed away for a while, dont want to return just wantto know what maybe the issue

[Cannahelp]

Firstly, it isn't common for weed to be laced. Secondly, your problem is common and very easy to alleviate. I suggest any cannabis users read the following to prevent anxiety attacks:

Cannabis & Anxiety
The causes of cannabis anxiety and paranoia are both mental and chemical.

Changes in blood sugar levels can be responsible for pretty extreme effects (both good and bad) when you're high, so you have to pay real attention to it if you want to get, and keep, a good high. Too much blood sugar, from eating a lot of candy for example, and you get a rush as the cannabis high and the sugar high combine – but the sugar high is short-lived, and will make you want to fall asleep as soon as your system burns off the excess insulin that all the sugar has forced the release of. Too little blood sugar, and things go from uncomfortable to extremely unpleasant very quickly. As you first start to get high, your metabolism may hike up a notch and cause a sudden dip in blood sugar. That's no problem if you've just eaten, but if you're already on the edge of being hungry without realising it, that first toke can make you feel pretty nasty in less than ten minutes. Never take the chance of getting high when you're somewhere without access to the right kinds of food and drink, just in case. If you have the added 'pleasure' of being a borderline diabetic and you don't know it, you could get into quite a state from just that one first high, if you're not careful.

Many regular cannabis users begin their day's session in the late afternoon as work is winding down, and maybe an hour or two before their evening meal – just at the very time when their blood sugar is already on the wane. If this is you, you'll more than likely feel a lot of the symptoms below within ten minutes or so of getting high. Eat! Better still, make sure that you've eaten well in advance of getting high. Look out for any of the following as indicators of low blood sugar:

Sweating, shaking, anxiety, hunger, dizziness, faintness, pounding heart, personality changes, confused thinking, impatience, numbness of lips and tongue, headache, nausea, blurred vision, slurred or slow speech, convulsions, coldness, white hands and face. Eventually, if it is not attended to, it can lead to unconsciousness.

Adrenaline & Cannabis
A second cause of dope-anxiety is something I term here the 'Adrenaline Cascade'; really a mild form of 'shock'. After any event that has made you anxious, the anxiety causes your system to dump adrenaline (also called epinephrine) into your blood-stream, creating a rapid heart-beat, a growing demand on your BSL, and thus deeper and deeper feelings of anxiety as your BSL levels drop. Of course, you'll usually find these effects uncomfortable or worrying, thus causing the release of even more adrenaline and a worsening of symptoms. This vicious circle of adrenaline release will be increasingly hard to overcome, and the deeper it gets the more likely it is to lead to a 'white-out' due to its depressive effects on your blood sugar.

Many things trigger the release of adrenaline:

Apprehension about potentially bad highs
Stress
Anxiety
Fatigue
Stimulants, such as alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, and heroin.
Bright lights
Loud noises
Exercise
Sugar sensitivity
Abnormal glucose metabolism

Again, do not underestimate the mental effects that adrenaline can cause by itself - irregular heart-beat, palpitations, abnormal behaviour, anxiety and headaches - even before it starts reducing our BSL to a point where it can no longer support full brain function (about 60% of our blood sugar is used by our brains).

Unfortunately, there's very little you can do to remove excess adrenaline from your system once it's in there, and it can only really be counteracted by 'nor-adrenaline', something that usually only our bodies can provide. It can be burned off by exercise, but if adrenaline has caused a very deep dip in your BSL then that may not be a viable option. The only things you can truly do are: eat to get rid of some of the more unpleasant symptoms; or, simply wait it out, knowing that it is a brief physiological effect.

I've seen a number of people offering advice to 'just suck it up and it'll go away' on this particular kind of anxiety and, to some extent that is helpful, as relaxing and trying to be calm will help break the cycle of adrenaline release. On the other hand, if someone is having an intense version of this then relaxing is far easier said than done and, if you should experience the above yourself, then you need to treat yourself as you would for low BSL and remove yourself from any strong stimuli - lights, noises, etc. - that might help promote the effects of the high and further adrenaline release.

If we look at the actions of adrenaline in this respect then the mechanism that prevents this rise becomes obvious (remember that this same effect will be present in anyone who has a burst of adrenaline in their systems, not just diabetics): adrenaline prepares the body for 'fight or flight' in an emergency by increasing the supply of glucose and oxygen to the brain and muscles, whilst at the same time suppressing other less-important processes, digestion in particular. This means that the initial elevation in blood-sugar (through increased catabolism) may be short-lived, and whether it then leads to a later dip and anxiety is dependent on the amount of adrenaline present in the blood at the time. Not only does it reduce the bodies ability to take in new blood sugar to redress the balance, but it increases speedier depletion of stored blood sugar, preventing restoration.

Some people, particularly those with bad diets or who are subjected regularly to stress, may have semi-permanent hypoglycemia (a deficiency of glucose in the blood), resulting in adverse reactions to cannabis through their bodies inability to control adrenaline and/or cortisol through 'adrenal fatigue'.

The Answer
In light of the above, those who know they're already at risk from fluctuating BSL will find that their symptoms of anxiety during cannabis use will be significantly reduced if they can pay full attention not only to those levels before use, but also setting and mood before use, as recommended in other chapters here.

Excerpted from 'Cannabis & Meditation – An Explorer's Guide', by Simon Jackson.

[ajovitsky]

u get no quality control with street drugs, in addition to risking criminal action.  

since i live in the west, i get my cannabis from a dispensary and have not experienced paranoia in many years, although i remember the experience, and it was common when i first used cannabis.  it still varies by strain, sometimes indicas depress me, but sometimes sativas get me too hyper.  it works better for me to use edibles.  if you can get yourself a medical cannabis card, assuming u live somewhere where medical cannabis is legal, you can try some of the baked goods sold in the dispensaries and if that works better for you (longer high, and usually more relaxing, especially before bed) you can usually get cannabis canola oil or cannabis butter and bake your own.  it's also much more cost effective.  i did go through a phase of overdoing it as well, and it took trial and error over many years of being a patient to get the dosage just right.  i find it works better if i do not use it with alcohol -- either wine or cannabis, now that reports are saying alcohol and being fat cause cancer, i would favor cannabis over wine & chocolate!

[eb123]

i dont think thats it, it doesnt come from the same source all the time and its pretty spread out, its a possibility but i dont think.

[Savas]

Are you sure the stuff your getting is clean? (If you aren't growing it, it's a possibility. I used to grow my own because of this).

It's common for pot to be laced nowadays with something. Paranoia from pot is unusual. It sounds like an amphetamine reaction, or some other chemical. Perhaps embalming fluid? It's a cheap way to make pot give you harsh, paranoid speed like high.