If you've been in the cannabis community for any length of time, you've probably heard the story before: dude or dudette starts smoking weed, usually in their teens, and loves the stuff. Said dude(tte) becomes a casual smoker for several years with no issues. Then, around 3-7 years down the line, the weed starts causing sudden and unexpected side effects that were never present before: anxiety, paranoia, rapid heartbeat, dizziness or shortness of breath. Less commonly, severe adverse effects like Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome can develop in long-term users, forcing them to give up the good weed altogether. This can be majorly depressing or even life-altering if said stoner was a medical marijuana patient.
The question is: WHY is this happening?
For all we know about this ancient plant, we still don't know why it can seemingly turn on long-term users in such dramatic fashion. This happened to me when I was in college. I started smoking when I was 16 occasionally and became a daily user by age 19. By age 23 I'd developed negative side effects like anxiety and paranoia, especially when in public after toking. But even in high school, I had friends who claimed they'd become "allergic" to weed and could no longer smoke for similar reasons. Needless to say I was skeptical. This was before I was an internet nerd and had read countless reports of the same online. Here are a few:
Weed is making me feel bad all of a sudden.
Why am I all of a sudden anxious after smoking weed?
I get severe anxiety every time I smoke weed now.
The CHS stories are even more brutal: tales of smokers of 10-30+ years suddenly being afflicted with non-stop vomiting & stomach pain triggered by smoking their favorite plant--a plant that's famous in the medical world for it's nausea-fighting effects. The CHS subreddit is full of personal horror stories that prove this is more than just media hype despite how scary & bizarre the symptoms sound.
Cannabis Side Effects: A Closer Look
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| More of this, scientists. |
So what the hell is going on here?
Drug users tend to fall back on the old "set and setting" explanation, but there's only so far set and setting go in this instance. Sometimes a drug's direct effects on the body are truly to blame, and that's definitely what's happening here. It's too common an experience for it to be anything else. In my case, I had absolutely zero anxiety about smoking under my authoritarian dad's nose when weed was 100% illegal & I had everything to lose vs. now when it's legal & I'm a consenting adult. I had no paranoia when trying to function high in public back then either. In fact, it was FUN. So it's nonsensical to blame it on my mindset when the stigma has been erased along with the legal penalties. It's the weed causing the anxiety & paranoia, not the legal status.
I suspect the potency of today's weed plays a role, but only a small one since my side effects started back in the Mexican brickweed days of the early 2000's. THC being stored in the body's fat cells might offer a clue: perhaps it builds up in the body and causes an "overdose" of some sort of metabolite with chronic heavy use? (Most CHS sufferers are long-term users who smoke multiple times a day & have THC built up in their bodies). Or maybe the teenage brain reacts differently to weed than the adult brain and starting too young somehow (mis)shapes the cannabinoid receptors during brain development? These are all wild guesses on my part as I'm clearly no scientist.
That's why I'm calling on scientists to tackle this problem before it snowballs any bigger. Our hospitals are already overloaded with COVID patients--if and when that problem resolves itself, there will be a backlog of people with other diseases who neglected their health due to the pandemic. The last thing we need are people with weed-induced freakouts or "scromiting" further taxing our overburdened healthcare system. There are also people with chronic diseases like Dravet Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis & glaucoma who rely on cannabis as a first-line medicine; if it becomes worthless to them because they suddenly develop adverse effects, what then?
Most drug reactions happen instantly, or at least very soon after a person starts using a substance. In fact I'm not aware of any other medication that causes a person to react positively for years and then suddenly start feeling like they're going insane or puking their guts out from it. We need more research into this phenomenon, and fast. With the rise of legal cannabis we'll keep seeing higher potency products in more forms ranging from edibles to topicals to concentrates, though these reactions appear to be just as likely with flower smoked the old fashion way.
The dearth of information on cannabis is entirely due to the 80-year prohibition on it--I know that will take time to remedy. But that's precisely why we need to legalize ALL drugs. The exact same thing is happening with research on LSD, MDMA, heroin, mescaline, khat, psilocybin mushrooms and other Schedule I drugs as we speak. The result is that science is stalled & real people suffer.
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