High THC Skunk Weed

The weed that allot of people smoke these days has been selectively bred to have far too much THC and far too little CBD. The problem with this is that too much THC, can have an anxiety/paranoia or psychosis like inducing effect, while the CBD’s which research indicates can actually have an anti anxiety, anti psychotic effect has been bred to a level far below its natural amount. The result been that allot of the newer strains of weed, allot of the stuff in the UK that they call “skunk”, which is not necessarily the actual skunk strain, but just how this new high THC low CBD type of weed has become known, the same kind of stuff that you guys in the USA may call the "chronic", is far more likely to cause mental health problems, than the older lower THC higher CBD type weed. That’s what this whole “it's not your parents pot” campaign is all about.

If you watch the BBC’s should I smoke dope documentary, you see the two very different experiences the journalist who tries a high CBD lower THC dose and a high THC no CBD dose has. And when given a standard psychosis evaluation test, on the lower THC higher CBD dose she scores no significant change, on the higher THC no CBD dose she score positively psychotic.

This new type of weed is far from natural, it’s a result of mans direct interference with its breeding and the way it is grown.

So when you pick up that really potent high THC low CBD marijuana, that everybody seems to be smoking these days, that’s absolutely loaded with crystals from all the massive amounts of THC, sure it may have much more of a kick, but it may have allot more undesirable effects also. Weed with more THC and less CBD can equal more mental health problems.

If you are having problems with cannabis addiction you may want to visit the Weed Addiction Forum.

We have just added a new message board, the social anxiety forum, this is an issue that many people who smoke weed suffer from so hopefully the two forums should complement each other.

Marijuana Addiction and Genetics

When it comes to getting addicted to a drug like marijuana well not just marijuana but many drugs really, it’s a bit like the situation with people who become alcoholic, some people do and some people don’t and what people who study genetics and DNA can now prove is that there is often a genetic predisposition as to how likely you are to get addicted to these sort of drugs, it’s seems to be that to get addicted to drugs like alcohol, cocaine, speed, marijuana, ect, not the really addictive ones that most who use get addicted to like meth and heroin, but the ones that some do and some don’t, what scientists are now finding is that people who get addicted to these kind of drugs often have is a genetic predisposition for doing so, there is usually something different in their DNA to those who use them without becoming addicted. It’s this kind of genetic makeup that can make you prone to all kinds of addictions including marijuana. Now obviously having this genetic predisposition doesn’t automatically mean you are going to get addicted to something, the environment has it’s part to play too, if you never take any kind of drugs then obviously this is not going to happen, but having this predisposition does appear to significantly increase your chances and that’s just the biology of the situation whether you like it or not, yeah it sucks I know but unfortunately people have genetic predispositions to all kinds of diseases not just addiction. And that’s what addiction is, it is simply a disease that happens within the brain from using a particular drug for too long an amount of time, which results in the person been dependent on it and unfortunately your genes do significantly affect the chances of those who use drugs of getting it.

Anyway that’s about it in a nut shell, there’s nothing that complicated about it and it’s been known for quite some time now, it still mystifies me when people say but you can’t be addicted to marijuana I have used it for a number of years and managed not to become addicted, fortunately they probably don’t have the biological predisposition which makes them as likely to get addicted to a drug like marijuana. Why this argument keeps cropping up time and time again I have no idea, I mean you wouldn’t say to an alcoholic you can’t be addicted to alcohol because I have drank regularly for years and not had it happen to me, I guess it is just ignorance of the biology of what is going on that makes people laugh at the idea of it and a dismiss the idea it is actually possible. Anyway this information has been around for some time now, so it really it’s time to end this kind of ignorance, marijuana is a drug and just like most recreational drugs it is possible for some to become addicted to it and you only have to read a few of the stories here to realise to go around saying that no one can ever get addicted to weed at all is dam right ignorant and irresponsible.

Incidentally the same appears to go for those who experience other health problems and negative effects, which is something else people get abused and ridiculed for saying they have experienced as a result of using marijuana, especially when it comes to mental health. It wouldn’t be considered socially acceptable to do that to someone who suffered from any other disease or illness so I don’t why it is with people who suffer from this. It’s really not fair to say someone is “weak” because of a disease that may to a certain extent be caused by their genes, it’s almost fascist, not that I think people are intentionally trying to be that way, I think it’s just ignorance of the situation, most people probably aren’t aware of the link between addictions and genetics.

If you are having problems with cannabis addiction you may want to visit the Marijuana Addiction Forum.

Addiction and Recovery Advice

Hi Guys,

I want to post a link of a very nice website which provides the whole picture of the addiction. (the disease model, post-acute withdrawel, recovery and relapse prevention skills i.e..). I benefited from this site alot in early days of my recovery. It gave me quite some perspective of what i was really going through.

The link is;

http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/index.html

Reading people's experiences definitely something very useful. But reading the literature about the science of addiction is also very very useful. There are thousands of experts working on this area for many many years and may be over millions of people. I think, we should make benefit of the findings of this whole culture.

I will try to post some links and articles time to time and I hope some people will benefit from these.

All the best to everyone,

Marijuana Addiction Forum

Addiction Recovery Advice

Here I attach a pdf of a book which is written by 4 experts of the area. They introduce the Cognitive Behavioural Thearapy approach for the addiction recovery. It's a little old dated (1993) but still has lots of very useful information. To my very basic knowledge, cognitive therapy suppose that our every behavioral/emotional act (like going for a smoke) is always based on an underlying thought process (we may or may not be aware of the process). And what it propose is "we should change/recode the underlying thought process to change the behavior". So, it gives the main effort to recode/change the underlying thoughts instead of trying to change the behavior.

Recoding the brain really seems to the path to the success in my opinion. There shouldn't be any holes in our brains which will lead us to relapse. Because addiction is something too powerful that it will take root even from the unconcious thoughts which we are not aware of. And i believe that reading is the only way to recode our brains. Reading the same materials again and again, until it settles completely in our neurons. (and never completely settles actually, so it should be a continuing process). Recovering from addiction is really something requiring a continous study on ourselves. Because the core of the addiction is our brain and restructuring it is the only way to success.

I don't want to be pessimistic, but i'm just really very dissappointed by the success rates for recovering addicts. So, we must be the "chosen ones" to achieve complete recovery. Which means putting an ordinary effort will never give us what we want. I now realize that, staying sober is the hardest part but building a new life over it is the real challenge. Otherwise, if nothing changes in our lives, the reasons that put us on the lap of addiction can do the same again.

But it's also very exiting to be able to create a new life. We will be free and we can give any direction that we want to our lives. And when the cognitive abilities and the brain chemistry recovers, the feeling of being alive is worth everything. The clarity of the mind, the connection of the feelings to real world, looking to the future with hope are things that i never imagined that i would have again. But here they are and i wish everyone to have these again.

And what i also realize is my view of life is better than my oldself(nonaddicted oldself). Back then, i used to be very obsessive and anxious about very simple things. But after living through the hell of the addiction, now i don't mind anything in life. Whatever i live, feel, can be positive or negative, but it does not matter because i can "feel" and "live" now. I can live in the moment after so many years because i have the freedom to live it.

I was just going to attach a file but it happened to be a long post Please be very hopeful about the weed-free life. We can do it and we must do it to have our lives back. But we should put all our effort to achieve this. Best wishes to everyone..

http://www.2shared.com/document/jQCmUDsB/Cognitive_Therapy_of_Substance.htm

If you are having problems with cannabis addiction you may want to visit the Marijuana Addiction Forum.

Marijuana Addiction - The Addicted Brain

I just wanted to post an excerpt from a recent post which is relevant to the nature of marijuana addiction.

“Dear Eric,

Addiction itself is something in your head. Your brain gets addicted; not your body. "physical addiction and psyhological addiction" definitions are old dated now. Addiction is a neurological disorder which arises after prolonged substance use. Each substance has its own addictive properties of course, and it's true that weed may not be addictive for most of the people. But it's also hell out of a true that it can be very addictive for some people. Hence, each individual's brain respond to drugs differently. If you are addicted and when you stop using the drug, you may have physical and psychological withdrawel symptoms and people have a tendency to think that "harder physical symptoms mean that the addiction is worse". It's not true at all in my opinion. With the advanced medications, physical withdrawel symptoms of even heroin can be alleviated. It's the underlying neurological disorder which needs to me examined very carefully with its psychological, behavioral and social aspects.

You can find the criterias to diagnose a person for the disorder called "compulsive drug seek and use" in the below link.

http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org...-addiction.htm

I write these because the first thing you should do is to have a better understanding of your problem. And if you hang around this forum for a while, you will see that "stomach problems, lack of eating and burping" are not the worst things that you may experience as a consuqence of weed dependency. You are at 18 now, and you are at the beginnig of creating a life for yourself. If weed gets to you, it can also get your life. Weed is the most sneaky drug which at first seems to come with no harm, but years later you see that you did nothing in the world but smoked weed.

I'm sorry if i wrote too harshly but imagining you as a 28 years old man who wasted all his potential and life by weed is far more too harsh. You're 18 now, and there are infinite possibilites in the world that you could do for yourself. If you think that weed has become a problem for you, please take all the precautions now, because problem is only getting bigger and bigger by the time.

In my opinion, the most important part of the quitting lies in the understanding of the seriousness of the problem. If you do that, i'm sure at the end you will succeed.

Regards,”

You can read the full thread here

Young daily smoker trying to quit marijuana Forum.

Marijuana Addiction Forum.

Marijuana addiction test

Marijuana addiction test

The following 7 questions are based and established upon the American Psychological Association’s clinical diagnosis test of marijuana addiction, and if you truthfully answer Yes to 3 or more of the following questions regarding your behaviour for over the last year, then indeed according to them, you’re addicted to marijuana.

1. Have you tried in the past to at least cut down on your smoking or totally quit, but failed?

2. Could you use more and more of this drug than you used to be able to? Do you need more to get high or just to feel or experience similar effects?

3. Have you ceased doing things which you used to enjoy just because of your smoking habit?

4. Have you ever spent a lot of your time on getting high, working to acquire cash to get high or merely thinking about getting high?

5. Have you ever smoked more than you had planned on smoking? For instance, do you ever have a joint, a few hours or minutes before work, and rather than stopping at one, find yourself very high a few hours later as you begin your work?

6. Do you still continue to use even after you begin to feel and experience unfavourable and detrimental social and health effects? You still continue to use at the similar level or extent even as you notice or observe, that the drug is already affecting your capacity to think and focus, or is having a negative effect on your school grades or work performance.

7. Did you ever begin to feel anxious or apprehensive if you cannot get any of this drug? And have you ever taken another drug instead when there’s no marijuana around?

So, what’s your real score? This is just one way of diagnosing if your cannabis use has become a problem, there are numerous others reasons for why it may have become a problem, including the fact because you feel it has. But never the less seven questions anybody who uses marijuana should ask themselves.

I run a forum that offers advice and support to those who are trying to quit marijuana. To speak to others who are there, or have been there visit the Cannabis Addiction Forum.

The other drugs are worse argument

This is an argument that I have encountered many times in regards to marijuana and one I myself use to use when I had a marijuana habit, in order to convince myself it was ok. You know the one, alcohol is worse, tobacco is worse, etc. Well worse in what way? If you’re talking about permanent damage to the lungs, alcohol is not worse than marijuana for that and if you’re talking about short term memory loss and brain damage, then tobacco isn’t worse than marijuana in that respect either. If you’re talking about mental health problems then tobacco and alcohol aren’t necessarily worse than marijuana. I have never heard of anyone’s mental health problems being triggered or made worse by smoking cigarettes. So when people start saying that this drug is worse than that, it’s a bit of a silly argument because different drugs affect the human body in different ways. When you start saying which is “worse”, I think you have to ask yourself the question worse for what? Not only that but different drugs affect different people in different ways, for someone with a vulnerability or predisposition to mental health problems, smoking marijuana can be worse for their mental health than taking heroin. And before I get all the pro marijuana Rottweiler’s jump all over me crying “he said marijuana was worse than heroin” let’s burn him, well for certain peoples mental health it can be. So before you go convincing yourself of which drug is “worse”, just ask yourself worse for what. The all have their risks and side effects, even if they are different and one type of drug may be worse for a certain individual than another. So you can’t always really say that this or that drug is worse for everybody, because it isn’t always the case.

And for the record please don’t take this as me defending alcohol, tobacco or any other drug, either legal or illegal in comparison to marijuana, that’s not the purpose of this post. All I am saying is that all drugs can have different potential side effects and the only reason I am making this post is because there are some who believe that marijuana, is the exception to the rule and has no negative side effects. Which from firsthand experience I know isn’t the case.

Anyway the whole argument of which is worse than what, is a bit irrelevant when considering the negative effects of marijuana anyway, maybe there are other drugs that are worse for certain things, that doesn’t make marijuana any less harmful. Maybe smoking cigarettes is worse for the lungs than smoking marijuana, although there is plenty of evidence to say that it’s not, but let’s for arguments sake say they are, that doesn’t mean marijuana isn’t bad for the lungs too, it doesn’t make the negative effects marijuana has on the lungs any less worse.

Maybe it’s worse to get hit by a truck than a car, you still don’t want to get hit by a car. Can you see how irrelevant the “that’s worse” argument really is. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

I run a forum that offers advice and support to those who are trying to quit marijuana. To speak to others who are there, or have been there visit the Marijuana Addiction Forum.