DOSE:

repeated

smoked

Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

119 lb

BACKSTORY:

I'm a 17 year old female from Finland. Before October, I knew little to nothing about psychoactives and so I never had an opinion about them one way or another. The only substance I had tried was alcohol, and even that only a handful of times. The biggest reason for my inexperience is certainly my loneliness – I've been suffering from social anxiety and depression for years, which even stops me from attending school.

The person who introduced me to the wonderful thing known as marijuana was my boyfriend, who I'll be calling J. We are in a long distance relationship – he lives in the US, thousands of miles away from me, and I only get to see him a couple of times a year (otherwise we keep in contact with Skype and webcams). The experiences in this report took place during the 6 weeks that I spent with J in fall 2009. I take sertraline for my depression, but I didn't take any during my visit so it should have no effects on my experiences.

EXPERIENCES:

The first time we were at J's best friend's place when he pulled out a joint. They both have a lot of previous experience with pot and I knew that I'd got to try some during this trip. I was a little bit nervous, but mostly excited – I was just about to find out what the big deal about this cannabis was, after all. Unfortunately, I failed miserably. I suppose I just didn't know how to inhale correctly and got nothing but a small tingling sensation out of it. I was disappointed and for some time I wondered if that's actually all there is to weed, which now seems like a laughable thought.

The second time I tried it was just me and J behind the fence on his backyard and we smoked a single bowl. I don't know what I did differently, but I could immediately feel that I was actually getting something after every drag. It burned my throat but I kept on going, and I succeeded a little bit too well. We had just came inside and were about to start making pancakes when my vision went entirely black and I felt like I was about to faint. I quickly sat down on the sofa, but the darkness in my eyes continued for another 5 minutes and scared me quite a bit. And as many times as I have smoked afterwards, I've never felt that kind of surrealism again – my sense of time altered in a very different and fascinating way that I can't find words to explain.

Finally I started feeling better, and boy, did I feel good! We completely forgot about the pancakes and instead went to lay down in J's bed and simply enjoyed the high. Time appeared to be jumping in all directions and it was like I kept waking up from a dream every 15 seconds. We laughed and laughed and forgot what the hell was going on and I finally realized why so many people smoke weed.

As scary as it was at first, I'm glad I experienced the bad effects as well. It made me learn right from the start that, for whatever reason, cannabis affects me very strongly and I don't need a big dose to get a good high.

After that, we started smoking pot maybe 4 or 5 times a week for the rest of my trip. We usually used J's glass pipe and occasionally joints, although I always preferred the pipe. J's brother also offered me a blunt and I could definitely feel that I got a slightly better high with it, but I have no interest in smoking any more of them because I don't think it's worth the harm tobacco can cause.

Our activities while stoned varied, but majority of the time we just hung out in J's bed and had sex. My sex drive seemed to be infinite and everything felt twice as amazing as it normally did. The only thing that could stop us was if one of us laughed even the tiniest bit, then it was all over; we would spend the next half an hour giggling like mad at nothing, making sex virtually impossible.

The munchies seemed to affect me more than J or any of his friends and I always downed a whole lot of my favorite snacks. The whole process of eating appeared to take ages, and chewing and swallowing was difficult, but at the same time I greatly enjoyed it – I could feel the food slide down my throat so clearly and focused on it so fully that it almost felt like a ritual. It isn't really a problem now, because I'm more on the skinny side, but I know that if I were to start using cannabis year-around, I would have to find a way to control my hunger.

At one point, we took a liking to playing Mario Kart Wii high. Since I've have played the game a lot while sober, my hands knew exactly what they were doing but my mind just didn't seem to be able to follow and all I saw were colors flying past me. It was like a trance, except with mushrooms and turtle shells and bananas all around.

However, I enjoyed nothing else more than the way marijuana was able to make me completely care-free. It seemed like everything that was just done or said a minute ago actually happened a long time ago and didn't hold a real importance anymore, like a faded childhood memory, even though my rational mind knew otherwise. That particular effect relieved my feelings of anxiety like nothing else, since the biggest reason behind my social phobia and nearly every other problem is my constant worrying, both about the past and the future. I always look back at everything I've done and said and beat myself up for even the smallest mistakes.

That all changes when I'm high. I get to realize how useless constantly thinking about the past is, since it cannot be changed anyway, and it feels like I can finally let go of that big boulder of regret and shame that I drag around with me every day. Understanding how unimportant I am on this big planet, where everyone is really not that different in the end, felt oddly comforting as well. There's no better bliss than for once just not caring.

The most magical experience I had was the very last time I got high. We were on a long drive to the city where I would catch my flight back home the next day and I smoked a bowl in the car (I was the passenger, not the driver). The sun was just setting when we drove across a river with gorgeous cliffs surrounding it and I was really taken aback. I had seen that place a few times already and I found it amazing each time, but nothing could compare the way it looked right then. There was such a perfect contrast of colors, the sky was pure purple and everything else appeared dark and looming. I remember grabbing my camera and trying to take a picture of what I saw, but it just didn't look the same on the screen so I gave up and focused on memorizing the scene instead. There couldn't have been a better way to end my trip.

AFTERWARDS:

I've been back home for one and a half months now and I feel no need to use cannabis whatsoever. Of course I miss all the fun and can't wait to smoke again, but there are no actual cravings, which I take as a VERY good sign. If I can go straight from smoking nearly daily to no weed at all, I don't think there's any danger of mental addiction for me. It's strange, because I always thought I would be the kind to get easily addicted, but it seems I've proven myself wrong.

J, on the other hand, just acquired a medical marijuana card. Although his main reason to smoke has always been fun, it has important health benefits as well. He has a genetic disorder called cystic fibrosis and one of its symptoms is a very poor weight gain, where weed helps a lot by increasing his appetite and making him less nauseous. He has also bought a vaporizer to protect his lungs as much as possible.

Overall, my experiences with cannabis were highly positive and any small downsides like temporary short term memory loss were easily outweighed by how much it helped with my depression and anxiety. It made me look at life from a more positive standpoint and appreciate the beauty of it.

It has also opened my eyes about psychoactives and made me start looking at each of them individually, instead of mindlessly categorizing them all as bad and life-threatening drugs like society seems to want us to do. After spending a lot of time researching, psychedelics have piqued my interested and I will most likely experiment with some of them when I feel I'm ready.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 83309
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 17
Published: Aug 11, 2017	Views: 2,698
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