take a walk on the wild side
Jun. 27th, 2020 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicOver the past three evenings, I have conducted my first legal experiences with cannabis. Herewith follows a lengthy preamble:
PREAMBLE: back in the 70s when I was in university, I quickly encountered people who smoked up, and I spent a lot of time hanging out with them. I never felt inclined to join them, though, because the illegality of it didn't sit well with me and I was raised to be A Good Boy and Not A Druggie. That didn't stop me from spending hours in small rooms with these folks, though. They offered me some on occasion, but didn't nag me and didn't push. And I never noticed any effects from secondhand smoke.
I made it thru three years without ever touching it, but the night after my graduation ceremony, I was visiting friends and finally reached the point where I was like, what the hell, this isn't really doing any harm. So I tried it, and nothing happened. Word got around, and when I came back to visit various friends over the next year, the word was out that "John Comic is willing to smoke up but it doesn't get him high". So they were all bound and determined to get me wasted. They watched me to make sure I was doing everything right, offering advice, and I tried and I tried, I really did. A dozen different times I tried hard and I never felt a thing. My friends were agog at my immunity superpower.
Finally I was visiting the same friend who gave me some on my graduation night, and this time he had hash and red wine, and I joined in with him. I noticed the wine but nothing else any different. And the next day I had one of the worst migraines of my life, one which I can still remember over forty years later. I realize it was probably the red wine, a known migraine trigger, but I still said, enough of the cannabis, it doesn't work for me and if it's gonna trigger my headaches too, then no, forget it. [Herewith endeth the preamble.]
In the last few years, since cannabis was legalized here, friends have been reporting some success with using it for pain relief. One of them got me a can of gummies and suggested that some people have more success with edibles. So I was willing to give it a shot.
These little jellies are 20mg each of THC derived from indica. I was told that indica is the couch potato kind, as opposed to sativa the fascinating ideas kind. So I saved it for the evening after supper. And since you are supposed to start slow, I bit in half and only took 10mg. There was a bit of a bitter aftertaste but nothing I couldn't handle.
A half hour later I didn't notice a thing. Fifteen more minutes and still nothing. I was under the impression that I should feel something by then. I was tempted to go take the other half, but was advised to be just a little more patient. And once the hour mark passed, I was glad that I didn't go back for more, because that's when things started happening.
The first and biggest thing I noticed was the dizziness. It was pronounced, and very strange. I could get up and walk fine -- it's like my mind was dizzy but my body disagreed, and insisted on behaving stably. And I didn't enjoy the dizziness. I was expecting something like the drunken euphoria that makes alcohol dizziness fun [in the moment]. But there was no euphoria with this, no mood elevation.
I also noticed that my pain felt a bit different. Not so much lessened as pushed farther away so I wasn't as aware of it, but I still knew it was there. This effect was quite minor, I wouldn't go so far as to call this pain "relief" per se.
Another effect, more pronounced, was that for the first time in my life, I felt like my thoughts were willing to take turns, like they didn't need to all crowd into my head at the same time. Like my mind has shifted into a lower gear. (A friend compared it to "having one TV screen on instead of thirty".) That was a calming experience, and the best thing about this trial. I also noticed that I seemed to have fuller access to my vocabulary. While I was chatting online with friends, I found myself coming up with slightly more interesting turns of phrase, slightly more often. It makes me want to try this while I am writing a story draft, see if my creativity is unlocked... And I settled down to sleep much faster and more easily than I have been doing the last few months, and slept more deeply.
But overall, the not-really-all-that-fun dizziness was my primary experience with the drug, and I wasn't so sure that overall this was something I actually liked doing.
Still, I had the other half of the gummy to use up, so the following night I tried it again, but this time I bit the half in half and only went with 5mg. I wasn't sure if that was too little to have any effect on anyone. But an hour later, I was proved wrong.
This time, the dizziness was so minimal as to almost not exist. I had to focus to notice any of it. All the other effects -- the faraway pain, the quiet mind, the lush writing -- happened again, but perhaps to a lesser degree. (But still to a degree that I am sure I would not want to drive after taking even this small amount.) Again, no euphoria. This isn't something I would do for fun -- there is no fun in using this, at least not for me. And, again, I slept quickly and deeply.
And last night, I took the final 5mg to get it gone, and it was a repeat of the night before. 5mg appears to be my dosage. It gives me some nice effects without the ones I don't like so much. And now I have a number of other gummies waiting for me. Not sure how long they will wait. I am certainly not straining at the leash to do this again, I don't need it to be a nightly thing. But it's a nice little bit of relief and peace for those times when I can use that.
PREAMBLE: back in the 70s when I was in university, I quickly encountered people who smoked up, and I spent a lot of time hanging out with them. I never felt inclined to join them, though, because the illegality of it didn't sit well with me and I was raised to be A Good Boy and Not A Druggie. That didn't stop me from spending hours in small rooms with these folks, though. They offered me some on occasion, but didn't nag me and didn't push. And I never noticed any effects from secondhand smoke.
I made it thru three years without ever touching it, but the night after my graduation ceremony, I was visiting friends and finally reached the point where I was like, what the hell, this isn't really doing any harm. So I tried it, and nothing happened. Word got around, and when I came back to visit various friends over the next year, the word was out that "John Comic is willing to smoke up but it doesn't get him high". So they were all bound and determined to get me wasted. They watched me to make sure I was doing everything right, offering advice, and I tried and I tried, I really did. A dozen different times I tried hard and I never felt a thing. My friends were agog at my immunity superpower.
Finally I was visiting the same friend who gave me some on my graduation night, and this time he had hash and red wine, and I joined in with him. I noticed the wine but nothing else any different. And the next day I had one of the worst migraines of my life, one which I can still remember over forty years later. I realize it was probably the red wine, a known migraine trigger, but I still said, enough of the cannabis, it doesn't work for me and if it's gonna trigger my headaches too, then no, forget it. [Herewith endeth the preamble.]
In the last few years, since cannabis was legalized here, friends have been reporting some success with using it for pain relief. One of them got me a can of gummies and suggested that some people have more success with edibles. So I was willing to give it a shot.
These little jellies are 20mg each of THC derived from indica. I was told that indica is the couch potato kind, as opposed to sativa the fascinating ideas kind. So I saved it for the evening after supper. And since you are supposed to start slow, I bit in half and only took 10mg. There was a bit of a bitter aftertaste but nothing I couldn't handle.
A half hour later I didn't notice a thing. Fifteen more minutes and still nothing. I was under the impression that I should feel something by then. I was tempted to go take the other half, but was advised to be just a little more patient. And once the hour mark passed, I was glad that I didn't go back for more, because that's when things started happening.
The first and biggest thing I noticed was the dizziness. It was pronounced, and very strange. I could get up and walk fine -- it's like my mind was dizzy but my body disagreed, and insisted on behaving stably. And I didn't enjoy the dizziness. I was expecting something like the drunken euphoria that makes alcohol dizziness fun [in the moment]. But there was no euphoria with this, no mood elevation.
I also noticed that my pain felt a bit different. Not so much lessened as pushed farther away so I wasn't as aware of it, but I still knew it was there. This effect was quite minor, I wouldn't go so far as to call this pain "relief" per se.
Another effect, more pronounced, was that for the first time in my life, I felt like my thoughts were willing to take turns, like they didn't need to all crowd into my head at the same time. Like my mind has shifted into a lower gear. (A friend compared it to "having one TV screen on instead of thirty".) That was a calming experience, and the best thing about this trial. I also noticed that I seemed to have fuller access to my vocabulary. While I was chatting online with friends, I found myself coming up with slightly more interesting turns of phrase, slightly more often. It makes me want to try this while I am writing a story draft, see if my creativity is unlocked... And I settled down to sleep much faster and more easily than I have been doing the last few months, and slept more deeply.
But overall, the not-really-all-that-fun dizziness was my primary experience with the drug, and I wasn't so sure that overall this was something I actually liked doing.
Still, I had the other half of the gummy to use up, so the following night I tried it again, but this time I bit the half in half and only went with 5mg. I wasn't sure if that was too little to have any effect on anyone. But an hour later, I was proved wrong.
This time, the dizziness was so minimal as to almost not exist. I had to focus to notice any of it. All the other effects -- the faraway pain, the quiet mind, the lush writing -- happened again, but perhaps to a lesser degree. (But still to a degree that I am sure I would not want to drive after taking even this small amount.) Again, no euphoria. This isn't something I would do for fun -- there is no fun in using this, at least not for me. And, again, I slept quickly and deeply.
And last night, I took the final 5mg to get it gone, and it was a repeat of the night before. 5mg appears to be my dosage. It gives me some nice effects without the ones I don't like so much. And now I have a number of other gummies waiting for me. Not sure how long they will wait. I am certainly not straining at the leash to do this again, I don't need it to be a nightly thing. But it's a nice little bit of relief and peace for those times when I can use that.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-27 11:28 pm (UTC)