I'm 19, I've smoked on a consistent basis for about 3/4 a year, at times using it at night for getting completely stoned (enhancing the senses, going to sleep, creative thinking etc.) and other times before social situations to counter anxiety. I believe that the key to using marijuana for SAD, and i'm sure this has been stated somewhere before, is figuring out your ideal dosage before social events. Smoking a bowl or anything which will get you completely stoned will most likely not help your SA (you'll probably get mad paranoid, and it will worsen your disorder). Moreover, smoking too much will make you tired and will totally eliminate your motivation to interact with others.
It's easy to get hooked on the feeling of getting completely stoned and then become lazy and not have enough discipline to limit your dose (for example ,you might tell yourself f-ck it and smoke a bowl or two for recreational rather than medicinal purposes since you enjoy being high so much). However, if you control yourself and smoke a small amount (i'm talking 1-3 hits depending on personal tolerance) to the point where you are more relaxed and verbally fluent, then it can counteract SAD for several hours. If you're doing this before social events, I also recommend drinking beverages with caffeine to counter the fatigue associated with marijuana use (this has worked wonders for me in that i'm relaxed but not too tired to socialize).
Although Alcohol seems to be the drug of choice for eliminating the 'shyness' associated with SAD, I've found that low dosages of marijuana work better for me. I've also discovered that smoking marijuana consistently (low doses or high doses) allows you to view the world differently and care less about what other people think when you are sober. I've gotten to the point where I don't need to smoke marijuana right before social situations like I used to since after using it for about a year it has drastically changed the way I think and almost cured my SAD.
I'll also note that I've been taking zoloft for about 8 months, and although this dramatically reduced and even eliminated my depression, I thoroughly believe that it was marijuana that alleviated my SAD and not zoloft. Marijuana will allow you to practice without anxiety in social situations and you may change from the shy one who is usually in the background to the one whom most think possess excellent people skills. For me it has been a great medication that I intend to stop permanently (since it has done its job in curing SAD) senior year in college or after I graduate.
When it's available to me, I smoke a little bit (although I prefer to ingest) before I go to bed usually just to help me sleep, but I enjoy the other benefits that come with it. I'm a chronic thinker and I find it extremely helpful that weed tends to suppress my excessive negative thinking and replace it with a sense of calm and well-being. I can focus on the pleasant sensations while listening to music, food tastes better, TV shows and movies are fascinating, and all the while I don't have to worry about anything because I am not distracted by my anxieties. I am in no way dependent on it to provide me with these positive feelings, but it's delightful while it lasts.
This Is The US On Drugs
Only cops and crooks have benefited from $2.5 trillion spent fighting trafficking.
The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America.
The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.
The first group are the drug lords in nations such as Colombia, Afghanistan and Mexico, as well as those in the United States. They are making billions of dollars every year — tax free.
The second group are the street gangs that infest many of our cities and neighborhoods, whose main source of income is the sale of illegal drugs.
Third are those people in government who are paid well to fight the first two groups. Their powers and bureaucratic fiefdoms grow larger with each tax dollar spent to fund this massive program that has been proved not to work.
Fourth are the politicians who get elected and reelected by talking tough — not smart, just tough — about drugs and crime. But the tougher we get in prosecuting nonviolent drug crimes, the softer we get in the prosecution of everything else because of the limited resources to fund the criminal justice system.
The fifth group are people who make money from increased crime. They include those who build prisons and those who staff them. The prison guards union is one of the strongest lobbying groups in California today, and its ranks continue to grow.
And last are the terrorist groups worldwide that are principally financed by the sale of illegal drugs.
Who are the losers in this war? Literally everyone else, especially our children.
Today, there are more drugs on our streets at cheaper prices than ever before. There are more than 1.2 million people behind bars in the U.S., and a large percentage of them for nonviolent drug usage. Under our failed drug policy, it is easier for young people to obtain illegal drugs than a six-pack of beer. Why? Because the sellers of illegal drugs don’t ask kids for IDs. As soon as we outlaw a substance, we abandon our ability to regulate and control the marketing of that substance.
After we came to our senses and repealed alcohol prohibition, homicides dropped by 60% and continued to decline until World War II. Today’s murder rates would likely again plummet if we ended drug prohibition.
So what is the answer? Start by removing criminal penalties for marijuana, just as we did for alcohol. If we were to do this, according to state budget figures, California alone would save more than $1 billion annually, which we now spend in a futile effort to eradicate marijuana use and to jail nonviolent users. Is it any wonder that marijuana has become the largest cash crop in California?
We could generate billions of dollars by taxing the stuff, just as we do with tobacco and alcohol.
We should also reclassify most Schedule I drugs (drugs that the federal government alleges have no medicinal value, including marijuana and heroin) as Schedule II drugs (which require a prescription), with the government regulating their production, overseeing their potency, controlling their distribution and allowing licensed professionals (physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc.) to prescribe them. This course of action would acknowledge that medical issues, such as drug addiction, are best left under the supervision of medical doctors instead of police officers.
The mission of the criminal justice system should always be to protect us from one another and not from ourselves. That means that drug users who drive a motor vehicle or commit other crimes while under the influence of these drugs would continue to be held criminally responsible for their actions, with strict penalties. But that said, the system should not be used to protect us from ourselves.
Ending drug prohibition, taxing and regulating drugs and spending tax dollars to treat addiction and dependency are the approaches that many of the world’s industrialized countries are taking. Those approaches are ones that work.
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Weed is fantastic for helping you calm down, I love getting in from a busy day and having something to take away the anxiety.
Of course its counter-productive if you do it too much and in an inappropriate way, but the same can be said of most things. One thing I would mention though, I only enjoy doing it in the safety of somewhere indoors where I will be staying for rather a long time. If I have to go out any time soon, I don't do it. I find it brings on anxiety attacks because of the paranoia. Other than that, entirely beneficial.
I find it interesting the government is still declaringthe "war on drugs" when the amount of pot grown in America has risen 10x over the pat decade or two... It's time for the feds to throw up the white flag like they had to do to end alcohol prohibition. We keep spending billions of dollars trying to stop a "problem" and it continues to grow. They're doing nothin but wasting Americans' tax dollars by continuing to fight it, and incarcerating completely innocent people (in my opinion). Pot should be treated just like alcohol, with only ppl over 21 allowed to purchase and consume it. The government would not only make a ton of money by taxing marijuana and regulating its sales, but we'd see the numbers of alcohol, cigarette, and illegal drug related deaths reduce drastically because pot is just a safer alternative to all of those things, and most people are aware of that fact.
You guys are bringing up some good views on marijuana. I agree that the key to using it medicinally is small dosing,but I'd like to add that finding the right strain is very important too - the Indica variety, which are usually darker green and shorter, bushier plants, usually work best for anxiety disorders. Unfortunately, most dealers don't know what kind of weed they have. That's why if you're using medical marijuana in the U.S. I'd advise you to move to California to do so, since that's the only state doctor's will recommend it for anxiety disorders. It's also the state with the largest selection of medical cannabis, and you always know exactly what strain you're buying when you do so.
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 294 Location: 44/m/miami
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:39 pm Post subject:
SilentType wrote:
That's why if you're using medical marijuana in the U.S. I'd advise you to move to California to do so, since that's the only state doctor's will recommend it for anxiety disorders. It's also the state with the largest selection of medical cannabis, and you always know exactly what strain you're buying when you do so.
Peafe
We can't all move to California. I intend to stand my ground and fight for my rights.
Bob Marley wrote:
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Preacherman, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. Come on!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. Jah!
Get up, stand up! (Jah, Jah!)
Stand up for your rights! (Oh-hoo!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Don't give up the fight! (Life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (So we can't give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (Lord, Lord!)
Get up, stand up! (Keep on struggling on!)
Don't give up the fight! (Yeah!)
We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (What you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)
So you better:
Get up, stand up! (In the morning! Git it up!)
Stand up for your rights! (Stand up for our rights!)
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (Don't give it up, don't give it up!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Stand up for your rights! (Get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Don't give up the fight! (Get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight!
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I agree that we need to fight for our rights. But the reality is, that in this "democracy" we call the U.S., I'm not going to wait years or decades or more for these ridiculous laws to be changed. I'm going to go where I can grow my medicine without problems with local law enforcement. I've actually set up a situation where I'll be moving into a house with fellow medical marijuana patients, sharing rent and bills, therefore saving money. It's gonna be quite interesting, to say the least...
Joined: Dec 07, 2006 Posts: 420 Location: 44/m/miami
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:28 am Post subject:
Tom Petty wrote:
Let me run with you, tonight
I'll take you on, a moonlight ride
There's someone I used to see
But she don't give a damn for me
But let me get to the point, let's roll another joint
And turn the radio loud, I'm too alone to be proud
You don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels, to be me
People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
Memory and a dream
1-So let's get to the point
Let's roll, another joint
Let's head on down the road
There's somewhere I gotta go
You don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels, to be me
My old man was born to rock
He's still tryin' to beat the clock
Think of me what you will
I've got a little space to fill
(repeat 1)
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