More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

On the plus side, I recently discovered low THC, high CBD strains that offer the anti anxiety benefits without loss of sharpness or short term memory. There’s almost no psychoactive effect, so this won’t get you high, but it will chill you out and help you get in the zone if you struggle with anxiety or PTSD symptoms.

People always frame the discussion of drug overdoses around lethality, and on that scale marijuana compares very favorably to every other drug, and advocates tend to end the discussion there.

But on the scale of how horrific the experience is as the person overdosing, I don't think there's anything worse than marijuana. A large overdose on marijuana causes an absolutely torturous and sanity-questioning 12-hour episode where you feel like your insides are dying and like your brain's basic function has been impaired on a fundamental level, and those 12 hours feel like 3 days and it feels like it's never going to end.

It's like Being John Malkovich, but you've transported into the brain of a severely afflicted mental patient.

Enjoy your marijuana and all, but this current popular narrative that it's like skittles or something is taking things a little too far. It's safe in moderation, but it's also true that using it to excess is mentally and socially harmful and you can have a truly horrific time on it.

In PiHKAL, Alexander Shulgin, wrote:

"I personally have chosen some drugs to be of sufficient value to be worth the risks; others, I deem not to be of sufficient value. For instance, I used a moderate amount of alcohol, generally in the form of wine, and -- at the present time -- my liver function tests are completely normal. I do not smoke tobacco. I used to, quite heavily, then gave it up. It was not the health risk that swayed me, but rather the fact that I had become completely dependent upon it. That was, in my view, a case of the price being unacceptably high.

Each decision is my own, based on what I know of the drug and what I know about myself.

Among the drugs that are currently illegal, I have chosen not to use marijuana, as I feel the light-headed intoxication and benign alteration of consciousness does not adequately compensate for an uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting time.

I have tried heroin. This drug, of course, is one of the major concerns in our society, at the present time. In me, it produces a dreamy peacefulness, with no rough edges of worry, stress or concern. But there is also a loss of motivation, of alertness, and of the urge to get things done it is not any fear of addiction that causes me to decide against heroin; it is the fact that, under its influence, nothing seems to be particularly important to me.

I have also tried cocaine. This drug, particularly in its notorioous "crack" form, is the cause celebre of today. To me, cocaine is an aggressive pusher, a stimulant which gives me a sense of power and of being completely with it, on top of the world. But there is also the inescapable knowlege, underneath, that it is not true power, that I am not really on top of the world, and that, when the drug's effects have disappeared, I will have gained nothing. There is a strange sense of falseness about the state. There is no insight. There is no learning. In its own distinctive way, I find cocaine to be as much an escape drug as heroin. With either one, you escape from who you are, or -- even more to the point -- from who you are not. In either case, you are relieved for a short time from awareness of your inadequacies. I frankly would rather address mine than escape them; there is, ultimately, far greater satisfaction that way.

With the psychedelic drugs, I believe that, for me, the modest risks (an occasional difficult experince or perhaps some body malaise) are more than balanced by the potential for learning. And that is why I have chosen to explore this particular area of pharmacology.

What do I mean when I say there is a potential for learning? It is a potential, not a certainty. I can learn, but I'm not forced to do so; I can gain insight into possible ways of improving the quality of my life, but only my own efforts will bring about the desired changes."

- Alexander Shulgin