So it has been approximately 8 months since legalization of recreational cannabis use in Canada. And I jumped on the bandwagon right away to try it. Here are some findings:

• Do your research first. It's a fun thing to do, but it's not without it's consequences. You really do want to invest some time in doing your homework, figuring out if it might be viable for you, and how best to approach it.

  
  

• Make sure to do it in a safe environment. It can make you extremely vulnerable so you definitely want to be somewhere you feel safe, where there are only people you trust around. Better yet if they have experience with getting high so they can help you if you're new.

  
  

• Start slow. No, really. Very slow. My very first time actually getting high I tripped balls. I didn't know dosing, and was overconfident from alcohol experience and failing to inhale previously. I felt locked in my mind/body. I couldn't control my thoughts. It was horrifying. See next point:

  
  

• Paranoia is a very real thing. It depends on the strength and your tolerance, but you definitely need to consciously identify and combat paranoia sometimes.

  
  

• Dosage is a slippery slope. You seem to build a tolerance quite fast; or analyzed another way the severity of the effects sometimes vary. One day you get stoned and enjoy it. Other days you keep on going and don't seem to feel it. Of course, this depends on the strength of the herb and whether you're mixing with "kief".

  
  

• Kief is where most of the power is in. Kief is basically white crystals of THC that fall off the bud when you grind it. Some grinders collect it separately so you can dose it as desired, whereas others just let it mix with your ground weed. I have the former so I can't say what the experience is like with the latter. I often forget about the kief, but I'm also not trying to (as one publication put it) "melt my face off". So my kief tends to pile up in the bottom of my grinder. Which is likely part of the reason why sometimes I get stoned, and sometimes it doesn't seem to impact me as much.

  
  

• The length of time intoxicated can be very unpredictable. In general, when smoking or vaping, it's supposed to be about 4 hours. When eating/consuming activated THC it can be 8 or 12 hours. I find that it comes in waves. You go from feeling high, to feeling sober again, and then feeling high again without doing any more. It's very different from being drunk. Even when I vape, I occasionally still feel kind of high much, much later than expected. Like the next day, 8 or 12 hours since I stopped. I can be out, doing stuff because I should be sober, and suddenly feel high again momentarily. It's hard to explain.

  
  

• I've heard some people say that you can drive high. The law is clear: you cannot. But in my experience, I'd never even want to attempt it. Being high compromises my systems worse than being drunk. And I try to never drive drunk either. I'm pretty sure MythBusters even demonstrated that driving tired is worse than driving drunk. Well I think they'd find that driving stoned is even worse if they were still around. Lots of comedians joke about it, and it's hilarious material, but I really can't understand how they think it's acceptable. Of course, I sort of get it. You're sort of more conscious when you're stoned. Or at least, if you focus you kind of become unstoned momentarily. You can sort of overcome the effects if you try hard. But if I'm really stoned, I tend to lose control of conscious thought. It's as if my memory gets wiped ever 5 seconds. I can be thinking of an idea that I think is good, and ... nope, it's gone. Not even a hint what it was, like you can normally find if you try hard enough sober. Stoned, that idea is gone, and the more time you waste trying hopelessly to find it again the more ideas you're passing by that are further clouding the original lost idea.

  
  

• The way you feel high is influenced largely by your state of mind. It's best to set the mood. Put on some music. Make sure you have no responsibilities planned for the next while. You can be overwhelmed by it. Ideally, you just sort of reach a peaceful, gleeful state. Sometimes I notice my eyes "binocular" vision. And if I look in the mirror it's clear why. My eyes are squinted. Typical stoner look. I've found that the more I vape the less I notice this effect though. It used to actually transform colors too. It reminded me of the "nightvision" mode of Counter-Strike. But by binocular vision I mean that my eyes become more focused, and images directly in front of me become larger and take up more of my vision.

  
  

• Cannabis is very complex. There are two primary strains, and most of the weed you get today is somewhat a mix of both, but vendors try to track or guess at the dominant strain. The strain type influences how the cannabis will affect you. There are strains with plenty of properties. Some of them make you giggly. Some will make you tired. Some will make you energized. Often you will feel very creative, and have ideas constantly popping out of your head (which seem brilliant at the time, but in my experience most sober people roll their eyes). In addition to the strains, there are two primary compounds that influence our minds/bodies in cannabis: THC, which is the psychoactive compound that makes you feel high; and CBD, which is described as a more medicinal compound that can aide with pain relief and that sort of thing.

Initially I found weed was a perfect solution to my inability to feel like I wanted to go to bed at night. I'd stay up until 3 AM without it. Yet a bit of a vape would make me want to go to bed instantly at 9 PM. It just sort of took the fire out of me, and made me think why not go to bed. It was very useful at that stage because I often have trouble going to bed on time, which means I also have trouble waking up on time.

Unfortunately, I seem to have mostly lost that property now. I don't know if it's tolerance, or if mixing alcohol (which is called crossfading) has cancelled out that benefit, but it rarely puts me to sleep anymore.

There are so many options available on the market. From brands/vendors, to strains and hybrids, to potency, to balance of compounds, to even the consumption methods used... Pretty much every type you try will affect you slightly differently, and over time they might affect you differently too.

It's pretty clear that not enough research has been done, and it's pretty incompetent of our species as a whole to have not even done much research on it until now. It's clearly a very powerful plant. It can be loads of fun recreationally, and can offer a very safe, medicinal value too. If it's not legal yet where you live then I recommend getting on board movements to change the law. If it is legal and you haven't yet then consider it. But respect it. It's no joke. But it'll probably still make you giggle a lot...

My alcohol habit probably limits the beneficial properties that I get from cannabis because it sort of negates them. Whereas if I was just stoned I might feel content and want to go to bed, the alcohol is probably making me depressed and want to stay up and burn moonlight. So results may vary. But as with other legalization states there doesn't seem to be any real adverse affects. You do need to be conscious of memory loss. It does happen. The effects are mostly limited to when you're actually using the plant though. It goes away afterward quite quickly. But it's worth being aware of. And like I said, those rare times I suddenly feel high in public the day after are pretty alarming... It's not clear to me yet if I'm high, or if I'm just ... having some sort of after affect/flashback to the feeling. But it's pretty uncomfortable.

I'd say it probably is tolerance. When I first started smoking weed (about 25 years ago), it used to help me sleep, but that only lasted for a year or so.

As you've noticed, your tolerance can build up pretty fast. When I first started smoking, one "tinny" (about 1 gram) would last me a fortnight, but within a few years I could go through one to one and a half ounces a week.

Once you build up the tolerance, it doesn't seem to go away either. For me at least anyway. I didn't smoke anything for all of 2018, but had a few sessions at the start of this year, and I still needed to smoke at least twice as much as anyone else to get any noticeable effect.

Extended use does make it worse, at least in my experience. It probably won't be so bad if you're just smoking at weekends, or a small amount at night. I was smoking 20+ hours a day, seven days a week for years. I was also doing lots of other drugs too though, which probably hasn't helped.

Now I know Piccolo is really Matthew trolling us. That is too bat-shit crazy not to be made up. :O

Don't get me wrong. I think Piccolo is a genius savant.

Unreal...

I have not used marijuana but I have tried high concentration lemonade.
You just need three lemons with half a glass of water. It will surely get you high.

I told you not to mix liquor and weed, that's what's making you sick. And pretty soon you'll get the spins.

Whatever Audio books Piccolo is listening to, I want to get my hands on them, that or his weed.

And by the way bam-a-lam, it was a joke. Try to laugh. xD

Unless it was electric Kool-Aid. Maybe he just takes stronger stuff than you....

Ah, so you like cacao?

I thought that ID was debunked by the cheese grater scientists (I mean Apple product users).

Piccolo, this is really disturbing, but you're Making Sense^TM.