Since this is the first cannabis topic I've seen on HN, I have lots of questions/ideas/problems I want to share. I'm going to post them in no particular order. Maybe someone has a solution
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance and addiction quickly. Any solution to the tolerance problem? Quitting/breaks is obvious.
>Is investing in weed stocks encouraging drug addiction/use? Is it ethical to promote drug use?
>Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
>Is there a solution to munchies?
>Has anyone been able to convince a fortune 500 company that they need(medical) marijuana for work? As mentioned I'm significantly more focused, but I don't like the social stigma. I already have the job, it's purely a cultural/social problem.
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance and addiction quickly. Any solution to the tolerance problem? Quitting/breaks is obvious.
Switch strains frequently, try to find stuff far from the other.
>Is investing in weed stocks encouraging drug addiction/use? Is it ethical to promote drug use?
No, but also investing in weed stocks are probably not the best stocks you could invest in - that said: Invest in what you know!
>Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
Switch strains - tends to be more common in Indicas with a higher than normal CBD (or if you're into more "creative" solutions, low dose adderall with it, seems to balance out well in strains that cause munchies.)
>Has anyone been able to convince a fortune 500 company that they need(medical) marijuana for work? As mentioned I'm significantly more focused, but I don't like the social stigma. I already have the job, it's purely a cultural/social problem.
If you have a Drs note, there isn't much they can do.
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
I've read reports of this, I've anecdotally heard people say that - It's never been a problem for me (but aging certainly has)
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?
Diaphragmatic breathing for 5 minutes when you find your mind wandering.
> Switch strains - tends to be more common in Indicas with a higher than normal CBD
There is no scientific evidence backing up any claims about the effects of indica vs sativa, and no way to know which strain you're actually getting, even from dispensaries. They tend to be labeled according to the subjective experience of the person deciding how to label them. It's as meaningless as any other marketing label.
> If you have a Drs note, there isn't much they can do.
There's no federal protection, and state protections vary. Some states explicitly prohibit firing employees for off-duty medical marijuana use, but not all states with medical marijuana regulations have formal employee use regulations, and I don't think any have protections for recreational use. Additionally, even where medical use protections exist, they don't cover you being intoxicated on the job. There will be court cases that clarify all of this; meanwhile there's no definitive answer.
"There is no scientific evidence backing up any claims about the effects of indica vs sativa"
Though the research on this is also in its infancy, there has been speculation that the terpenes in cannabis play very important roles its effects.
I'm looking forward to the day when we can choose cannabis based on the various terpenes it contains, and not just on simplistic THC/CBD levels or indica/sativa distinctions.
>There is no scientific evidence backing up any claims about the effects of indica vs sativa, and no way to know which strain you're actually getting, even from dispensaries.
Even if it's the same strain cloned from the previous crop it can be different in THC/CBD content depending on growing conditions and a number of things. Even the harvest date, the drying and the curing process will affect the final product.
I agree that there are different chemical constituents in different strains, that seem to--at least anecdotally--cause different subjective effects. I specifically take exception to the indica-vs-sativa claims, which appear to be complete nonsense, and aren't backed up by any science.
I was agreeing with you. I was just pointing out further, even exactly the same plant can have different chemical constituents based on a variety of things without even taking variations between different strains into account.
Drug tests are not specific to metabolites only from scheduled sources. Because unscheduled cannabidiols trigger drug tests the same way as scheduled ones, they are ineffective at identifying illegal use.
And yes, this gets challenged frequently since there's a legal concentration of ∆9 for products sold in the US naturally derived from hemp.
Generally, if you weren't caught in possession of something scheduled, not admitting to use when presented with a "positive" drug test is enough to have it dismissed.
I worked with two different people that tried that. First guy crashed a forklift and was told he couldn't operate heavy machinery while taking any kind of depressant medication, and the second one was an armed security guard who tried explaining that his paranoid behavior was from switching cannabis strains. Under federal law it's a felony to own or possess a firearm while a user of cannabis, and the court cases so far have not been friendly to medical users.
Here is my anecdata after being a regular user for 30+ years.
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance and addiction quickly. Any solution to the tolerance problem? Quitting/breaks is obvious.
You have to limit your intake. It's really easy to over do it with pipes and bongs. You'll end up getting 10x as much as you need and blow your tolerance.
>Is investing in weed stocks encouraging drug addiction/use? Is it ethical to promote drug use?
No less ethical than investing in entertainment.
>Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
The best way is to use a vape pen and oil. Set a low wattage and then count x seconds while hitting it.
>Is there a solution to munchies?
Smoke less. It's a symptom of smoking too much. You feel more sober after eating. The hunger is your brain trying to get sober.
>Has anyone been able to convince a fortune 500 company that they need(medical) marijuana for work? As mentioned I'm significantly more focused, but I don't like the social stigma. I already have the job, it's purely a cultural/social problem.
Not fortune 500 but I've known multiple cancer patients where it was not as stigmatized.
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
Weed messes with your memory pretty significantly. If you were high when the memories formed you will struggle to remember them when not high. I learned how to play guitar while high and can't really play if I'm not. I'd need to spend a lot of time relearning how to play sober.
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance and addiction quickly. Any solution to the tolerance problem? Quitting/breaks is obvious.
This is not something I've solved but are you consuming large amounts? I can stay high for months on end, using every hour and while it's not going to hit me like the first hit, I say up. I'd like to be more regular in consumption (every 4 hours), but your guess is as good as mine
>Is investing in weed stocks encouraging drug addiction/use? Is it ethical to promote drug use?
Is investing in any US-based company encouraging war? Is investing in any company that uses Chinese production promoting slavery? Caffeine is a drug. We take lots of drugs. We are in the infancy of understanding many of them because we're young and because we've been prudes.
I'd rather see companies and people I'd trust pushing and producing drug products of any kind rather than abusers. You can see this happening in the hemp adjacent markets - lots and lots of shady fly by night companies have popped up but slowly the good ones are rising to the top. 3chi, for example is a popular and I think solid d8 company.
But as I told my dad, every single person that was selling pot on the street is trying to get into the drug business and has been for more than a decade...good luck picking winners.
>Has anyone been able to convince a fortune 500 company that they need(medical) marijuana for work? As mentioned I'm significantly more focused, but I don't like the social stigma. I already have the job, it's purely a cultural/social problem.
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
This is my main concern (and lung damange). I do notice lapses in short-term memory (though I am high when this happens, I haven't noticed a huge drop). The literature sugests it's relatively small over decades IIRC. Willie Nelson and Snoop (sample of 2) are doing ok.
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?
Caffeine is a drug. We take lots of drugs. We are in the infancy of understanding many of them because we're young and because we've been prudes.
Personally, I don't think it's going to be all that long before society's mental model of cannabis is fully turned on it's head from where it was 20 years ago. The dose makes the poison (or drug), after all.
Fundamentally, I see cannabinoids as less like alcohol, and more like a potential new category of vitamin. As we continue to learn more about the endocannabinoid system and build up increasing experimental evidence tying common maladies to endocannabinoid deficiencies, I see cannabinoid supplements eventually becoming as commonplace as e.g. B-complex and incorporated into mainstream multivitamins.
Going back to GP's questions:
Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
Tinctures/oils. Sublingual absorption is the next best thing to pulmonary absorption in terms of efficiency, but it won't cause long-term damage as inhaling hot ashes and gases might, and it'll allow you to measure the dose down to the mg.
Is there a solution to munchies?
Speaking for myself, I've been microdosing 200mg of Sunsoil full-spectrum CBD oil and 50mg of 3Chi delta-8-THC oil first thing in the morning and before bed since around the end of April.
This helps with both my sleep quality/consistency and preventing semi-regular headaches that had been causing an unhealthy reliance on NSAIDs. It doesn't cause a high or any noticeable psychoactive effect.
However, rather than "munchies", it's actually significantly reduced my appetite. Without any other deliberate change to my routine, such as calorie counting/restriction, I've dropped from 210 to 186 over the past 2.5 months with no perceptible loss in muscle strength or mass, and so far see no signs of the trend stopping before I reach my goal BF%. (I use the term "deliberate" because, although I am currently only eating one meal per day around lunch - dinner time, it isn't an intentional IF/OMAD schedule; it's just the current limit of my appetite.)
That being said, I can't definitively attribute this effect to a particular compound. It could be the delta8, it could be the CBD, it could be a different cannabinoid, it could be the interactions between some or all of them, it could be the 200 calories of MCT oil that I'm now ingesting each day (on top of what I was already taking separately pre-workout), and/or it could be the interactions of any or all of the above with the fact that I've been keto for over nine years. YMMV.
I think you might find answers to half your questions there. And please ask your own AskHN with your questions, it's better than asking a lot of questions in a comment like this—AskHNs disappear off the radar a lot slower than news stories like this, and you probably will get a lot more answers.
Cycle between different drugs. When you develop tolerance for one, switch to another.
> Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
Get a small vaporizer with degree-exact temperature control. Varying the temp even by 5 degrees between 175..230 degrees celsius produces very different types of high. Lower temperatures vaporize more CBD and less THC, leading to more body glow, while higher temps do the opposite and go to your head. Also, you don't have to inhale smoke and the dose is easier to control.
> Is there a solution to munchies?
...Eat more?
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
Weed unlocked childhood memories I didn't remember having. But it also makes me draw blank, i.e. completely forget the train of thought or conversation. I think it's a strength/power, allowing you to discard useless memories.
I know this sounds bad, but the addiction aspect can be mitigated by living life and being in positions where you need to quit smoking numerous times for whatever reasons. You learn how to master the desire. With that said, I also agree with you that it is a wonderful productivity drug. I can reliably get 2X done in a day if I add a small amount of cannabis.
Medicinal Chemist (and former cannabis consumer) here.
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance...
Interestingly, I used to notice that once I became tolerant to one strain, over a couple weeks, switching to another strain could at least partially alleviate it.
This to me is fascinating. Psychoactive effects of cannabinoids are thought to be mediated by the CB1 receptor. Cannabis strains can vary strongly in their perceived effects. Are there subtypes of the CB1 receptor differentially activated by the various cannabinoids present at different levels in the strains? For instance CB1a and CB1b? I do not think this is known.
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?
This sounds like a line from John Stewart in some stoner movie
"In 1998, Professors Raphael Mechoulam and Shimon Ben-Shabat posited that the endocannabinoid system demonstrated an “entourage effect” in which a variety of “inactive” metabolites and closely related molecules markedly increased the activity of the primary endogenous cannabinoids, anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol"
As to the productivity are you certain that you are more productive and not just feeling more productive? That's a pretty common thing with weed, it causes the brain to release dopamine which it normally does in response to you being productive.
ADHD wasn't a thing when I was a child. Does weed help with that? I've heard a lot of treating this condition with what is essentially legal amphetamines which sounds horrible to me.
It's a shame, though not surprising in the least, that the good, cheap stuff is illegal in most of the world.
Lookup THCV, it is an analog that decreases your appetite along with a host of other benefits. Like you can consume any type of cannabis and then take a little THCV to counteract the munchies.
As far as easy ways to microdose, obviously there are options such as chillums, but I personally love and use vaporizers. Very convenient, much less smell, and uses very little product. I'd recommend /r/vaporents if you are interested in learning more.
> Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
I’m not sure if this is still considered microdose, but 5mg sativa edibles hit the sweet spot for me in terms of being productive for several hours and not being too high. YMMV
I’ve also found edibles to be the best way to control dosing. Though in my case I’ve never found cannabis to be a productive drug - I mini-dosed for leisure only and to great effect.
>I like weed as a productive drug, it's stronger than caffeine for me, but I develop tolerance and addiction quickly. Any solution to the tolerance problem? Quitting/breaks is obvious.
>Is investing in weed stocks encouraging drug addiction/use? Is it ethical to promote drug use?
>Is there a way to microdose? I'd like to be able to have tiny, controlled amounts every time.
>Is there a solution to munchies?
>Has anyone been able to convince a fortune 500 company that they need(medical) marijuana for work? As mentioned I'm significantly more focused, but I don't like the social stigma. I already have the job, it's purely a cultural/social problem.
> Are my memory problems due to weed or is this just age? (When not using) I feel like I've lost lots of childhood memories and I have more difficulty than ever with names.
>If my focus is better on weed, is there something else I can do for focus that isn't drug related?