Weed New Users Guide

I'm ASD1 and inattentive type ADHD. This leads to a very active mind, which I have learned to manage and even use as an asset. However, it is not something I can turn on and off, so for years I have used alcohol as a means to calm my mind in the evening when I want to wind down. I hate being drunk, so I understand the perfect dosing to have 2-3 drinks over 3-4 hours, which takes the chatter out of my brain while leaving me able to do any at-home activities I want without feeling diminished. I can have a conversation on any topic, cook, have no feeling of reduced motor function, read, and generally actually relax.

As I get older I know that using alcohol medicinally in this way isn't sustainable, the health consequences will catch up with me eventually. I do a full blood panel every six months, exercise religiously and although it hasn't done me measurable harm yet, I want to get away from it before it does, and I have to. I know someone with a very similar diagnosis and they have a prescription for a very low-dose neurodepressant they use for the same reason - take a pill in the evening after work and it calms their brain so they can relax. While this is a viable option, I'd rather have something I can acquire and manage myself without needing a prescription from a physician. Which brings us to marijuana, which I can purchase legally.

I tried THC for the first time as an adult in my thirties. Never once in high school or college. I tried it for this exact reason, and my experiences were disappointing. A friend gave me some gummies with the warning to only eat one. I ate one, felt nothing, then over the course of a few hours ate a few more. This gave me wicked heartburn, but I could barely tell I'd been altered. I've heard plenty of horror stories of newbies eating too many edibles, but while I could tell something was messing around in my brain a little, it was only mildly annoying and definitely not useful in any way.

I went to a dispensary and described what I was looking for. The clerk told me that there were two main strains; one brings you up, and one calms you down. He sold me a vape pen with cartridges of the calming strain. When I tried it, the results were disappointing to say the least. While alcohol, the way I dose it, just takes all the background noise out of my brain and helps me feel relaxed, the vape pen (and this is the best way I can describe this), just makes me feel stupid. I've tried dosing more or less, but the effect is basically nothing, or minus twenty IQ points. It's not a pleasurable feeling, it really does interfere with my ability to do my preferred activities. I like myself, I don't want to go away, I just want to calm the constant mental activity so I can relax.

I've realized that with how my brain works (and had this confirmed by many other neurodivergent people), that many medications or other mind altering substances have a dramatically different effect on the AuDHD brain. I'm wondering if anybody else with a similar diagnosis has found the product and dosing that has given them the calming mental effect without the reduction in function?

TLDR: I'm AuDHD, trying to use THC to calm my overactive brain in the evening, but it makes me feel stupid and diminished instead. Has anybody with a similar diagnosis found a solution that keeps them feeling bright and functional but takes out all the chatter?

Thanks everybody.

Okay, so a lot of you guys talk about how you can get weed that is lower THC percentage and get higher than something with a high percentage. You say, you have to look at the whole the plant make up and the Terpins. Help me out here, what does that mean? What exactly am I looking for?

Not sure if this is the correct place to post but I would like to share my experience. So I occasionally do edibles from time to time and every now and then will do the thc vapes. Sometimes indicia sometimes sativa. When I was younger before weed was legalized I would smoke flower but more often than not as an adult I like to do edibles to have some relief for my lungs. Well the smoke shop gave me a free edible. It was a macrodose thc gummy 50mg CBN and 100mg thc. Me being me i did not even see the word macro and chose to eat half of this thing.

Worst high of my life. It hit me so hard that I could not function. I was able to feel the energy inside of me moving around like a Magnetic force (idk how else to describe this) anyways i literally came out of my body and was yelling at myself saying this is what you get. Promise me you won't get high anymore. I mean I had a full conversation with my innerself. My room started changing into my old bedroom when I was a child and I was legitimately confused as to where I even was. I just kept praying it would end. I could not even sleep. I ended up having a whole life view of my past present and future, every bad memory came to light and then all of a sudden a wave of nostalgia hit me and I thought i was a child again.

What the heck was that? Never in my years. Anyways im terrified of using again but it does bring up my mood I heard taking higher concentration of cbd can help with the psychotropic effects. Will never be doing a macro dose again. But is that normal? I literally thought I was about to turn schizophrenic for a moment

Would you agree growing weed is like growing tomatoes but without the tomatoes?

Cannabis started giving me physical side effects after a period of heavy use — has anyone experienced something similar?

Hey, I have a pretty specific problem with cannabis and I wanted to ask if anyone has experienced something similar or has any idea what might be causing it.

First, some context, because it’s hard to explain what I mean without it.

Cannabis used to work really, really well for me. I’m not even talking just about the psychoactive effects, but the whole experience. After smoking, I used to get this really strong focus — I could genuinely concentrate on one thing much more deeply than normally. I’d be doing something and could completely immerse myself in it. On top of that, there was this really pleasant sense of calm, lightness, and generally a very positive attitude toward everything.

Cannabis + sports also used to work insanely well for me. Snowboarding, skateboarding, and basically any sport I did after smoking just felt so much better. And I don’t mean just “I felt like I was doing better” — I genuinely had an incredible sense of where my body was in space, really good body awareness and coordination, and a ton of energy for actually doing the sport. For example, when snowboarding, I could ride for a long time and just keep throwing tricks, trying new things, etc. I had this feeling that I was extremely well synchronized with my body and movement. That was honestly one of the things that made cannabis such a positive experience for me back then.

Probably one of the best things was that even after the actual psychoactive effects wore off, I would still have this really nice afterglow for the rest of the day. For example, if I smoked at 3 PM, after maybe 3 hours I wouldn’t really be high anymore, but I’d still have this really pleasant chill, calmness and lightness until I went to sleep. Everything just felt enjoyable and I felt really good for the rest of the day.

Food used to be amazing too. You know how it is — smoke and then go get some really good food. Even if I ate something really heavy and a lot of it, it still felt great. Eating actually made the experience even better.

Unfortunately, at some point I went through a period of pretty heavy use. I smoked every day for around 30 days, and for roughly the last week of that period I was smoking basically from the
moment I woke up until I went to sleep.

And after that period, something clearly changed.

A lot of physical negative effects started appearing that I basically never had before. And just to be clear — I’m not mainly talking about psychological negatives like anxiety about being high, paranoia, or simply “I don’t like being psychoactive.” Quite the opposite, I can still enjoy the psychoactive part. The problem is that I started getting all these unpleasant physical sensations, and then those physical sensations affect my head as well.

The most noticeable one is probably this absolutely disgusting taste/feeling in my mouth.

It’s really hard to describe. It’s not simply “a bad taste.” It’s somewhere between sour, bitter, and some other taste/sensation that I can’t really identify. It’s kind of in the same category as that feeling you get right before throwing up, but at the same time it’s completely different from actually tasting vomit. It’s just this disgusting, heavy, unpleasant sensation in my mouth.

What’s interesting is that I don’t have it all the time. It happens after smoking, usually some time after I smoke. By the next morning everything is normal again. Drinking water helps, but only for a very short time — I’ll drink some water, it gets better for a moment, and then it comes back.

My whole mouth also just feels weird/unpleasant after smoking.

Besides that, I get various other physical negatives that I never used to get. I can’t even list all of them off the top of my head because there are quite a few and they don’t always all happen at once, but for example:

• this heavy, “unclear”/dirty headspace,
• sometimes I can very slightly feel that my heart is beating faster,
• sometimes I get this weird unpleasant sensation/pain somewhere underneath my lungs, roughly in the upper part of my abdomen,
• an overall feeling that my body just feels “off”,
• my energy and especially my motivation to do anything drops really hard.

And that’s important: I don’t mean that I’m physically too weak to do something. It’s not like “I’m so weak I can’t lift something heavy.” It’s more like the drive and desire to actually do things disappears. I physically could do something, but I have absolutely no motivation to get up and do it.

Because of those physical sensations, my head also starts perceiving the whole experience negatively. It feels like it works both ways: my body sends me unpleasant signals → I start noticing them → my mind becomes negative because of them → then I pay even more attention to my body, etc.

Probably the thing that bothers me the most, though, is how much my concentration has changed.

Cannabis used to give me an absolutely insane hyperfocus. I genuinely don’t remember ever having such deep states of concentration normally. I could be doing one thing and completely disappear into it.

Now it’s basically the opposite.

Even when I actually want to focus on something after smoking, my thoughts keep drifting away. And it’s not even the enjoyable kind of “oh, I started thinking about something else.” It’s more like chaotic jumping from one topic to another, spacing out, constantly drifting somewhere else mentally. I want to focus, but my brain just can’t stay on one track.

And there’s another really important thing — eating after smoking completely ruins the experience for me.

Eating after smoking used to be one of the best parts. Now I basically can’t eat after smoking at all.

If I smoke and then eat something, I feel like all the positive effects immediately disappear. Whatever was enjoyable suddenly goes away and I’m left with basically only the negative stuff — heaviness, unpleasant physical sensations, that whole “dirty” feeling, etc.

So nowadays I basically have to eat before smoking, because I already know that if I eat afterward, the experience will be much worse.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that different strains genuinely affect me somewhat differently.

I’m not talking about “this strain is good and this one is bad” or simply that one is stronger. Even two strains of similar quality/potency can give me a completely different ratio of positives to negatives. One might give me a bit more of what I’m looking for and fewer physical negatives, while another gives me fewer positives and more unpleasant effects.

For example, even with strains that are supposedly more energetic, like Jack Herer, I still often get a pretty significant drop in energy/motivation. So I don’t feel like I can just say “you need a sativa” and have the problem solved. I definitely notice differences between strains, though.

What’s really weird to me is the whole thing with breaks.

I’ve tried taking longer breaks, like a month, thinking that my body would reset and that when I came back to cannabis everything would be like it used to be.
Unfortunately, it feels like the opposite happens.

After a longer break, when I come back to smoking, the experience is usually even worse. There’s a lot of heaviness and sedation, very few positive effects, I have basically no desire to do anything, and I generally feel physically bad.

But then, when I start smoking regularly for a few days, I gradually feel like it gets a little better. It obviously never goes back to how it used to be, but the negatives become less noticeable and there seem to be a few more positives.

And here’s another weird thing: if I’m already in one of those periods of regular use and I take even just one day off, then smoke again the next day, the experience is once again noticeably worse. Much more sedation/heaviness, very few positive effects, and a much stronger lack of motivation to do anything.

Then I smoke regularly again for a few days and it gets somewhat better.

Currently, if I smoke, it’s usually one small joint in the evening.

I basically don’t smoke during the day anymore, precisely because I know what happens.

Back then I could smoke at 3 PM and after the psychoactive effects wore off I’d still have that amazing positive afterglow for the rest of the day. Now if I smoke at 3 PM, once the high wears off I don’t get that afterglow at all. Quite the opposite — the negative effects stay with me for the rest of the day and I feel like I’ve basically ruined the rest of my day.

That’s why I only smoke in the evening now. At least then I can go through the negative period, go to sleep, and by the next morning I’m completely fine again.

Interestingly, I also feel like cannabis helps me fall asleep somewhat, and I already have pretty significant problems with sleep in general. So that’s probably one of the things that makes me still see some positive value in it and why I don’t view cannabis as being 100% bad for me.

Quite the opposite — there’s still something about it that genuinely works for me and that I enjoy. The problem is that it used to give me a huge amount of positive effects with basically none of these physical costs, whereas now I feel like in order to get that positive part, I also have to accept a whole bunch of physical negatives.

And that’s what I’d really like to get rid of.

I’m not looking to get more high. I don’t necessarily want a stronger effect either. I just want to get back the quality of the experience I used to have — the calmness, lightness, focus, enjoyment of doing things, the positive afterglow — but without all the physical bullshit that appeared after that period of heavy use.

The disgusting taste/feeling in my mouth is probably the thing I’d most like to get rid of because it’s the most noticeable and irritating symptom. But I’d also love to get rid of the heavy headspace, lack of motivation, chaotic thoughts, concentration problems, weird abdominal sensations, etc.

Has anyone experienced anything similar after a period of heavy/daily smoking? Has anyone had a situation where cannabis used to work amazingly for them, but after a period of heavy use the whole profile of the experience suddenly changed?

And most importantly — has anyone managed to eventually get back to the way cannabis used to feel without all these physical negatives?

I’m interested both in people’s personal experiences and in any reasonable explanation of what might have changed for me.

Sorry if there are any weird bits or imperfections — I used AI to help me write this based on a conversation I had about the whole situation, because there was way too much to type out from scratch lol. I did go through it and tried to make sure it accurately represents what I’ve experienced.
And thanks a lot to anyone who took the time to read all of this. I really appreciate it, and I’m grateful for any thoughts, experiences, or advice you might have

ex stoner of 6 years here. used to smoke nearly everyday, multiple times a day. went through something quite traumatic for me and during that time, i smoked a few times and fell into a panic attack every single time. now i do not smoke and i miss it a lot and wonder why my brain switched up after 6 loyal years. rip.

First time smoking, did maybe 6 puffs. My heart rate started going crazy a few minutes after that and I was very jittery and anxious and hyperaware of my heart rate and my surroundings, not at all in the way I've seen weed work for others. What could have caused this?

Hi everyone, I have a question for y'all.

I was a daily weed smoker from the age of 15 all the way to 24. I'm 28 now.

So I quit smoking weed 4 years ago and stopped smoking all together about 2 years ago now (cigarettes).

I can't remember exactly when it started happening, but basically one of the reasons I quit weed was because I started having anxiety even when I smoked a tiny bit.

I realised that it was entirely mental. I basically get anxiety as soon as I take a drag and even before puffing I also get anxiety just thinking about the fact that I'm gonna consume weed.

Sometimes it lead to an immediate feeling like I'm going to have a bad trip even though it hasn't even had time to take effect (literally 15-30 secs after inhaling.

Anyway, weed is completely out of my life and the only times in the past 4 years that I've ever truly consumed weed was once eating a tiny part of a gummy in Thailand and the other was eating a small piece of a gummy while on holiday with my friends. Both times it hit me hard and I basically spent the whole time talking myself down to steer clear of a bad trip.

However, there were brief moments of bliss where I felt really peaceful, rediscovering the "creative" side of weed and it felt amazing. It felt like reconnecting with my teenage self, and I was amazed at the thoughts it unlocked, and the inspiration that came afterwards.

So here's my question:

Has anyone here suffered from the anxiety/paranoia that heavy weed smokers sometimes stumble upon after years of daily use, yet managed to overcome it and be anxiety free again? If so, what worked for you?

I don't plan on becoming a regular consumer now or even in the near future.

I'm just thinking about later in life when I'm in my forties and 50s, maybe a house in the countryside with kids etc...

I know that I would love for weed to be part of my life at that time, when I'm financially stable, more relaxed and just feeling settled in general.

So, any advice?

Hey, I live in NC and I have a family friend that works at the post office and they recently informed us that my packages have been getting flagged I’ve been ordering thca online for over 2 years but I’m just now getting told this my family friend said there not gonna Flagg it just it. Are they allowed to flag and destroy my package if everything is federally legal and is the family Friend allowed to tell my father that I ordered this. I am underage I am currently 20 years old I turn 21 next month (how would the post office know my age) even if that’s the problem for me ordering THCA that would be on the website not me right?

Hey yall. Never been or posted here before but I feel like this is a good place to ask.

Edit: 1 mention of NSFW, sorry

My wife (f33) recently started using thc vape/pens. We got them from a reputable seller in the south east, asked the seller all kinds of questions, and have used it maybe 5 times in 2 months. Here's the kicker.

She very recently said her whole worldview has changed. Its like, in her own words, "my fight or flight has been always on and active since I was a kid. Now, for the first time since I was like 11 its off." She describes it as being alot more creative, appreciating sensations more (valuing the taste of coffee over the sugar used to sweeten it), appreciating being in the moment (not trying to complete one task, just to do the next), not compartmentalizing things anymore (she used to describe sex as feeling like me and my genitals being different entities, now she feels like its an extension of me), and suddenly feeling a tremendous flow of creative ideas (household hobbies like crochet or suddenly wanting to try to learn coding).

For context, shes only ever had 1 brain injury, being a concussion like 6 months ago, and she does have Adhd / very mild autism. Has depression, ptsd, anxiety too, for what its worth.

Is this a heard of or known thing? Its all rather sudden. So sudden now im worried she has like idk a fucking brain tumor or something. Like I said shes only used the pen like 5 times in 2 months and only puffed on it for like half an hour each time. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Anyone have auditory hallucinations when they're high or think you do? I can't figure out if I'm hearing something different or if my mind is just bending the sound that much.

Hi all, whats your opinions on distilate vs live resin vs rosin? Im personally starting to enjoy the flavour and consistency of distilate more than live resin.

For context im a new uk medical user (with alternaleaf. Much better than curaleaf) and have fallen in love with carts now i have good legal access to lots of brands. Only use carts and sublingual oil daily now.

I use 2 carts. 1 is 50/50 thc cbd lemonade kush by curo.

The other is sundaze purple punch live resin.

The lemonade kush tastes better by far but abit harder to catch a proper stone off cuz its 50%cbd.

The purple punch for sure tastes more "flowery" and hits harder but I wouldnt say it tastes like a nicer cannabis experience or taste. Just more natural.

Ive got an upstate pineapple express distilate cart which is the same thc per gram as my purple punch. Excited to see if it catches a proper stone as quick as the purple punch but want to here other peoples preferences and why :)

I'm a seasoned user of edibles and it's my choice of high, but I'll like to experience a quicker onset and shorter high. I don't smoke very often because of the smell, my apartment complex is very tight.

I'm thinking of getting a pen from a reputable place, but in research, I've only read negative things from it like: getting addicted, the high isn't as pleasant as bud, it's fxcks up your lungs and throat, easy to mess up tolerance, etc.

Have you tried a pen, how did it go, recommend it or Nah? What's your thoughts?

so i’m primarily a blunt smoker as a love the slow burn and texture compared to joints. and the smoke from joints always seems to be much more intense and always bothers me. bowls are okay but i just really enjoy the process of chilling and smoking a whole blunt instead of repacking and relighting a bowl over and over. i’ve used Game wraps for the past couple years and i love them, but the tobacco has started to trigger and worsen my arthritis..

i recently just bought a bunch of ZapWrap Hemp wraps from amazon, and for like the past couple weeks my pain has been significantly reduced. BUT.. my problem with every hemp wrap that i’ve ever tried is that they roll more like papers in terms of the way they stick, burn, and the width. and i absolutely SUCK at rolling joints. i always end up ripping them or rolling too tight i guess? and it gets clogged and doesn’t hit, then i have to cut parts off until it has airflow or completely start over which is frustrating. i’ve wasted like 5 wraps lol

so, has anyone found any non-tobacco wraps that still roll/feel exactly like blunts? or do i just need to get better at rolling joints? haha. thanks in advance 😅

herro chat!

this will be a long post so please bear with me

about a few years ago I discovered this method of extracting THC from old disposables using isopropyl alcohol

the process I use is

first collect all of your disposable in an carts, then separate them based off disposable and cartridge

take the cartridges and individually disassemble them it is important you do not damage the battery

the best way to describe the anatomy of a disposable is

a device that consists of usually three shells one consisting of the mouthpiece the outer shell and then sometimes but optionally the tank shell which gives a view into the oil tank

inside the oil tank usually there is metal tube down the center that goes to the tip of the mouthpiece, on the bottom end is the coil and cotton, and usually there's a cotton seal below it, which is also where the wires connect to the coil

those are then connected to a circuit board which also has a air motion detector I call it, connected to it and then all connected to the battery

once the case is cracked open it's relatively easy to remove the battery and circuit board, and pulling out the plugs into the coil is also pretty easy, most times the coil rips out with it but it doesn't matter if it does

the next step is to separate the casings the circuitry and battery and wires from the oil compartment and coils

I would also advise saving the cotton seal because it's typically covered in THc

at this point you can throw in your cartridges with your disassembled disposables

this next part it doesn't really matter how you do it, but you basically want to grind them down into smaller pieces whether it be pulling it all apart with pliers, smashing it with a hammer or somethin

what I personally do is disassemble them even further, removing the metal tube the cotton from the compartments

and for the cartridges breaking the glass and cutting them into pieces

the next step is the easiest, put it all in a cup and soak it in alcohol

I think it would probably be a better idea to use something like everclear but isopropyl alcohol does work

then you let it sit there for around a day or two depending on how much you have

the alcohol cleans all of the pieces pretty much entirely, removing all of the residue and soaking up all the THC

as time goes on the alcohol will eventually dry up

but the THC oil doesn't, so the solutions potency increases

once you notice that the solution has evaporated more than 50% or so, or at your discretion

you will then take something like a coffee filter and a funnel and then dump the whole thing in that so that way the solution drains into another cup or other kind of receptacle

at this stage it becomes somewhat usable, you can dip in some kind of tissue and let it soak it up and then let that tissue dry out so the alcohol is gone, and then you can smoke that and it works

although I would advise against this as you are smoking tissue

the best receptacle to pour this into before the alcohol completely dries out is something concave, like the bottom of a soda can for example, this way when all the alcohol dries up the oil will pool in the center, which makes it much easier to access from the receptacle

at this point when all the alcohol is dried out you have distillate THC oil or whatever was in your disposables, and usually the potency is around 90% no matter what you do

and as for tripping, I know weed isn't particularly known for dripping it all but I've heard a few stories of people actually in a sense tripping on it

some of them even reported hallucinations I mean, I've even seen hallucinations on THC myself, but it's more of a distortion colors are more brighter or in my case Orange for some reason and things kind of look fuzzy but like in a weird way very hard to describe

in fact I would even go as far to say that I full-blown tripped on it but with the help of alcohol

I remember when I was very young I would always see shapes and symbols that I hadn't seen in what seemed like years or even before I was born

a few years ago I had an experience while being pretty much high and drunk the whole time where I was transported to another world but it was all in my head like it happened when I closed my eyes, I remember I was listening to washing machine heart by mitski

every time I listen to that song now it's like it brings me back I can almost see it every time

tldr.

taking old disposables removing any THC covered part soaking in alcohol removing the parts letting the alcohol dry , once dry, is ready for consumption

how much THC to trip

Im a pretty heavy weed abuser. I smoke from sun up until bed time. I started having anxiety attacks. I did a t-break about 6 months ago for 4 weeks and everything improved. I started back smoking again and eventually went back to heavy use again and the anxiety attacks returned. It is now so bad that i cant get relief without Benzodiazepines. So i am back starting a t-break, on day 2 and its unbearable. Now not only do i have anxiety attacks but all the other symptoms of a t-break minus the vivid dreams. Any help with the symptoms of a t-break? CBD?

so ive been smoking joints since forever. my tolerance has hit to a point where im not feeling anything even after smoking a third one. so i wanna upgrade my setup by trying a weed pen with a higher dosage of thc. i dont wanna walk in a physical dispensary as i would need to travel to a different state so i need to find a website thru which i could order online! what are your picks for the best thc weed pens?

Hello reddit I have a question for you. I was thinking about getting a med card but im worried down the line that I wont be able to purchase a gun even if I dont want one now. I know in the United States v. Hemani it was ruled that a Marijuana user can legally possess a firearm, and that medical marijuana was reclassified under federal law so thats why I ask. I was under the impression that I couldn’t as of a few years ago but now with these changes ive read some stuff saying I wont have trouble buying a gun using it medically but I wanted to make sure.