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Is Paranoia a side effect of marijuana or marijuana prohibition?

Is Paranoia a side effect of marijuana or marijuana prohibition?


  • Total voters
    48

purple_man

Well-known member
Veteran
imho, do you get "paranoid" when hitting the pub to get shitfaced?

don't think so, hence biggest part must be induced via the illegality, also cannabis can/does enchance feelings -> stronger paranoia...

blessss
 

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
Its funny because I had this discussion yesterday

one big part of my personal evolution was coming to terms that with living outside the law

at some point I had to ask myself was it worth it and if so why

was i prepared to face a jury of my peers

the answer was yes and when I accepted that I was conscientiously objecting unjust laws of prohibition I was able to let go of the fear of persecution and injustice
 
S

Spider Crab

I don't think it necessarily has to do with prohibition unless that is what you are feeling paranoid about.....

If you have paranoid tendencies about other things then i think cannabis 'can' make you more paranoid about those things......

If you have no paranoid tendencies about anything then you might not get any paranoid feelings.
 

lost in a sea

Lifer
Veteran
paranoia can come from the physical and mental/spiritual.. it's a side effect of life as much as cannabis or the war on drugs, most of which are already inside your brain anyway in some form.

certain lines and individuals unfavourably grown can end up with more disturbing cannabinoid profiles or a lack of the the more positive effecting molecules for some people.. and some people struggle with either the sativa or indica ends of the spectrum in terms of collecting their thoughts and just having a good time, letting go of the cyclic fear waves of thought.

It really is not unusual for someone to have a brain that is regulating serotonin, DMT and dopamine etc in a way that is not conducive to playing around with the persons neurochemistry at that point in their lives or ever. some people fight through anyway and have a bad time for a while till their chemistry and mind/soul balances out or give up..

IMHO it is being a bit over applied a a psychoprotectant and healer compared to the other plant teachers who are more powerful and can heal much deeper problems. Some of which can be caused by having your priorities all out of wack because your concentrating so much on growing ganja. After all it's only one of the tools available to us to enrich our lives and surely can't be a universal crutch for all that ailes.

Cannabis should be abundant to the point that none of us needed to think about it and we could get on with our lives more instead of losing so much productivity hiding in the shadows.
 
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HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
So what I'm gathering so far is that nobody really feels "paranoia" because of the plant but they do feel physical reactions that could be attributed to paranoia? Which yeah I can agree with that except I wouldn't call those physical reactions paranoia. So I think I still make a fair claim in saying that it's not the weed it's the persecution.
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Why Does Weed Make You Paranoid?

“Dude, is that a cop?” Image source
TruthOnPot.com – Although marijuana has been shown to reduce anxiety in many instances, a significant portion of users report that it can have the opposite effect as well.

Feelings of paranoia are common to both casual cannabis users and patients with schizophrenia, which has led many health experts to wonder of a possible link between the use of cannabis and psychotic disorders.

However, while evidence of marijuana causing schizophrenia remains controversial, recent research has revealed how marijuana use can cause paranoia by acting on a specific part of the brain known as the amygdala.

What is Paranoia?

Paranoia by itself is not considered a mental disorder. Rather, paranoia happens to be a natural thought process that all humans will experience at one time or another.

Paranoia can range from feelings of anxiety and fear to more extreme thoughts of delusion and irrationality. The latter may be a cause for concern, since they represent symptoms of a condition called psychosis.

Common paranoid delusions include negative beliefs that friends or family are conspiring against an individual as well as feeling spied on or followed by greater forces that wish harm.

Paranoia and Your Brain

Feeling anxious or paranoid are basic emotional responses that are wired into the human brain, specifically in a region known as the amygdala. These feelings are part of the body’s overall process of responding to factors of threat or stress.

While environmental threats or stresses can cause a variety of adaptive responses within the human body, the amygdala is what influences your emotions. Specifically, the amygdala is responsible for fear conditioning – the process of learning what to fear and how to respond to those fears.

Marijuana’s Effect on the Amygdala

Based on anecdotal evidence of marijuana’s ability to induce paranoia, a team of researchers at the University of Western Ontario decided to investigate the role of the endocannabinoid system in paranoid feelings. The study was published in 2011 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Using rats that were trained to fear certain smells, the researchers tested the effect of blocking CB1 receptors – cannabinoid receptors found primarily in the brain – in the amygdala region of the brain.

What they found seemed to explain why cannabis users have a tendency to feel paranoid. By blocking CB1 receptors, the rats failed to respond to the scents that they were trained to fear. On the other hand, when researchers gave the rats a synthetic version of THC and unblocked their CB1 receptors, the rats exhibited enhanced fear responses, demonstrating that marijuana could increase fear conditioning in the rats that were studied.

What This Means For Your Health

The results of this study might not come as much as a surprise to anyone who has used marijuana before, as paranoia seems to be an all-too-common side effect of the drug. However, what the results do tell us is that cannabis seems to enhance fear-based learning, explaining why users tend to overreact in stressful events while high.

Still, the greatest fear of many marijuana users comes from studies which suggest that marijuana use may lead to permanent psychosis and schizophrenia.

But for those who remain paranoid of developing a psychotic disorder, it may be a relief to know that evidence of a link is highly controversial. Experts have firmly stated that there are many other factors involved with developing schizophrenia, most of which are based on genetics.

http://www.truthonpot.com/2013/04/23/why-does-weed-make-you-paranoid/

fear. plain and simple.
elevated awareness (from exogenous cannabinoids) and the fear of being odd-man-out. nothing nefarious about cannabinoids enhancing ones natural fears.
 

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
I forget the specific neurological details but the plant (strain dependent to an extent) causes activity in the part of the brain that predicts outcomes

much like when we play a game of chess and visualize the potential moves in an attempt to discern the winning play a part of our mind does the same subconsciously in regards to the thing we encounter in our environment

when you add the looming potential of the police it acts as a cumulative and catalyst effecting the projections from our subconscious

you may notice that some of our instinctual fears from thousands of years ago (say the hardwired fear of snakes or spiders) are also effected

for example certain weeds set off my fear of heights
 
S

SPG*

ozzy:D

I recently had a super-strong old og that hit me with paranoia to begin with then ma head started spinning.HAD too put the spliff down and crash out.Then Bliss set in :D


Seriously not been wasted like that for yrs.. i was smoking the chem d(prob fave) and pleasantly stoked from that but then this stuff lol..fkd my day up! "wiped out the effex of the D and was replaced with a "deeper effect" imo:biglaugh:

yea i laugh now.. :woohoo:
 
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hunt4genetics

Active member
Veteran
I just wanted to bump this thread, because in the mean time more places have become legal.

I am a lover of a pure Sativas. I deep down think paranoia is fun. Kinda like how some people like scary movie.

I have never been able to smoke a pure sativa in a legal jurisdiction.
I wonder if I will feel paranoia or just the nice speed like up rush?

Any sativa lovers in legal localities?
 

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