On Cannabis

And How It's Effects Influenced Me

I began smoking Marijuana when I was a senior in high school, maybe six months before I turned 18. At first it was no different than drinking alcohol, it was just an experience that made me not sober, a fun contrast to regular life, an escape from the normal mind, which had frankly become stale, dull, boring, painful. At that stage of my life I was looking for an escape, from normalcy, from my mind. I was looking for something that was going to make me feel something new, something exciting, something forbidden. Alcohol and Marijuana were just that, an escape. It wasn’t until after college that I would realize that alcohol was not for me, but it was in my freshmen year of college that Marijuana’s role for me would drastically change.

About a year into smoking on the weekends, I was beginning to get used to the feeling of Marijuana. At first, its effects are quite intense, and seemingly inexplicable. When imbibing heavily enough, time slows down, things that you thought you knew are suddenly different, as if viewed in a new way or for the first time. This makes things seem funny, or scary, because you are seeing them from a new perspective, one you never thought possible, so the fear, or hilarity, that ensues is purely due to the surprise of seeing this “thing” that you thought you knew, in a totally different way. It’s almost like being in a fun house of mirrors, these mirrors are distorted and curved, so the reflections seen are similarly distorted, showing us things in a way that we are not used to seeing it, potentially from a perspective that we normally don’t see. Like a fun house of mirrors, these reflections can either be funny or scary depending on your frame of mind, however after a while, once one becomes used to the experience of these reflections and distortions, one starts to be no longer surprised or confused by what they are seeing and feeling.

A popular quote from Bob Marley, a poster of which I had hanging on my dorm room wall, goes “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself”. Imagine that Marijuana causes a giant mirror to be brought down and placed right in front of you, forcing you to look at the reflection. This reflection shows you things about yourself that you don’t normally look at, potentially things that you don’t want to see, or are avoiding. I believe that people who have a bad time using marijuana are experiencing this in some form, the substance is not “fun” for them like the zeitgeist would have people believe it will be, for them it’s a tough lesson, taking them through the darkest, potentially most painful, aspects of themselves. The reason for this is the same reason that Marijuana is considered a psychedelic, most people don’t realize that it is in this category, but cannabis is a lower strength psychedelic. It does what other psychedelics do, a hypothesis that I’ve been developing for some time now, which is that these substances can start one on a microcosm of the hero’s journey, or spiritual journey, which forces us to deal with our personal issues, our shadow selves, culminating in the potential for ego death and the revelation that comes after. I will be going further into what this “spiritual journey” is in a later post, but for now I’ll say that cannabis was one of the factors that led me down the beginning stages of my path on this road towards personal discovery, truth, and understanding.

Once one becomes more used to the effects of cannabis, many of the initial, more jarring, aspects of “being high” begin to fade away. Some speak about tolerance being a big factor but more important than just chemical tolerance is practiced experience with the altered state. This is why marijuana is given the label of “gateway drug”, because it can be intense at first, giving one the taste for an intense “high”, but then regular use doesn’t offer the same intensity so people often seek out other drugs to give them the intense effect they are seeking. And this can be true for a lot of people, weed does become far less intense with some practice, however I think any altered state can become normalized with enough practice, even very intense ones brought on by stronger substances. So in that sense weed is only a gateway drug because regular use of it is actually so tame that thrill seekers end up opting for something else, and it’s that something else that is often not as forgiving as cannabis.

My point here is that cannabis is much more than just a thrilling experience, much more than a “fun time on the weekends” like drinking is. At first it can feel like that, but its true value actually comes once the initial shock of the experience has worn off and one can actually get comfortable in the altered state it creates. Once one has achieved this relationship with the plant, then one will find that “high” state of cannabis might actually be giving them greater control over their thoughts and mind than they normally have, their focus actually sharpened rather than dulled. The kind of mental energy that it takes to dive deeply into something is greatly enhanced. Most people who smoke are familiar with falling into a rabbit hole on the internet, its a pretty common thing for anyone, but when under the influence of cannabis, one could find themselves hours deep in some Wikipedia vortex that they had not ever once desired to know about before. I’m suggesting that this increase in mental energy, with practice, can be grabbed hold of and directed purposefully. For example, when in meditation after smoking cannabis, if I can collect myself well enough to reign in the excess energy, I can go deeper and longer with my meditations than usual, often far deeper, my focus more intact, and my stamina boosted.

This is contrary to the popular belief that marijuana dulls the senses and reaction time like alcohol does. The mainstream imagery of the “stoner” is a slow, unaware, zombie-type human who experiences reality on a delay of about 2 seconds. This couldn’t be further from the truth of my experience. I have often smoked cannabis before playing sports like basketball, only to find my reaction speed increased actually, if nothing else, potentially because cannabis helps me to get into my body and act without thinking, a state often called “flow-state” or being “in the zone”, in basketball we call it being “on fire”. It is a state where instead of taking time to consciously think about what your next move is going to be, you let your body’s knowledge take over, allowing your actions to be more of a reflex than a purposely thought out plan. If one has put in the practice to achieve “muscle memory”, which is enough hours of practice in something (with correct form) to create a habit wherein one’s body knows how to do a thing and will never forget (common examples of this are riding a bike, or driving a car), then while in the state of letting your body take over, one will move slightly faster, and often be more successful with their actions, due to the fact that their mind was not as involved. Meaning that there were less ways in which one’s mind could have gotten in the way of a process that didn’t need its intervention any more. To be clear, practice and muscle memory are an essential function of this state, one cannot enter “flow state” with something they are so inexperienced with that they actually need to think about what they are doing in order to do it. I will most likely write a piece diving deeper on flow state as well in the future, because I feel like there’s a lot more to talk about with this, but I’m currently talking about something else.

Potentially the reason why the word “stoner” has the connotation that it does is due to a misunderstanding of this ability that cannabis has to help one more easily enter “flow state”. To the modern western view, the idea of not thinking about ones actions before doing them is preposterously reckless, and in some ways they might be right, but from the perspective of eastern philosophies, one who can act freely in their body without the mind getting in the way might just be enlightened. The key distinction being what one actually does while in this “flow state”. The western fear is that without properly thinking through the consequences of one’s actions one could cause harm, the eastern fear being that one could also cause harm by over-thinking one’s actions. The happy middle ground seems to be that with the initial inclusion of trust and understanding, trust that one’s intentions are of good will for one’s self and others and an innate or learned understanding of what might cause harm to one’s self and others, then action in the flow state would be good or right action. I think society itself may not be ready for the flow state and the trust in others’ capacity for selflessness that it might require, nor is it ready for the connotations that accepting something like flow state as a possible function of reality has for us as a species and what it means for our society at large in a moralistic or biological way.

Because of this, cannabis has be shunned, rejected, denied, and even feared as a means of societal destabilization and placed on the schedule-one list of banned substance. Those who know, know that this is ridiculous. Cannabis should never have been on that list, it’s not physically dangerous. However it just might be dangerous to a society that doesn’t want it’s people to think critically and question why things are the way they are, because that is what cannabis does, it doesn’t dumb you down, or make you lazy. Sure it can have some sedative effects, but that lends to a more active mind. It can make one appear not very present, and potentially it should be avoided if clarity and intense presence of focus are necessary in what you are doing. I wouldn’t want to smoke and then do something super serious like medical work, or heavy machinery, where a lapse in focus could cause real damage, because we are talking about altered states here, not something that one can or should do if the situation calls for sobriety. Additionally, some substances just don’t mix well with some people’s bodies, so there will be some out there who never have a good time with marijuana, but I think of that more like an allergy, just like how some people are allergic to alcohol and literally have some sort of reaction to it. All this being said, I don’t think cannabis is as inhibitive as the zeitgeist would believe it to be, I accept that there is certainly an energy trade off happening, just like with any substance, just like with caffeine, the body can become depleted, so moderation and self care are always important.

However, I’ve found that cannabis actually encouraged me to ask the questions that I already had within me, but was too scared to allow. It helped me to move through my fear and get outside of myself, to see from a new perspective. I think most of us can be focused on self, it’s only natural, and learning how to bring one’s focus away from self, and truly see with a perspective that does not include one’s own desires or expectations in any way, is incredibly challenging. It can take great effort to will one’s self to the place were this is even possible to do. It may come easily to some, it may never come to others. To me, while it was not the complete formula, cannabis was an essential part of the process that opened me up to real empathy. Being able to actually put myself in someone else’s shoes and see things from their point of view, really feel what they must be feeling. It forced me to take a good hard look at myself and how my actions were affecting those around me, the real consequences of my actions and my lack of awareness.

This was a monumental shock for me, I once had thought myself a highly aware and perceptive individual, however with the guidance of cannabis, and some very thoughtful and honest friends, I came to realize that the center of my awareness, and for the most part all of my thoughts and actions, were entirely selfish. Not selfish in the sense that I was greedy and thought everything was about me, but selfish in the sense that I never bothered to check outside myself for anything, never actually cared about other peoples feelings unless they involved me, never cared to know how my actions affected them, living with a sort of tunnel vision that included only me and my needs. Perhaps this was a result of my upbringing, my lack of awareness regarding how I was in a state of survival for most of my life, which I think many of us unknowingly are, wherein I was unable to look beyond myself for fear that my needs would go unmet without the full focus of my attention, blocking out all that was superfluous. Marijuana was a trigger, it helped me see that there was an alternate path, a path not just of survival, but of awareness, better awareness of self, better awareness of surroundings and the people there, as well as a better awareness of how my presence among those people had a ripple effect, and how I showed up in myself and with my surroundings determined whether that ripple I caused was good or bad, or rather enjoyable or harmful.

Cannabis showed me more than just the inner-workings of my mind and the complexity of my connection to those around me, it kept going farther. Like peeling back the layers of an onion, the further I went down this path the more I realized I could zoom out my awareness. I could go outside myself and put myself into the shoes of those around me, but I could also go farther, I could put myself in the shoes of those in different cultures and lands, I could put myself into the shoes of animals and begin to understand them as well. I could put myself into the shoes of a generation, of a nation of people and understand them and why they would do the things they do. I kept going with this all the way until I had zoomed out to the entire cosmos, putting myself in the shoes of the gods, understanding why nature, why life is the way it is and how its all connected.

But to be honest my earlier grand realizations through cannabis were ultimately denied by myself, I was caught in the illusion that our society likes to perpetuate, which is that “drugs are bad, mkay” and that any experience had whilst “on drugs” is immediately invalidated and not believed due to the untrustworthy nature of whatever the substance may be. This all comes down to the deep seeded human fear of hallucination. Seeing images or hearing sounds that aren’t really there calls into question the reliability of sight and hearing in general, throw in tactile hallucinations as well and our ability to tell reality from falsehood is practically nonexistent, damaging our very foundation of reality, potentially tearing down all that we’ve constructed upon this foundation, leaving us utterly lost and confused, unable to tell what’s real and what’s not. The world of materialism that we currently live in cannot abide such uncertainty, we are fully reliant on our five senses to explain what reality is and most are pretty resistant to the idea that there could be some reality outside of our five senses, and perhaps even that there is a way to develop some kind of sixth sense that would reveal these hidden realities to us.

I think it important to recall the earliest recorded uses of cannabis in human history. One of these instances was in the Ganges River area of India, the origin of the name Ganja. In this period it was the yogis and the meditating monks who were using cannabis to go deeper with their practice and to open their minds to all of the possibilities of Truth. It was only in the last 100 years that cannabis got a bad reputation, mostly due to the “Refer Madness” era of the 30’s and 40’s, a vicious propaganda campaign against marijuana, funded by oil companies, that completely changed the popular view of the public. This all happened at a time when widespread media was new and the power of propaganda widely unknown, so some of the old notions created during this time die harder than others, especially those that come after the cultural understanding of the power of propaganda had increased. However, I think it’s clear that propaganda still has a lot of power in our modern day, just potentially not the power to shift entire zeitgeists any more.

All in all I would say that cannabis has been a net positive in my life, and all that I’ve described here about cannabis has been just the mental, social, and emotional effects that it has had on me. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that before I began smoking weed regularly I used to get awful migraines often. The kind of head splitting pain that compounds over time until I couldn’t take it any more and would eventually throw up and pass out. A year into smoking weed and I wasn’t having migraines any more. I thought that I had just grown out of it until I stopped smoking weed for six months after college. I didn’t experience any negative effects from stopping except that after about five or six months with no marijuana I started having migraines again, with the same regularity as before I started smoking. So I was able to put two and two together that the migraines were being stopped by cannabis, so I went back to smoking, and to this day I very rarely ever have a migraine, and if I do they’re more mild than they used to be.

This plant has numerous healing properties, and the most beneficial aspect of it may be its potential to open the mind and heal the heart. I do caution people here however, cannabis can often get pushed as a miracle cure all, I do not necessarily believe that it is. I believe cannabis has anti-inflammatory qualities that just so happen to help with a lot of common issues. I also believe that cannabis is not a magic cure for the mind or an auto-mind-opener, I think that those who do not have a clear mind-heart connection in themselves may have a bad time with cannabis, meaning that it may be too hard for them or even possibly misleading for them. Honestly I believe marijuana to be a mental energy enhancer, giving one’s thoughts more power, whatever they may be. For me, and for many people in this world, cannabis is not a drug, it’s medicine, it’s more than just that even, it’s a gift, it’s a challenge, it’s an opportunity for growth and healing, and if you’re ready for it, it can take you to the depths of understanding yourself and the heights of connection with all of the life around you.