Paranoia. Caused by Legality or Biology?

As a Sativa lover (The more pure the better) and also someone who has never had the privilege to consume cannabis in a legal municipality I often wonder...

Do people get paranoia when it's consumed in a total (Recreational) legal state or country? If they do get paranoid, what do they ruminate on?
Or is there a biological reason that will cause paranoia regardless of where it is consumed on the planet?

I have only been paranoid over legal repercussions.

I would love to consume a Neville Haze in a legal place and see what happens!

can cause paranoia regardless of the state you live in, prohibition does not help though

Gr33nSanta said:

can cause paranoia regardless of the state you live in, prohibition does not help though

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What would a person worry about? If the police can't kick you door in, and your romantic mate is cool, and you have a job that won't be endangered, what would a person panic about?

I long to test this one day.

Smokers in Colorado/Cali/Wash/Oregon what do you panic over?

hunt4genetics said:

As a Sativa lover (The more pure the better) and also someone who has never had the privilege to consume cannabis in a legal municipality I often wonder...

Do people get paranoia when it's consumed in a total (Recreational) legal state or country? If they do get paranoid, what do they ruminate on?
Or is there a biological reason that will cause paranoia regardless of where it is consumed on the planet?

I have only been paranoid over legal repercussions.

I would love to consume a Neville Haze in a legal place and see what happens!

Click to expand...

For some, the downside of expanding your consciousness in a world as messed up as this one is that the enhanced awareness and discernment can bring perfectly rational unhappiness, fear and dread. This state can easily lead to paranoia.

You only get para if your doing something wrong but i have one to many bongs o f sativa and thought i was dying or went insane but i love it cause you always comeback to normal .

Spaventa said:

For some, the downside of expanding your consciousness in a world as messed up as this one is that the enhanced awareness and discernment can bring perfectly rational unhappiness, fear and dread. This state can easily lead to paranoia.

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Are you talking about people who are in denial about the "reality" of life. Maybe someone starts to think "Maybe my wife doesn't really love me, maybe I buy my kid's love, maybe I am a fraud"...

Things like that?

I know it is private and deeply personal but... Would someone like to share a tale of when they experienced paranoia after consuming cannabis in a Legal state/country? What did you feel? What did you fear? Where you able to "snap" yourself out of it?

Thanks in advance.

I ll share with you something deeply personal, I live on the verge of panic attacks all the time, I am in a constant state of near psychosis, do you want to smoke my pot? lol

Seriously, I think people have different reason for experiencing paranoia, regardless of the reasons, thc definitely induces it. No doubt in my mind.

My experience with paranoia is more on a micro level, say that I see something is missing, I immediately think ''someone stole it!'' only to find it later where I actually put the damn thing. A normal person does not jump to such conclusion so quickly, I often catch myself jumping to conclusion too fast. Thanks Pot!

When in doubt, smoke another one.

hunt4genetics said:

Are you talking about people who are in denial about the "reality" of life. Maybe someone starts to think "Maybe my wife doesn't really love me, maybe I buy my kid's love, maybe I am a fraud"...

Things like that?

Click to expand...

No. Denial is deliberate, product of cognitive dissonance - two beliefs conflict so one is denied despite all evidence to the contrary.

Cannabis doesn't involve denial - it doesn't bring about acceptance of things you already know but falsely deny - it expands your awareness and you realise thing are not as you thought. This opens the door to doubting everything - paranoia. Cannabis is removing the blindfold. What we see may upset us.

It expands your awareness because cannabinoids bind to receptors in your brain and up regulate your brain. Its you, but more sensitive, receptive and discerning. Things are apparent that are normally not because cannabinoids increase the amount of activity in the parts of the bran responsible for higher cognitive function.
Even the senses are enhanced to provide better input - hearing is attenuated, olfactory and visual senses are all amplified, resolution and range expanded.

Gr33nSanta said:

I see something is missing, I immediately think ''someone stole it!''

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Far more creative and interesting than the plain old deluded

I believe the paranoia referenced, is more aptly described as a generic heightened state of awareness, which in the case of some good/potent sativas, is largely based in their chemistry/terpenes.

That said, even legal states/countries are mostly coming off of over 80 years of outright dishonest propaganda, exiting a period wherein it was legal to treat dope smokers/growers as sub-human, taking their possessions, ripping apart families, etc.

Research 'generational trauma' as well as 'long term stress.'

I would assert that anyone who has spent a lengthy period of time subjected to these conditions, knowing they weren't overtly harming anyone that wasn't voluntarily taking part in that market, has lived with an engrained sense of uncertainty and lack of safety for their future.

That stimuli can become a back-seat issue, where the person neatly tucks away conscious awareness of the cause or source of stress, leaving it to pop up here and there without really defining itself, but the chemistry in the plant that produces the previously mentioned heightened state of awareness, or 'hyper-vigilance,' interacts or 'dove-tails' with that conditioning, in my opinion.

For the last bunch of years, when I finish a harvest, it's a lengthy period before I can re-enter my shop, full-speed-ahead, and pumped up about taking a bunch of clones.

I described it before as a sort of (growers') kryptonite surrounding my shop door. Years of escaping horrible outcomes, statistically speaking, increases the probability of an eventual horrible outcome.. Like winning too many times at the craps or roulette tables. The law of averages says that eventually you're going to run a greater likelihood of losing. Pennies don't always come up heads.

Puts new emphasis or meaning on Kenny Rogers old, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."

Doing any stimulant sort of vice, whether a sativa that carries the 'up' effect, or lines of clean coke, LSD, or any other stout stimulant or sensory amplifying vice, combined with that reality, and 'hyper-vigilance' can become a way of being.

My .10 cents on the subject.

I suffer a biological anxiety that existed well before drugs became facet of my life and has been more powerful than my opiate addiction in that I would go cold turkey before I would score on the street (250 mg + day typical) as well as 25 years of growing during prohibition

I also love sativas and have had many racy weeds in my time which can potentiate anxiety and made plenty of poor lifestyle choices that made me much more prone to intense anxiety attacks

my feeling is that some of the same receptors are involved and people with a proclivity or underlying anxiety issue are more sensitive to those triggers

I don't like early weeds for this reason and find sats that are run long enough can lose the fear and loathing qualities although there is always an exception

It's a physiological reaction to stress first and foremost... state of your surroundings is secondary.
But I also think that what most describe as paranoia is really just a panic attack.
I have been through that for a while myself from having to deal with being overworked, mentally.
Let me say it is normally caused if your stress level is too high and then you get that tiny bit extra on top(say from smoking some strong bud) and viola: It's too much, full fight or flight syndrome, and you feel like dying/losing it because
you don't know what's going on. It's basically getting you so stressed that your brain acts like there was some lion or tiger or deadly threat in front of you and it reacts accordingly by sqeezing into your bloodstream maximum adrenaline and other stuff that will brush you up to either fight or flight. Now since there normally is no lion or tiger, you can't relate and that's freaking you out even more. We in our modern society have traded lions and tigers for working mad hours, processed food and pollution, tell me who would not be stressed, but really our neanderthal brains are still stuck in the neolithic age and can't tell the shit apart.
If you're not level, or you take too much (think edibles) weed can increase stress levels, think of some of the sativas with their nervous, panicky, racy, psychedlic highs.
At this point thoughts like "oh my god what am I going to do, something is wrong,I can't tell... My heart has stopped, I'm dying etc.." kick in and being in a legal state might help to mitigate that, but it's really stress levels. Ask anyone who's had panic attacks, it's the same old thing. Every human being has a stress treshold, if you are pushed over that invidible barrier, your old animal brain takes over. You think you're dying/going insane/life and sanity hanging on a thread, that causes more panic and you think you're dying more... ;-) until it wears off
In reality, nothing else is going to happen. Some hyperventilate and eventually pass out, but that's it. It just FEELS terrible in your mind and can leave scars if not understood properly." I'll never touch that devils cabbage again !"

Someone telling you that no one has ever died from cannabis helps.
Breathing deeply helps.
Upping your blood sugar levels helps.
Histamine can have to do with it too as in stress situations so called mast cells degranulate and release further histamine. This adds to the stress level even more and so on...vicious circle.

So to make it short, being in a legal state could potentially calm you down as what you're doing is not illegal (if you give a fuck), but as I said, the mechanism is powerful once triggered and you almost need a bit of training and commitment to be able to ride these out well.

CC

Weird, I suspect that for those of us who were already dealing with PTSD or other anxiety disorders preceding our entry into careers involving illegal activities, we were/are pre-conditioned to be good black marketeers.

The hyper-vigilance re. awareness of others, interpreting others' intent, our own safety, etc., is already alive in us, and so we're 'naturals' for taking part in higher-risk activities. Still, over time, that stress we've befriended continues to build, and (I believe) eventually can become debilitating to one degree or another.

Chevy, I agree with most of what you and Weird wrote.

That said, many persons in now-legal states, are still engaging in black market activities, and it's been my contention that for those in that walk, they're actually at -greater- risk now, than before.

As I've written before, in the past, we were those evil pot growers the System and others loved to hate and persecute. Now we're those pot growers they still love to hate and persecute, and now we (technically, by statute) owe them licensing fees, & production & retail taxes that they're not receiving, if we're still in the black market.

Thus in some ways, for some folks, 'legalization' has meant even more reason for the Gov et al. to come after persons still walking on the darker side of the markets..

hunt4genetics said:

Do people get paranoia when it's consumed in a total (Recreational) legal state or country? If they do get paranoid, what do they ruminate on?

Click to expand...

Paranoia is complex. I feel like for me it has many factors setting, personal energy, etc. But the strain has a huge impact for me.

I live in Colorado even before MJ was legal it was only a $75. fine. I have gotten MJ from dispensaries for about 10 years now. I have smoked and vaped hundreds of different strains and grows.

Sometimes even with good MJ I get a little paranoid. I don't think about the cops kicking in the door(not a reality here.). I think about social anxiety stuff(everyone thinks I am a freak,,,) For me it is usually the first 15min-30min of the high.

Some strains from certain dispensaries are so nice I almost never get paranoia, these strains are usually well liked and very popular. Golden Goat, Bruce Banner, Blue Dream, lamsbreath. Most good dispensaries will have their "strain" everyone loves, it will just make people feel good.. love life nothing to worry about.

Their is also a setting factor smoke a joint in an alley with a sketchy person and paranoia is already there.. The high just intensifies it. Paranoia is a survival instinct.

Defentition 1.1 sounds like a survival mechanism, while 1A sounds more unhealthy

Oxford Dictionary:

NOUN
mass noun
1A mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically worked into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.


1.1 Unjustified suspicion and mistrust of other people.
‘mild paranoia afflicts all prime ministers’

Origin
Early 19th century: modern Latin, from Greek, from paranoos ‘distracted’, from para ‘irregular’ + noos ‘mind’.

I love sativas as well and for me the only time I get paranoid is when my tolerance is really low and I smoke way too much of some powerful stuff. Like when I come back from vacation where I wasn't smoking at all for 3 weeks. This has been true for the past 10 years that I've had a medical card to smoke legally with and now live in a recreational state.

I think just getting so high that you're in an unfamiliar state of mind is what leads to paranoia. You're not used to the kind of thoughts you start having and that can make some people freak out a little, regardless of the legal status.

Just had it again last night after smoking too much of the JAck Herer I grew last August.
It has become a massive creeper over the months of curing and you keep going up a long time after you've stopped smoking.

I was right on the border to panic it became very intense a couple of times, like in waves, pushing me, and then slowly lessened out, as it always does...

I drink a beer when paranoia or anxiety strikes. It helps alot.

it's the Deion Sanders answer, "Both".

For a lot of us, Cannabis is a serious mental stimulant. Some strains are very good for cognition, thinking, serious math homework, etc. Especially if combined with coffee.

Then when that wears off it's serious couch potato mode.

Got to be careful about couch potato mode. Bought 3 Silkie Brahma chick's yesterday & put them in the bathtub in the spare bathroom.

But forgot that the house is about 60 degrees. Went in there and one of them was on its way to chicken Heaven ! Too cold.

Moved them into the light from a 1000 watt metal halide, a room that runs about 75 or 80 degrees F. She's doing better but not back to standing up.