Wednesday, March 01, 2006
The truth about marijuana tolerance
I've reacently had a few conversations about the nature of marijuana tolerance and how it works in comparison with other drugs. So I've decided to undertake a half-assed fact finding mission to find the truth.
From thehempire written by High Times correspondent Jon Gettman:
The architects of marijuana prohibition have long maintained that tolerance to cannabis means the same thing as tolerance to addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin - that users need more and more to get high, driving them to crime and desperation. Now, the federal government's own research indicates that precisely the opposite is true. Science has finally caught on to what tokers have known all along: With marijuana tolerance, you have to smoke less to get high!
This article is actually quite long. Read more at http://www.thehempire.com/index.php/cannabis/cannabis_plant/marijuana_and_the_brain_part_ii_the_tolerance_factor
From my Drugs and behavior in modern society textbook:
It is frequently reported that experienced marijuana smokers tend to become intoxicated more quickly and to a greater extent than nonexperienced smokers, when exposed to marijuana joints with equivalent THC concentrations. For many years, this observation suggested that repeated administrations of marijuana was producing sensitization, or reverse tolerance as opposed to lesser sensitivity regular tolerance. If this were true, then we sould have been faced with the troubling conclusion that marijuana operates in a totally opposite way to any other psychoactive drug considered so far. Fortunetly when animals or humans are studied in the laboratory, marijuana smoking shows tolerance effects that are consistent and clear-cut.
One factor involves the slow elimination rate of marijuana. Regular marijuana smokers are likely to have a residual amount of THC stil in the system. This buildup of THC would elevate the total quantity of THC consumed with every joint and induce a quicker high. Once again the impression of sensitization is false; we are actually observing the enhanced effects of an accumulation of THC in the body. As before, once dosage levels are controlled, the results indicate a consistent pattern of tolerance rather than sensitization. As a rule, tolerance effects following repeated administrations of THC are greater as the dosage level of THC increases.
I've poked around other various websites in the internet and most of them have short, "coventional" explainations or are so obviously biased with anti-drug propoganda it destroys there credibility.
My textbooks explaination would explain why people who have never smoked before wouldn't get high there first few times. After my own first time smoking marijuana I got some sort of godly level of high that I may have experienced one or two times afterwards. I remember some uncontrolable convultions (kind of like shivering, not like epilepsy) and a few other unexplainable effects. (I ate some pie, it was crazy) Of course the reason I got high that first time was that previously I had gotten "clam-baked." Basically hung out in a small room and breathed a lot of second-hand smoke that had just barely had an effect.
Since then I've certainly developed a tolerance that allows me to smoke and still be totally functional. Do I need greater and greater quantities to achieve the same level? No. Do I ever get as high as those first few times regardless of how much I've smoked? No. I wouldn't have it any other way.
# posted by Eric @ 2:52 PM 
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