This is difficult to put down into words. If any of you are willing to take the time to read, please do. This is my experience with the world of synthetic marijuana or spice.
A little background. I started smoking cannabis at 18. It was purely for the enjoyment of the herb. I loved the feeling of communal peace I felt it imparted, the joy of laughter and the taste of food, oh, how bloody glorious! I met my fiance a few years later and she too enjoyed indulging the sweet leaf.
At 21 I started losing weight rapidly. I'm a big man, and lost nearly 150 pounds (down to 140 pounds, on my 6 foot frame was skeletal) in five months. I found out after a good deal of testing and nearly going into cardiac arrest that I had something called Graves Disease. It's a thyroid disorder that effects the endocrine system and destroys the immune system. I turned to cannabis now not just as a high but as an alternative medication to deal with the nausea, the loss of appetite, the terrible new insomnia and the added anxiety and depression (I've also got a touch of OCD).
For nine years I treated my conditions with cannabis, every day. After a break-up with my fiance, I was left without a steady supplier and lived in a state that did not allow medical consumption of any kind. I was desperate. I lived a few years on the government/pharmaco teat on roughly 10 different anti depressants (not all at once) with horrible side effects, addictive benzodiazepenes that I struggle to wean off to this day. I craved the smoke. Nothing worked.
I read a story on msn one morning about a 'dangerous new drug' called K2 that supposedly mimiced the sensation of being high on cannabis. I thought, "What the hell, I'll give it a shot! It's legal!" thinking the horror stories were no different than the ridiculous crap I'd read about cannabis over the years "Reefer Madness" style. I put my fears in the back of my mind, and ordered a three gram packet. Amazing! It didn't taste like weed, but oh it gave me that pleasant heady sensation and the heaviness behind my eyes! I got those familiar munchies, and much of my anxiety and depression slipped away. I was back!
So, I decided to do the natural, logical thing. I ordered more of this chemically treated mystery herbal concoction from a string of shady websites.
I fell into a comfortable routine. Months passed. I withdrew more but chalked it up to simply being content and not wanting to reach out. I tried different blends like one would strains, K2 and all the permutations and knock-offs, name-brand and home-blend. You see, the high from Spice is powerful indeed, but very short lived. After 20 minutes you'll find you want to puff again. The come-down is harder than any Indica you've ever puffed. You feel the need to keep that going, though, to keep that pleasant weed-like high. At my peak use I was smoking roughly 18-20 grams of the stuff a week.
After roughly six months of daily self medicating, I started to notice things. I was rocking back and forth uncontrollably. My roommate pointed this out to me delicately by saying, "Dude you're doing the crack-rock, what the hell?" as my body shimmed back and forth. I moved almost exclusively into my bedroom because bright lights were starting to bother me. My ego and identity were being chipped away piece by piece. I started to fear the things I loved, television shows I enjoyed, movies I watched. I was in a constant cycle of medicating and crashing hard. Eventually, I stopped getting high and instead would start to sweat uncontrollably and feel the 'fear' unless I was hitting the pipe every 15 minutes. I stopped feeling any hunger and lost around 80 pounds as that combined with my graves disease spiking out of remission. It was a miserable existance and I was crashing hard.
Christmas of that year. Nine months of daily use of spice, 3 gram consumption daily. Two days before the Holiday, I hit a hot-spot. If you're unfamiliar with the term, this is a spot where a mass of the chemicals (the active ingrediant in the spice) clumped to the herb during the evaporating of the solvent used to bond the cannabinoid to the inert plant. At the risk of sounding overdramatic, I dosed myself.
I was certain I was going to die. I went into a chain of panic attacks and eventually had to be taken to the hospital. Keep in mind, I was a daily smoker of cannabis for ten years before this. I never once had a similar experience, no matter how much I puffed. My tolerance grows to ridiculous levels. I had to check myself in to the psychatric ward of the hospital because I was certain I was going to commit suicide. After a two day vacation as Boy, Interrupted, I knew I had to stop.
I weaned myself off over a period of two weeks. I laid in bed and made peace with the gods. I asked all those people I had wronged for forgiveness, because I was certain I was not going to live. I craved it, hated it, wanted it, knew I had to get away from it. I lost a dear friend who moved out of my home because of my problems with this insidious (group of) drugs known as JWH-XXX and the related analogues. I gnawed down 90 percent cocoa dark chocolate in hopes of hitting the right receptors. I meditated. I white-knuckled it. I sobbed like a child for hours, daily. I managed to beat it though.
Game over, right? Not so much. The shaking, the visual sensitivity, the shivering, sweating and terrible gaps in memory persisted. For the following six months I went through my own personal hell as I wondered if I would ever feel 'normal' (or as close as I can possibly get) again. I don't know exactly when it faded. It was a gradual process of regaining my full cognizance, and I still suffer from the memory gaps to this day.
If you're thinking about substituting spice for Marijuana. Don't. Please. No matter how badly you want to. You may think I'm an extreme case. I certainly would agree. After this chain of unfortunate events I decided I was going to move to a state that offered a medical alternative. I moved from the midwest back to my home state of California and haven't looked back.
I would say that I am comfortable with consuming an oz of top shelf medical cannabis within a two week period without feeling ill effects. The natural, loving plant has helped restore me to a sense of well being and slowed the terrible racing thoughts somewhat. Cannabis and Spice are not the same substances, and you can't treat them that way. I made this mistake.
Please forgive the length of this post. I may have been too personal and shared too much. I feel very strongly about this and if someone here can benefit from my mistakes, I would feel it worth it. Thank you if you've read this.
Stay vaped (natural alternatives only!)
(people against cannabis)
.Needed to sit in the space.Back on Track now One love
to this community
