The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

Hi Julius,

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I had been successfully (and without any problems) toking moderately once a day for about a year [...] Everything was going well, until eight months ago, when I suddenly started having panic attacks (on or off weed). Though the panic attacks eventually went away, a pressure in my head has been there ever since. I have been diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). For some reason during this time not only can I not smoke (I get a panic attack basically every time) but I even get minor panic attacks if I drink alcohol in even moderate amount, take even baby doses of any SSRI prescribed to me, or even smoke tobacco! So let me explain where this is going..

I'm 25 and I used to smoke when I was younger (16-18) but I developed anxiety/panic disorder and had to stop. Not sure if this was induced by my drinking/drugging or genetics or a little of both but I had to stop smoking because it makes me have panic attacks. Now that's I'm a successful adult I don't want to go back to being a pothead or anything but it would be cool to toke ever now and then without thinking I'm going to have a heart attack. Any suggestions? Or am I doomed to continue leading a substance-free life (8 years strong)?

As I pointed out in a previous article on different ways to ingest cannabis (including eating it), THC is fat-soluble, and thus is metabolized best when consumed with fatty foods.

A reader recently suggested two additional alternate ingestion methods:

1. Dip a nug into honey, let it soak for a bit, and chew on it.
2. Grind up some marijuana, sprinkle it into peanut butter, and put it on crackers.

Hope these tips help when you're looking to make some snacks that will give you the munchies.

Yours in peace,
Julius

P.S. Extra-long post coming soon -- stay tuned...

Julius does not endorse the use of any substance. The rules below are not an endorsement of drug use, but rather guidelines shared with the intent of helping those who choose to use do so safely.

Yesterday a friend of mine had a pretty poor trip on some mushrooms. He looked at them before (and afterwards) and they weren't spiked -- they were just a bit stronger than he expected. While everyone's fine and nothing bad came out of it, the experience has prompted me to share the rules of safe drug use:

Dear Julius

I've heard that you can more or less conceal your "stoned" appearance by doing the following things:

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1. Brushing your teeth
2. Washing your hair and/or washing your face
3. Changing your shirt
4. Using Visine

Is that true?

Hmmm. There's not a really easy answer to this, so I'll have to go over these methods one at a time. Pull up a couch and/or beanbag chair, and get ready for a lengthy post.

One of our readers alerted us to this account from a chemotherapy patient about their use of marijuana (from the LA Times.)

While it's absolutely heart-wrenching to hear about the pain and suffering caused by cancer (and its subsequent treatment), we think that Mrs. Wagman's account of her medicinal use of marijuana provides an excellent example of the value of cannabis. The article also contains several items of interest:

Marijuana use is more frequent than many people expect:

No, what really shocked me was how many of my old, dear, married, parenting, job-holding friends smoke pot. [...] Across the ideological spectrum, a lot of my buddies are stoners. Who knew?

Hello Mr. Julius.
Is there a common "stoner survival kit" or something? Like the things that every smoker should have in his posesion [sic]? Thanks.

To my knowledge, no, there is not. That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't some things that are handy to have around. Most cannabis users have some sort of "kit" that they've put together over the years -- but as far as I know, there's no "common" kit.

Personally, I'd recommend some of the following to smokers: