5 ms·

Overdosing on marijuana was probably the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. Certainly by far the worst experience I've ever had on a recreational dru

Overdosing on marijuana was probably the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. Certainly by far the worst experience I've ever had on a recreational drug. People always frame the discussion of drug overdoses around lethality, and on that scale marijuana compares very favorably to every other drug, and advocates tend to end the discussion there. But on the scale of how horrific the experience is as the person overdosing, I don't think there's anything worse than marijuana. A large overdose on marijuana causes an absolutely torturous and sanity-questioning 12-hour episode where you feel like your insides are dying and like your brain's basic function has been impaired on a fundamental level, and those 12 hours feel like 3 days and it feels like it's never going to end. It's like Being John Malkovich, but you've transported into the brain of a severely afflicted mental patient. Enjoy your marijuana and all, but this current popular narrative that it's like skittles or something is taking things a little too far. It's safe in moderation, but it's also true that using it to excess is mentally and socially harmful and you can have a truly horrific time on it.

marssaxman 8y ago
I have been there myself, thanks to some of my ex-wife's unexpectedly potent brownies, and it was miserable indeed - but I would call it a "bad trip" and not an "overdose". "Overdose" implies that one has ingested a quantity of the drug in question sufficient to create physical danger, and no such danger exists with marijuana.
kaoD 8y ago
Dude. What? The worst case I've had to assist was a couple that ate a huge space cake (oblivious to its cannabis content) and, even if they got high by mistake (which is the worst case of bad trip) it was nowhere near close to your experience. Lots of fainting involved, but not much John Malkovich. And it didn't last 12h. How much did you eat/smoke? Maybe you're especially sensitive to cannabis? (Genuinely curious here, not trying to discredit your story). Your case sounds closer to a panic attack than cannabis overdose. Maybe the bad trip triggered a panic attack, which in turn fed the bad trip back. > But on the scale of how horrific the experience is as the person overdosing, I don't think there's anything worse than marijuana. Psylocibin bad trips beg to disagree. Or any psychedelic, for that matter.
- throwaway0255 8y ago
  > How much did you eat/smoke? Maybe you're especially sensitive to cannabis? (Genuinely curious here, not trying to discredit your story). Yeah of course, no worries. It wasn't with edibles, it was smoking. I was doing a form of inhaling that I've never done before, where I exhale very deeply until my lungs are completely empty, and then do a deep inhale. I repeated that many times. This was about the third time I smoked, and I was doing that because I hadn't really felt much of an effect the first two times, so I was trying to correct that. I guess I overcompensated. It was absolutely horrific. One thing I remember is I started having really intense auditory pseudohallucinations that kept repeating themselves over and over again. And I kept compulsively repeating them myself in my head over and over again. And I couldn't make either of those things stop no matter how hard I tried. They weren't words, they were just a bunch of different noises stacked on top of each other, like how playing 10 songs at the same time it just gets very noisy, and you can listen to 1 of the songs but only if you focus on it and ignore the other 9. But I wasn't hearing songs, just stacked noises like a glass breaking or a videogame sound or a car horn or a chair sliding etc. Ten of those sounds all stacked on top of each other, rhythmically like a beat, while feeling an unwavering compulsion to reproduce the sound with my voice in my own head, over and over again for hours, wanting to stop and sleep the entire time and being completely unable to. I felt like I was descending into psychosis or becoming schizophrenic like Howard Hughes. And yeah I do tend to be more sensitive to alcohol/drugs than others. My doctors have said so with prescription doses, and I always feel tipsy halfway through my first drink. I've used it a little bit since and not had the same problem (though at much lower doses of course). Mostly though I don't do anything, other than maybe one drink if I'm around other people who happen to be drinking. And yeah I imagine bad trips on psychedelics have much more potential to be horrible. I've never done one though.
  - kaoD 8y ago
    Amazing (and terrifying at the same time). That sounds an awful lot like a bad trip on psychedelics. Never had one, but the sound stacking seems to be a common occurrence (along with time dilation/loops, feeling of uncontrollable descent into psychosis, etc.) Glad you survived the experience with no long-term damage. Sounds scary.
failrate 8y ago
When taking a heroic dose of a psychoactive substance, you really need a guide to keep you from going off the rails.

marssaxman 8y ago

I have been there myself, thanks to some of my ex-wife's unexpectedly potent brownies, and it was miserable indeed - but I would call it a "bad trip" and not an "overdose". "Overdose" implies that one has ingested a quantity of the drug in question sufficient to create physical danger, and no such danger exists with marijuana.

kaoD 8y ago

Dude. What? The worst case I've had to assist was a couple that ate a huge space cake (oblivious to its cannabis content) and, even if they got high by mistake (which is the worst case of bad trip) it was nowhere near close to your experience. Lots of fainting involved, but not much John Malkovich. And it didn't last 12h. How much did you eat/smoke? Maybe you're especially sensitive to cannabis? (Genuinely curious here, not trying to discredit your story). Your case sounds closer to a panic attack than cannabis overdose. Maybe the bad trip triggered a panic attack, which in turn fed the bad trip back. > But on the scale of how horrific the experience is as the person overdosing, I don't think there's anything worse than marijuana. Psylocibin bad trips beg to disagree. Or any psychedelic, for that matter.

throwaway0255 8y ago
> How much did you eat/smoke? Maybe you're especially sensitive to cannabis? (Genuinely curious here, not trying to discredit your story). Yeah of course, no worries. It wasn't with edibles, it was smoking. I was doing a form of inhaling that I've never done before, where I exhale very deeply until my lungs are completely empty, and then do a deep inhale. I repeated that many times. This was about the third time I smoked, and I was doing that because I hadn't really felt much of an effect the first two times, so I was trying to correct that. I guess I overcompensated. It was absolutely horrific. One thing I remember is I started having really intense auditory pseudohallucinations that kept repeating themselves over and over again. And I kept compulsively repeating them myself in my head over and over again. And I couldn't make either of those things stop no matter how hard I tried. They weren't words, they were just a bunch of different noises stacked on top of each other, like how playing 10 songs at the same time it just gets very noisy, and you can listen to 1 of the songs but only if you focus on it and ignore the other 9. But I wasn't hearing songs, just stacked noises like a glass breaking or a videogame sound or a car horn or a chair sliding etc. Ten of those sounds all stacked on top of each other, rhythmically like a beat, while feeling an unwavering compulsion to reproduce the sound with my voice in my own head, over and over again for hours, wanting to stop and sleep the entire time and being completely unable to. I felt like I was descending into psychosis or becoming schizophrenic like Howard Hughes. And yeah I do tend to be more sensitive to alcohol/drugs than others. My doctors have said so with prescription doses, and I always feel tipsy halfway through my first drink. I've used it a little bit since and not had the same problem (though at much lower doses of course). Mostly though I don't do anything, other than maybe one drink if I'm around other people who happen to be drinking. And yeah I imagine bad trips on psychedelics have much more potential to be horrible. I've never done one though.
- kaoD 8y ago
  Amazing (and terrifying at the same time). That sounds an awful lot like a bad trip on psychedelics. Never had one, but the sound stacking seems to be a common occurrence (along with time dilation/loops, feeling of uncontrollable descent into psychosis, etc.) Glad you survived the experience with no long-term damage. Sounds scary.

failrate 8y ago

When taking a heroic dose of a psychoactive substance, you really need a guide to keep you from going off the rails.