Yeah, marijuana won't kill you but...

I'm a 21 year old Software Engineer who is currently working full-time and enrolled in university. I'm a pretty intelligent, good looking person. I had an average of a 3.5 GPA.

I started smoking pot on my first job which was a 'co-op', a paid internship. My girlfriend introduced it to me to marijuana back in the summer of 2013. Neat! It was such a fun experience. We had sex high and it was ######6 fantastic. I never felt like this before, everything was funny and everything was interesting. I continued working throughout the summer, doing my job of slapping away on the keyboard, and eventually we decided to get some more weed. This time we got an 1/8th instead of a dime bag and we borrowed my friends bong. Oh god the fun we had wandering around. I stopped because frankly I didn't feel like I needed it.

This all soon changed. Come around the school year, I was placed in different housing with my friends and a random extra guy named Dylan. Dylan smoked a $#%^ ton of pot and he had a pretty big bong. One day he offered it to me and I got high again. Fun times. Soon I started to buy my own weed because ###$ everyone else, I want my own. I started off buying an 1/8th, then a 1/4th. I continued to smoke while I worked my job. Everyday after I finished work, I would go to the gym with my girlfriend and then after would smoke some weed. This started on the weekends, and soon changed to the week days. I felt mature-- sure I was smoking a lot but I was being active and doing other things. I would come up with really cool theories and was able to understand very complex theories. I even had ideas about how the mind may be a finite state machine, and that are circuitry may be similar or different in some ways. Soon I bought myself a $100 dollar bong. Then I was buying 1/2s. Then I even started to grow my own weed in my ######6 college apartment. Soon I wanted to invest in a marijuana business and become a developer out in Colorado.

What the ###$ happened.

Then one day something really strange happened to me-- I couldn't sleep. Suddenly I got really paranoid of everything. The government was spying on me. Girls could control my mind. My girlfriend was secretly the devil.
These were all thoughts that sincerely inhabited me. By my 3rd day of no sleep I was so delusional that my friend brought me to the school counselling center. Something was seriously wrong with me. I was brought off to the hospital and had a heart rate of over 190. I did not drink any water for over 3 days as was dehydrated and had to placed on an IV immediately. I soon talked to psychiatrists at the hospital and something was extremely wrong with me, I was full blown psychotic. I thought I was god. I was in cannabis-induced psychosis.I was placed on sedatives and slept maybe an hour, I woke up to my girlfriend next to me. I was soon shipped off to a different hospital with a psych ward.

At this new hospital I was hospitalized for over 3 weeks. I remember sitting in the nurses station crying because I couldn't control my anxiety. I stared at a pen in its holder-- and that's when I did it. I grabbed it and I stabbed myself in the neck with it. I just attempted to kill myself for the first time in my life. I ran over to the other nurses station and tried to grab a pair of scissors to stab myself more. I had three nurses grabbing on to me. I soon woke up on the ground with over 30 nurses and doctors around me. I was crying hysterically and saying I'm sorry, I just didn't want to exist anymore. I tried to kill myself another time, once by drowning and once by hanging myself.

This anxiety continued. I watched as loved ones saw how much I changed. My girlfriend was crying hysterically when I delusionally decided to break up with her-- when in reality I really needed her the most. (This was because I still thought she was the devil)

I was released after finally 21 days.

I still have issues sleeping to this day, I have to take a medication known as Seroquel to fall asleep. It is currently the most powerful anti-psychotic medication on the market. It's been a rough battle. I tried smoking again and it gave me a panic attack. Never again. I can't do it anymore. Marijuana has broken my mind. I once thought marijuana was harmless and an awesome drug-- this experience has changed me forever.

This happened about 5 months ago. ###$ marijuana.

Thank you for being so open about your past. You clearly went through a very traumatic time that will be familiar to many.

The "moral" of the story I'm getting here is that, when it comes to putting anything in your body that you happen to enjoy, moderation is the key. While it won't negatively affect everyone, when smoking pot every day and to excess, the evidence shows an increase in the risk of developing psychosis.

I've read many studies on cannabis, and it seems that there is an undeniable link between heavy use and mental disorder, especially high risk in your teens and early twenties. Also, some people may be genetically predisposed to mental disorders and cannabis can act as a trigger or exacerbator.

There's also the problem of cannabis being a lot stronger today, in the form of skunk. So young people are smoking particularly strong strains, believing they aren't smoking that much, but the effects are ten fold compared to "regular" weed.

So I think it would be irresponsible for anyone to claim that cannabis is harmless.

Like with anything you put into your body, education and informed judgement is paramount. People need to be aware of the risks, including any potential genetic predispositions they may have, and what exactly they are smoking.

If you experience paranoia or anxiety, that's a warning sign you ought to treat with caution.

If you can't go to work or start your day without taking cannabis, that too is a warning sign.

If your tolerance goes up and you find yourself buying/smoking more and more, that's another.

But this risk assessment needn't be a reason to demonise cannabis as a whole. Clearly many people have a healthy relationship with it, do not increase their intake and keep it to one or two evenings per week when relaxing or engaged in creative pursuits.

There are also health benefits to keep in mind. Many people use cannabis for pain relief where prescription or over-counter medicine has failed them, and to help with things such as appetite stimulation or libido. Again, it boils down to reading the signs your body gives you and being acutely aware of any habits that may form around the substance.

What I think we need is a balanced and objective assessment of cannabis, and to treat it as a medical matter, certainly not a criminal one. The problem both the US and UK face is that their governments are for the most part dismissive of independent, evidence-based advice. With the right information, regulation and a mature attitude towards substance use, there is certainly no reason, or evidence for that matter, why cannabis, especially when not ingested via smoking, should be considered any more harmful than alcohol.

I agree with you whole heartily. Moderation is definitely key. I'm pretty sure if I had moderation I would have been fine. Likely have some genetic thing that made the psychosis easier to manifest combined with the fact I take Adderall for dealing with ADHD. This may have mixed up in a really bad way and caused what ever happened.

All the best for you mate. I hope things calm down for you soon and you can get on with your life and reach your full potential. There are some inspiring stories out there of people who came through a similar ordeal and are now leading very fulfilling lives. In fact, they are living more fulfilling lives than most because their ordeal has given them a new sense of purpose and perspective.

You're still very young and the brain changes a lot in your twenties. If you can focus the mind on a passion and/or goal the next ten years should be very exciting for you.

Most people feel like they wasted their 20s... that won't be you!

Were you taking Adderall when you were smoking the Marijuana?