Tree smokers, who are productive… when do you usually “light up” for the day? How do you feel it benefits your day to day?

11 comments

1. As someone who used to be a “functional” alcoholic, it’s arguable harder to be a “functional” stoner. It quells my anxiety, helps my appetite immensely, but too much and I don’t want to do anything except sit stoned and watch something on TV. This is why I have to save it for bedtime.

   Anthony Bourdain once said, “There’s a guy in my head, and all he wants to do is lay in bed all day long, smoke pot, and watch old movies and cartoons. My life is a series of stratagems, to avoid, and outwit that guy.” Too true.

2. All herb is Dry Vaped, so I don’t “smoke” technically:
   Around 4:20am…..(I know, cliche) in my Solo2 before breakfast. Then I’ll hit my concentrate pen throughout the day. In the evening I grind up the Indica for the Ball-Vape & Globe.
   It benefits me by keeping my appetite steady and my mind more focused on the task at hand. I see cannabis as a full body Med/therapy though, so it’s doing lots more in the background. We have receptors all over for the compounds in cannabis & hemp.

   I work in Industrial Chemistry.

3. Very small amounts (2-5 mgs) on the weekends only depending on what I need to do. If its building or repairing something I’ll wait until after. Yard work, house cleaning… its the perfect combo.

   It helps to make the weekends feel more relaxing and aids in recovery after a hard session at the gym. I don’t drink or do any other drugs.

4. I like to wait until 8 or 9pm throughout the week. Otherwise I’ll be couch locked and not productive. On the weekend I’m okay with smoking too much and vegging out for a bit. It’s forced relaxation. Bonus points if somebody is having a fire or BBQ and I can smoke and socialize.

5. I typically smoke on Friday and Saturday nights. Weeknights are reserved for my alcoholism.

6. I have gotten high with PhD’s and Jeopardy winners as well as hopeless stoners…I think this all depends on the individual.I use small amounts frequently…for me, this tends to be better than the add and depression drugs that would be otherwise thrown at me.

   I have three jobs, all of them require a lot of technical and soft skills – smoking moderate amounts of marijuana does not effect my ability to do any of them well and efficiently.

   Pot doesn’t slow me down at all. Actually, I find that it helps me to manage my stress and mental load. I completely realize this is not the case for everyone. Sure, some people embody the stereotypes, that’s why stereotypes exist – but, I bet most of the people who embody the “lazy pothead” stereotype would be lazy pieces of shit even without weed.

   It’s convenient to project one’s perceived failings onto a plant – much more palatable than blaming yourself.

   That said, if I felt out of it after a couple puffs on a vaporizer, I’d probably steer clear besides special occasions, too.

   It’s up to a person to decide what helps or hinders their productivity/growth/etc., but I think weed can be an effective tool for some folks.

7. Depends on what I have planned during the day. I don’t “work” anymore but I keep busy during the day.

   Smoking makes my muscle endurance almost non-existent, so if I have actual work/thinking/driving to do I wait until later in the evening. If I’m just bumming around the house or garden doing chores etc, I can have a toke or two of sativa in the morning with my coffee, and I’ll be hyped up for a few hours, I can handle another toke or two of sativa in the late afternoon before dinner. After dinner I can break out the indica, and then I’m done being productive for the day.

   It’s also taken many years to get to a responsible balance. I used to tell myself I could be a functional smoker but that was just an excuse to smoke and then I would smoke too much and end up doing nothing all day.

8. I have a remote job with a 6 figure salary, used to run a boutique paid media agency that brought in ~3k a month. Have 2 pets and am starting a new venture using an entirely new skillset this month. I’m also a professional level musician.

   I used to smoke pot constantly from the ages of ~18/19 to 30 (now).

   I do have ADHD, so for more boring tasks I’d toke up and it seemed to motivate me to get back to work and focus.

   I also toked up in the afternoon to relax and close to when I’d sleep.

   So overall I’d say you can find whenever works for you and, especially as your tolerance builds, you’d be ok being productive on cannabis. I just would avoid it for presentations, meetings and generally being out in public.

   —————————

   That all said, obviously I’ve recently quite (7 days sober) and I do plan on continuing this break and re-evaluating my relationship with cannabis.

   1) As your tolerance builds getting high isn’t actually that great. Due to the mechanisms of how cannabis interacts with your endocrine system the drug goes from taming anxiety to actually amplifying it. This can be good motivation to be productive, but is a pretty miserable way to live your life. Also, getting high begins to just…not feel good. I’d be in this loop of being sober and wanting to get high, then getting high and understanding I actually didn’t feel any better than I did sober.

   2) We used to be told cannabis doesn’t cause a physical dependence. That’s bullshit. It’s not as bad as most drugs but it’s definitely not pleasant at all.

   3) It really fucks with your sleep and thus learning and emotional processing. Dreams are a way we consolidate information and process what has happened in our present and past. Cannabis prevents you from accessing that level of deep sleep.

   4) Cannabis has effects on you when you’re not using it. There’s pretty definitive evidence it shrinks your hippocampus and that’s likely why people who don’t have an abundance of anxiety and depression tend to develop more anxiety and depression as they use marijuana chronically. It comes back to cannabis negating your ability to process emotions.

   5) It impacts the “go/no go” portion of your brain (can’t spell it, could say it, basal genglia?) and thus effects your motivation to move and there’s clear evidence it effects your pattern of speech. It also effects your fertility and labido.

   So, overall, I wouldn’t recommend regular use even though I do think it’s very possible to be a productive and successful person who is cannabis dependent.

   Many people think of drug addiction as someone homeless under a bridge, but what you really need to ask yourself is if the “relief” that cannabis provides is worth the trade off of simply not being the best version of the person you could be. Because my dependency got to the point where the relief was minimal and I’m having a difficult time growing further in this economic environment…I decided it was time to pause my relationship with cannabis.

   Good luck

9. I don’t smoke, but I pop a 5mg THC tablet in the morning to mellow me out. I pop a 5mg THC tablet in the evening to relax, wind down, and sleep through the night.

   I’ve found after years of experimenting with different pharmaceuticals that my rage is better controlled by 5mg of THC than 200mg of venlafaxine. SSRIs were causing all kinds of negative side effects at the therapeutic doses. The only side effects I get from THC are not really negatives. Just some mild euphoria some days, and heightened compassion.

   I used to think medicinal use of cannabis was just smart stoners figuring out ways to make cannabis legal for themselves. Now that I’ve been micro dosing I’ve realized it will mellow the fuck out of people that want to murder others over slight inconveniences. So yeah it’s definitely medically relevant, and it’s insane we don’t use it to treat our more aggressive population out there. I’ve brought it up to my therapist, but I get the impression she just thinks I’m another stoner trying to justify his cannabis use. Except I didn’t touch the stuff for decades. Coincidentally, since I began experimenting with cannabis, I’ve opened up a lot about my past traumas and explored them much deeper than I have in the past. Sure it could be because I’m also getting older. But if I stop taking cannabis, I close back up and stop speaking about any of that stuff again.

   If I get cancer from cannabis, well I’ll just be glad it wasn’t skin cancer from the sun, or prostate cancer from genetic predisposition, or everything else out there causing cancer. At least the cancer will come from something that vastly improved my quality of life before I ended up getting cancer. I’m more worried about my present than my uncertain future anyway.

10. It’s worth doing research on the strains available to you and their reported effects and moderating how much you smoke.

    I have a few old work injuries that have left me with chronic pain for the last decade, with me only starting to smoke 6 years ago. Smoking a sativa-dominant hybrid strain during the day when needed helps with pain as it allows me to still think clearly and even give me a boost in my energy when the pain would otherwise be enough to put a halt to my day. If pain is worse I’ll go with a strain that is more 50/50, it can cause some later stage drowsiness that caffeine can counter. There are also edibles which would be ideal for aches and pains.

    As every place will have different strains available it’s worth asking a budtender if you’re buying legally. If you’re not, then you can ask your guy what strains he has and do a little search on sites like Leafly.

    As to when I smoke, it’s as needed. Sometimes a wake n’ bake with a cup of coffee is a perfect start to my morning.

11. I wouldn’t smoke during work. But is also a personal choice, and one that you have to make knowing the side effects and your energy levels. I personally love love my morning energy and how I feel in the AM; therefore, I never wake and bake or smoke during work hours unless is Friday and I don’t have any more work in the early afternoon.

    I don’t think is healthy to smoke all day. It should enhance your productivity, and the earlier that I smoke, the less productive I am and the more I have to smoke to keep it at a certain level. Use it for leisure. We’re not in our 20s anymore.