Chapter 30 - Help Those on the Sinking Ship

Marijuana users are panicking nowadays, sensing changes in the way cannabis is perceived. Marijuana's addictive nature is being studied increasingly often, now rightly regarded as being different from alcohol. Effortlessness of access through dispensaries and delivery services raises alarm even in the hearts of weed supporters. They also sense that their crusade for legalization is being hijacked by corporate interests. The commercialization of cannabis makes it near-impossible to enforce age restrictions or supernormal THC levels. It’s unfortunate that this won’t come to an end anytime soon, but hundreds of thousands of users are stopping, with most addicts aware of studies showing similarities between weed and harder drug addiction. Each time a user leaves the sinking ship, the ones left on it feel ever more miserable.

Every user instinctively knows that it’s ridiculous to self-sabotage and spend time zoning out, super-surging their brain and in the process developing neural pathways that guarantee complacency and memory issues. You can’t get the pleasure of relaxation that way. If you can stop buying junk food and soda every time you go grocery shopping, you can definitely stop buying weed. Users can’t find rational reasons for smoking marijuana, but they don’t feel quite so silly if other people do it too.

Users blatantly lie about their habit, not just to researchers and those around them, but to themselves. They have to — the brainwashing is essential if they’re to retain some self-respect. They feel the need to justify their ‘habit’ not only to themselves but to non-users. They’re forever advertising the illusory advantages of weed by subtler means.

If a user stops by using the willpower method they still feel deprived, tending to become a moaner. All this does is to confirm to other users how right they are to continue using. If the ex-user succeeds in kicking the habit, they’re then grateful they no longer have to go through life self-sabotaging or wasting energy and have no need to justify themselves. Remember, it’s fear that keeps the user's head in the sand, only questioning their behaviour when stopping. Help the user by removing those fears. Tell them how marvellous it is not having to go through life living in a prison, how lovely it is to wake up in the morning feeling clear-headed and motivated instead of groggy and uninspired, how wonderful it is to be free of slavery, to be able to enjoy the whole of your life and to be rid of those black shadows. Or better still, get them to read this book.

It’s essential not to belittle a user by indicating that they’re deliberately ruining their health or motivation. There’s a common misconception that the ex-user is worst in this aspect. This conception has some substance, but is generally due to the willpower method of stopping. Because the ex-user - although having kicked the habit - still retains part of the brainwashing and still believes they’ve made a sacrifice. They feel vulnerable and their natural defense mechanism is to attack the weed user.

This might boost the ex-user’s ego, but it does nothing to help the user. All it does is put their back up against the wall, making them feel even more wretched and consequently their need for weed even greater. Although the change in the medical establishment’s attitude to cannabis is the main reason why many users are quitting, it doesn’t make it any easier to do so. In fact, it makes it a great deal harder. Most users nowadays believe they’re stopping primarily for health reasons. This isn’t strictly true.

Although the enormous health risk is obviously the chief reason for quitting, users have been sabotaging their motivation and cognition for years and it hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference. The main reason why users are stopping is because society is beginning to see marijuana unmasked for what it is: drug addiction. Societies' attitudes are slowly changing: many employers now drug test and partners would ask questions about disappearing most evenings to get high alone.

Complete bans on marijuana or lack of dispensaries/dealers in some places are classic examples of the travelling user's dilemma. Generally they take the attitude that it will help them cut down on their intake. The result being that instead of a joint or two a day, neither of which they would have enjoyed, they abstain for an entire week. During this enforced period of abstinence however, not only will they be mentally deprived waiting for their reward, their body is craving too. Oh, how precious that next joint is when they're eventually allowed to buy again.

Enforced abstinences don’t actually cut down the intake because the user just indulges themselves even more when finally allowed to smoke again. All it does is to engrain in the user’s mind how precious marijuana is and how dependent they are upon it. The most insidious aspect of this enforced abstinence is its effect on adolescents. We allow the hijackers of ‘medicinal use’, the cannabis corporations, to target unfortunate teenagers to get them hooked in the first place. Then, at what is probably the most stressful period in their lives, when, in their deluded minds, they need weed most of all, we blackmail them into giving up because of the harm they’re causing to themselves.

Many are unable to do so and are forced, through no fault of their own, to suffer a guilt complex for the rest of their lives. Many succeed and are pleased to do so, thinking, “Fine. I’ll do this for now and after it’s over I’ll be cured anyway." Then comes the pain and fear of finding work and other adult struggles, followed by the biggest ‘high’ of their lives — landing a job. The pain and fear are over, now feeling secure, the old trigger mechanism comes back into operation. Part of the brainwashing still being there and before the smell of the new work laptop is gone, the user is looking to hit the dispensary after their first paycheck. The elation of the occasion blocks the foul feelings from their mind, they have no intention of becoming hooked again, but just one joint couldn’t hurt... Too late! They’re already hooked again.

The old craving from the little monster will begin again and even if they don’t become hooked again straight away, the familiar anxiety and lack of motivation will probably catch them out. It’s strange that although heroin addicts are criminals in law, society’s response is helping these individuals. Let’s adopt the same attitude to the poor marijuana user. They’re not doing it because they want to, but because they think they have to. Unlike the heroin addict, they usually suffer years upon years of mental torture. We always say a quick death is better than a slow one, so don’t envy the poor weed user. They deserve your pity.