australian study now recruiting: synthetic cannabis and the law

[mjbarratt]

Hack's episode this evening will be on this topic - using information from this survey.

 

Listen to Hack at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/

 

See the newly published paper at http://onlinelibrary...0519.x/abstract

 

Unfortunately that paper is only available to subscribers... but i've uploaded the proofs version to this post so you can take a read.

 

note that the paper attached does not contain all the stuff about the legislative changes. These will be in a separate paper which we are still working on!

Proofs Barratt DAR 519.pdf

[Za7ox]

Synthetic weed to me was highly more addictive than normal weed. I smoked that stuff for 1month and stopping wasn't anywhere near as simple as it was with cannabis.

[The Smokin Pussy]

I was told of a friend that ended up having a psychotic episode from some synthetic product and was admitted to hospital over night!

I wont be going there...

[jabez]

Ok, I’m just posting this for harm reduction purposes and to warn anybody who may be curious to try these synthetic cannabinoid agonists.

 

Firstly, the original synthetic cannabinoids that came out a few years ago (JWH-018, ect…) weren’t actually that bad as a cannabis alternative for anyone who got drug tested for work or whatever. Or for those people who lacked the social skills to rock down to the local pub and find a reliable connection and for those who couldn’t grow there own, for whatever reason.

 

But the government has now banned these original cannabinoids. As a result, a whole new class of cannabinoid agonist are now being used on these incense blends. These new chemicals are bad news and will cause a lot of problems. They are very dangerous, since they take the anxiety attacks people get from activating their cannabinoid receptors to a whole new level and they are also extremely addictive.

 

Not long ago, I’d just come back from hiking around northern QLD and was kinda looking for a little something to smoke. I really wasn’t interested in driving to Melbourne to visit my old meth head schoolmates. So I did some research on the Internet and found this new incense blend going around that was supposed to be pretty good (code black). So I ordered some.

 

Now, when this blend came in the mail, I had not smoked anything in a while and had no tolerance to speak of. Usually I’d start off with a small half cone when trying a new blend, but I was just so excited about the prospect of getting stoned for the first time in so long, that caution just went straight out the window.

 

I packed a large cone and pulled it down, then held the smoke in for a few seconds, while blowing a few smoke rings or whatever. The first effects started kicking in before I’d even blown the smoke out. After a few minutes it had already become very clear that I was about to have a very negative experience and had completely over done it.

 

A few minutes later my heart was thumping and racing and I was overcome with an overwhelming case of extreme anxiety & paranoia, which could probably be better described as a pure fear!

 

All I can remember is just sitting on the floor with no desire to make any kind of movement, thinking to myself “you fuckin idiot, this time you’ve really gone to far, this is now it ends”. I was convinced I was about to die.

 

I got so paranoid that I convinced myself the government or some fanatic religious group had laced this blend with some horrible drug that would make us bong heads hate getting stoned, or to even just knock us off for good.

 

It was seriously the worst and the most intense feeling I’d ever felt in my life. It made the effects from smoking DMT feel weak in comparison. The effects started wearing down after about 20 minutes (like most of the new generation of CB agonists), but to me it felt like hours.

 

Worst thing about it, is after it was over I had an extreme urge to get that intense cannabinoid rushing feeling back again. After a few days I’d already gained a horrible addiction to this filthy fucking shit. I’m not talking about the mild habit forming effects you get from years of abuse from organic cannabis either. Which you can usually easily just grit your teeth and ride out, if you have a true desire to. This was a full on hardcore addiction. I even bought some of this filthy crap with money I needed for food, which is something I have never done with cannabis.

 

Anyway, just a warning. Due to the government just banning the original synthetic cannabinoids, without any kind of research, simply because it got people stoned, we now have some extremely dangerous cannabinoid agonist getting around, which will probably end up having some severe long term side effects and imo create a whole new class of drug addicts.

 

Banning them is useless, since the people who make this stuff will just start using a whole new class of synthetics, which will be even more dangerous and cause even more problems.

 

There is clearly only one way out of this endless cycle and that is to legalise & regulate the cannabis plant. But that will never happen!!!