CByD_SciENTist_AMA

Yes I agree there's a line between cannabis use and overuse, but I don't think it lends itself to saying that 'X-dose per week' is healthy and "Y-dose" is not. There are very real inter-person difference in how people experience the effects of cannabinoids. For example, I'm a tank and can take a 50mgTHC edible and remain fully functional, but my wife will have a near psychedelic experience if she takes even a 5mg dose...tolerance is part of it, but beyond that everyone is also so inherently different in how they process and experience cannabis.

In my view, overuse is when it begins to negatively impact other areas of your life. If you feel anxiety at the thought of not having weed for a day, it might be time to take a little break from it. I personally use cannabis daily and have since I was a teenager, but I mostly limit it to 'nighttime use' only after I have finished all of my responsibilities for the day. Even as a daily user I don't feel that I am over-using because I'm able to successfully take care of my life, work, financials, family and everything else. It's the 'wake and bake' and smoke 'all day every day' mentalities that lead to trouble for many people, and in my view there is less enjoyment of cannabis when being used that way.

There's certainly still a lot we have left to learn about this. All I can say is that there has been some relatively negative data published on adult cognitive function when starting cannabis use too young. These same deficiencies were not observed in cohorts who started cannabis use later in life.

We really don't have enough data on this to say anything very conclusive, but I think it's safer to wait until you're an adult to begin consuming cannabis regularly. I started using cannabis when I was 14, but in hindsight that was probably too young!

Lots of things could be going on here. It's possible that your body could be processing the cannabis constituents a bit differently than you used to (especially if you take new medications or have gained/lost a lot of weight). Could just be a psychological phenomena. But if I had to take a guess, it's actually the flower that changes rather than you. What you used to use was simply less potent than what you get these days. Selective breeding has substantially increased average cannabinoid content of cannabis across the world and this difference is readily noticeable to people who have been smoking for a while. Good weed back in the 70s-80s was like 5%THC content, these days we have chemovars that are pushing 30%!

Yes and no. 'Sativas' and 'Indicas' are terms that much of the cannabis community wants to start getting away from as they are sort of meaningless. The differences that people observe can most likely attributed to the different terpenes that are expressed by the cannabis plants. So the terpenes expressed by indica-like chemovars are generally believed to be more sedative, hence the couch-lock association. In reality, almost all cannabis you encounter today is really a sativa/indica hybrid due to so many generations of selective breeding. The terpene profiles are not always consistent between generations, which could lead to different experiences.

I am not aware of withdrawal effects reported around CBD, even when using very high doses. However, heavy THC users who then abstain frequently report problems falling asleep and then experiencing very vivid dreams. This usually only last a couple days.