DOSE:

0.25 g

smoked

Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

The last time I smoked cannabis was just six nights ago at the time of this writing. It was on that Monday evening that I underwent one of the most bizarrely frightening experiences ever offered to me by this drug, my relationship with which up until this point had been cordial for the better potion of four or five years.

I’ll start by providing some general background on myself, as well as my past drug use. I am a reasonably healthy 24 year old male, and have been in university for three years pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing. I began to use cannabis when I was just about to turn 18 years old, after having graduated from high school. Since that time, I have found myself in various circumstances which at times provided me the freedom to smoke marijuana daily, and other times with much less frequency. During my university experience, I initially smoked no pot while the semester was in session, but would enjoy some smoke with friends around Christmas or other holidays. Summer would typically involve a return to more habitual, daily smoking, while classes were out and I needn’t worry about homework or assignments.

As far as my deviations from cannabis are concerned, I have used cocaine on one occasion, mushrooms three times (the first of which was terrifying – the others unremarkable), and most recently, I used MDMA for the first time in the summer of 2008 on two separate occasions. Other than that, it’s been dope and booze.

I have had difficult experiences with marijuana before, but the one thing that distinguishes this one from its predecessors is the physiological discomfort that I endured for the better part of two hours. In the past, my bad trips had been largely mental experiences, but this time there was a new dimension of musculoskeletal/proprioceptive disturbance that I had not been subject to before . . .

As stated earlier, this happened on Monday night. It is now May, and I have been out of classes for about a month, spending my days working to save up money for rent/tuition/food for the coming semester. I had worked all day and, since it was Monday, I was planning to attend a life-drawing session at a local art gallery downtown where I like to practice sketching. After arriving in a hurry, I parked my car in a place thar I normally would have avoided, but seeing other cars present, as well as a sign indicating that restrictions lifted after 6:00 p.m., I thought I would be in the clear. I got out with my sketchpad and pencils, locked the door, and went inside without another thought . . . Three hours later I emerged into the darkened, rain soaked streets to find my car had vanished. I instantly knew that it had been towed because, since my vehicle is equipped with an immobilizer, it would not have been a victim of auto theft.

I remember being fairly serene about the situation, despite the austere surroundings; the atmosphere was akin to a film-noir, with suspicious figures emerging from alleys, running listlessly across empty streets in a downtown warehouse district. I pulled out my phone and called for a cab, but hung up when I saw one coming toward me. I hailed it and quickly got inside. I had just enough money in my wallet to pay the driver the $13.00 to get home.

It never really occurred to me how upset I was that I had lost my car because of my own foolish haste; I had parked two blocks away on a different street many times in the past without incident. Why did I think I should not park in that spot tonight? I came inside my apartment (I live by myself) and set my things down, knowing that I would have to deal with a lot of bullshit the next day to get it back: phone calls, fines, bus rides, cab fares, all on my day off (not that I had anything better to do).

I thought that a smoke might clear my head and allow me to relax for the rest of the night. I pulled out my little one-hitter pipe that looks like a half-burnt cigarette, pushed it into the shake inside the hollowed out wooden carrying case, and took a long hit.

Initially, everything was normal. I felt the normal sensation of getting high late at night in my own apartment. After a few minutes, as is often the case, I began to get sexually aroused. Being that I live alone, and do not have others to quell my desires, I usually allow the more sensual aspect of cannabis to take hold of me when I smoke by myself, without fear of interruption and embarrassment. I went on the Internet and started to watch pornography to which I could masturbate. Masturbation is an activity that has become inextricably tied to my pot smoking over the past few years since I have lived alone. The line between the two has almost begun to blur, making it hard to distinguish just which source of pleasure that I am most addicted to. Sometimes I have found it difficult or boring to pleasure myself without the addition of cannabis; moreover, when I do smoke with friends, I find that I must work hard to quell the desire to carry out my usual ritual.

Another interesting tangent I’d like to make brief mention of here is how marijuana seems to make me temporarily bisexual. But that wouldn’t be the most accurate description . . . What I mean is that, when stoned, I tend to enjoy phallic images, possibly because they mirror what I can see on my own physical body when aroused – of this I am not sure. But whatever the case, I will only watch porn where the man’s penis is the center of the exchange; for example, videos involving blowjobs, deepthroating, etc., rather than a lesbian scene would be more interesting for me. For a while I thought that cannabis was bringing out my own repressed homosexual self, so to experiment, I tried to watch gay porn while stoned to see if I could maintain arousal. This experiment failed; I found the man-on-man videos repellent, and I shut it off after only seconds, feeling rather disturbed at myself for doing such a thing. So it’s not a homosexual urge, but rather a fascination with the erect penis. I have a feeling that this is more common that most men would like to admit. I should add that I do not have a girlfriend, and find it very difficult to instigate relationships with women that lead to intimacy.

Anyway, I was masturbating like usual. Sometimes I can get very complex with this, drawing out the activity for an hour or more, completely naked, using my whole body as an instrument of pleasure – not just jerking idly in front of the computer. It’s more of an erotic experience than merely a quick rub down (all made possibly by cannabis – if I tried to do this sober, I’d feel really silly).

At one point, I was lying on my back with my knees flexed, and as I did so, I began to stimulate my anus gently with my fingertip. In the past, this had been immensely pleasurable (the Kama-Sutra even describes how this can help a man achieve ejaculation without orgasm – something I’d done once before, and have been chasing off and on ever since). This time, however, it was not working, and it felt rather gross (go figure). But it was at precisely this moment that everything fell apart . . .

I suddenly remembered back to my nursing training that anal stimulation can activate the vagus nerve, sometimes lowering heart-rate, blood pressure, and causing people to faint. This is why we must be cautious when administering an enema. This thought jumped into my head while I was lying on my back doing this, and I became horrified that this stimulation, combined with the effects of the cannabis, would send my heart into the tank. At this realization, I shot to my feet in half of a second, still naked and aroused, wondering what I was doing. After a few seconds, I brushed it off, telling myself that I was just stoned, and that I had thought of many strange things while under the influence. But something still wasn’t right . . . Nevertheless; I went into the bathroom, content to finish off the ritual with its obvious climax. I stood before the toilet engaged in the classic hand-pulsing action to carry me through the Home Stretch, as it were. I reached orgasm, but this was the first time that I had felt uncomfortable during the contractions. I could feel every muscle inside my body working, the pelvic muscles and the expulsion of semen – all normal things. But this time, it felt strange and scary, like something had gone wrong, kind of like when the space-shuttle lifts off (no pun intended) and things start to go haywire in an otherwise carefully configured system.

I finished, cleaned up, and put some clothes on. At this point, the panic set in. I thought that my blood pressure had plummeted, as I felt dizzy, disoriented, and light-headed. I felt that the cannabis, combined with the changes in blood pressure due to ejaculation, further combined with the anal stimulation had caused a drastic shift in my cardiovascular function. I began to fear that my brain was not getting enough oxygen. These thoughts spiraled out of control as I fell onto my bed, now clothed, into a fetal position.

And there I laid, shivering, quaking, and tremulous, on my side, my knees brought forward and my arms wrapped around my torso, thinking about all the horrible things that were happening to me. I opened my eyes, noticing that my alarm clock was darting around, as though my eyes were in nystagmus. I was slowly convulsing back and forth, stretching my body out and folding it back in over and over again in my bed, with all the lights on in my room, silent and alone except for the sound of my breathing (which I was very consciously controlling). My hands were grabbing at nothing all about my midsection, trying to snuff out the strange sensations and neuropathies I was feeling shooting through my body. I began to writhe even more violently, repeating mantras to myself, “It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be OK. You’re just stoned; it’s going to be OK. It’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon. You’ll get through this.”

Soon afterward, with things remaining equally horrendous, I began to contemplate going to the hospital. I needed a cardiac monitor, an EKG, a benzodiazepine, anything to help me through this, to see what was happening to me. But how would I get there? I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t drive, and I was too physically and mentally fucked up to be able to get on a bus and ride it up to the hospital. Furthermore, I work at the hospital, sometimes in the ER itself, and I would have surely been recognized. How could I explain myself? There are other hospitals, but they were spread far and wide throughout the city, and I would never have been able to figure out how to take the bus to reach them. But there was no way I was going to call 911, because in the back of my mind, I knew that I was just stoned, and that nobody ever died from pot alone. I began to think about my family, and what they would think of their son, the responsible nursing student, writhing around on his bed, stoned to insanity, moaning in distress by himself, alone. What has my life become? It was fun for awhile, when I was younger, but I’m in my twenties now, still single, with very few new friends. Pot was my only friend, and s/he was a bitch tonight!

Eventually, the feeling began to dissipate, slowly fading in and out until I could tolerate allowing my mind to focus on something other than my horrible demise! I recall feeling as though my head had no blood inside of it, that my brain were dry-heaving, cracked like an old kitchen sponge left out on the counter. I seriously began to wonder what had happened to my physically. Surely these strong physical sensations cannot all be mere hallucination? Pot alone could not be that powerful, could it? In the end, I began to feel extremely somnolent, and I passed out, in the same position, not having moved, in my clothes, with the lights on, only to awaken in the morning, sober, but still somewhat “off”. I got up, and continued to think about what had happened, feeling traumatized, evaluating my life up until this point. I showered, made the necessary phone calls to locate my car, and took the bus to the car impound lot where I paid a $99.00 towing fee, plus an additional $35.00 parking violation fine. Apparently I was in a no-stopping zone.

For the rest of the day, nothing remarkable happened. But the following day, Wednesday, I experienced one of the most severe migraines I’ve ever had. I do not have a long history of headaches, so this was a new sensation for me to deal with. I tried to put up with it throughout the day, but eventually I was ready to rip my skull apart, so I went to the pharmacy and got some 500 mg acetaminophen tablets with 8 mg of codeine (Tylenol #1) from the pharmacist. I took two right away, and that gave me the relief I needed to get through the evening and fall asleep. The headache returned the next day, when I medicated again with naproxen, which was also effective. After that, I suffered no further migraines.

To this day, I have not touched pot since that night, and I really don’t want to, although now, with my health relatively stabilized, I have had thoughts of taking a small toke to see if I react similarly. I’m convinced that the towing of my car set this whole ordeal off, but I can’t be sure. In any case, my use of pot has become very unhealthy, as it isolates me socially, and causes my to lead a very unproductive, ineffective life. I would like to leave pot behind, get a firm grasp on my career and my education, and try to live in a more normal sense, enjoying life’s smaller moments for their own charms, rather than trying to amplify everything with an introverted cannabis mind-state. While sober, I am more easily able to speak with people and express myself intelligently; however, I also notice that my creativity seems to subside with long stretches of sobriety. I sometimes fear that my musical/artistic talent and enjoyment of cinema/visual art suffers at the expense of my abstinence from pot. What’s worth more to me, though? I surely lead a lonely life, and cannabis has not helped me remedy that situation at all. I think for now I’d like to focus on living a clean life, away from troubling drug experiences, with a better grasp on the future. It’s time to grow up and leave some old, adolescent habits behind . . . for now, at least.

Thanks for reading.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 85424
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Oct 16, 2025	Views: Not Supported
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