Got high/off ditchweed??

[supertripper]

The other day I was driving my car on a two-lane highway that runs just south of my house and as I happened to glance toward the right I spotted what looked like a small stand of hemp plants. The plants appeared to be fairly tall-at least 6 feet high. Hemp plants are not at all uncommon where I live (Nebraska) but it is unusual to find them growing  in a suburban environment. So the next day after I got home from work I decided to a closer look at them. I rode my bicycle over to the place where I had spotted them. Sure enough, there were several bonifide cannabis plants growing there, most of them at lease five feet in height and sevsral taller than me. They all had the classic  palmatate saw-tooth leaves with each leaf composed of  about 7 to 11 leaflets. They were BIG leaves. The plant had a slightly minty smell which was unexpected and did not smell exactly like weed does(sickening sweet) when you buy it in a dime bag. They looked like female plants becuase I didn't see any pollen sacs and the flowering tops were really undeveloped looking-no obvious buds were visible, just litle shoots teminating in very tiny bud-like structures. Anyway I broke off several of the leaves, some of the top parts and pulled one of the shorter plants out of the ground by the roots and broke it in half and put them into an emtpy insecticide bag I had found. (The bag was free of insecticide and did not smell chemical-we have recently had a LOT of rain here so I assumed the rain had washed the bag clean. I was very careful (and nervous)  gathering up the plant parts as this is a busy street and a lot of cars were going buy at the time. When I brought them home and showed them to my younger brother(whom I live with), he wasn't sure it was a cannabis/hemp/ditchweed plant, largely because of the slightly minty smell. I let the plant parts dry out overnight and just for fun I bought some zig-zag papers and I took some of the tops leaves and stem parts and tore them into small pieces and had my brother roll a a joint(I have never been able to roll a joint properly, having never really learned how. Anyway, whan we got it lit up we passed it back and forth a couple of times. I took about 5 -6 big hits and he took 2 very large tokes. Nowlet me say that it has been over 20 years since I have gotten high and for my brother, about 11. I have avoided smoking weed out of fear that it might make my HPPD worse, although I have recently been drinking Lucid absinthe which gives me a mild marijuana-like high with sensory enhancement and maybe a little time distortion. I expected absolutely NO EFFECTS whatsoever as ditchweed usually contains less than 1% THC. However, after the 3rd hit I felt a weird tingling sensation in my fingers, my heart started racing and the enire room looked different. I started getting really prolonged after-images when I stared at the ceiling light, much longer than I normally get with my HPPD. I began laughing uncotrollably as did my brother, who also remarked that his arms and fingers were tingling. We put in the Doors debut album(CD), and it sounded much clearer and I could seperate out the rhythmn track from the guitar track etc... really well which I always was able to do while high(I can also do  ths on absinthe). Getting through the first 30 minute of tthe album seemed to take an hour which I DONT experience to that degree after I drink absinthe. We decided to go out in the car and get some beer. While sitting in the car I got a real powerful sense of depersonalization as if I was watching myself from a position slightly above my head. In short I experienced all the effects of a marijuana high of low potency, say about 2-3% THC. The most impressive thing is that my brother, who is not a bullshitter and claims he gets almost no psychedelic effects from absinthe, said he was sure he was high, without question. We wondered if it could all just be a placebo effect since ditchweed is usually not psychactive due to its low THC content but then my brother made an important point-he suggested that maybe someone had thrown a bag out the window some time ago after being chased by the police and therefore what we were smoking was not ditchweed. It is a very busy highway and the speed limit is about 45 mph. Two other observations-when we lit up that joint the minty smell was immediately replaced with the classic "sickening sweet" smell of marijuana and my HPPD symtoms have all worsened noticebly, although my mind is still sharp. I think it was real weed we smoked,not dichweed..

[skunk44]

That story is absolutely hilarious, and I believe it was real weed if your visuals were worsened and your lil brother got baked.  When I blaze, my regular static turns into multicolored geometric patterns so I don't blaze at all.

[Merkan]

Do you feel a permanent worsening of your HPPD or did it get back to baseline?

[supertripper]

Well, its been only about two days since I smoked so too early to tell..most people on this forum with HPPD state that thier visuals are usually worsened for up to a week after smoking weed and then they return to baseline. Actually I have noticed a persistent worsening of after-images and tracers after drinking absinthe about 25 times, even after a 4 month abstinence..nothing I cant deal with, just annoying. However I also lowered my klonopin script from 1.5 mg/day to 0.5 mg/day during my use so it could have been due at least in part to that.

[shane t]

I'm not sure I fully get this. You found some wild Cannabis Sativa plants, and smoke part of them. Usually wild Cannabis is as you say low in THC, so doesn't produce the same intoxicating effect as the strains which are deliberately cultivated. However, these plants apparently did. Where does the bag that somebody maybe threw out the window come into it? Do you mean to suggest the bag had seeds which then sprouted?

Usually uncured plants (except delicious vegetables) of any kind smell minty, it's the volatile plant oils and the chlorophyll. Try smoking uncured tobacco and you will know what I mean. Drying it overnight generally doesn't cure it.

Also, why did you smoke it?

[supertripper]

I have taken photos of the cannabis plants I smoked if anyone would care to host them. Yes, by all appearances the plants I took parts from would appear to be Cannabis sativa ditchweedis..there are no pronounced trichomes(glandular resin secreting hairs) on the leaves or stems, the plants are all female(no pollen sacs) and the buds (or carpels) are undeveloped. There seems to be no reason why these plants should have gotten me high, nevertheless they did. I have smoked several joints from these plants, and in one instance two large joints in succession followed by one bowl which I crafted from a beer can. In the last case I got VERY high, with intense time distortion, depersonalization, prolonged and "strobing" afterimages, sensory enhancement, major impairment of short term memory, patterns with eyes closed etc.. all consisten with a marijuana high. Also my HPPD worsened markedly for at least 3 days after smoking and I also felt very spaced out and depersonalized/derealized after smoking as well. I have done some research at the local medical library and the literature has shown that the THC content of  ditchweed occasionally exceeds 1%, owing to mutations(this explains how the psychoactive properties of marijuana were first discovered by man; a mutant variety sprang up with greater than average THC content- all part of natural selection/evolution). Also, the THC content of marijuana prior to the 1970s was sometimes less than 1% and people still were able to be intoxicated by it..
  If it's not a ditchweed strain, another possibility is that some vegetative cuttings were in a bag of low potency marijuana(government issued medical marijuana often contains less than 3% THC) and the plants are female clones.
  Why did I smoke it?
1) To prove that ditchweed has no psychoactive properties whatsoever due to the high ratio of cannabidiol to delta-9-tetrayhydrocannabinol(THC)
2) I have suffered from LSD-induced HPPD for over 20 years now, with no improvement, in fact a worsening, in spite of having not used any psychedelic or hallucinogenic agent in 20 years, and I am tired of being a "good boy" with no reward for my abstinence.
3) I feel comfortable enough with my HPPD that I can handle the effects of mild psychedelics such as low-potency weed and absinthe. The data on this forum suggest that marijuana can be used occasionally by some  HPPDrs without permanently making thier visuals worse.
4) I do enjoy the effects of mild psychedelics such as sensory enhancement, stimulation of creative thought processes, etc.. as long as they don't spin out of control. (I am afraid to try Salvia divinorum even though I can buy it legally in my state).

[shane t]

Thanks for your answer!
I often wonder why people began using cannabis at all when wild cannabis is so low in THC. Kinda like the "who decided it would be a good idea to pull on a cow's tit's" thing.