Before going to work in a Massachusetts medical marijuana dispensary for a year and a half as a budtender, I was a mentally healthy physical therapist. I was passionate about the cannabis plant. I believed that not only was it natural, harmless, and non-addicting, but also that it was a beneficial medicine for the body and mind. I was experienced with marijuana. I thought that I knew marijuana.
After going to work for the marijuana industry and consuming its high THC products, I learned that commercialized, industrialized marijuana products are unnatural and extremely harmful. Since day one the marijuana industry, in its quest for billions of dollars, has been all about profit over health and lives.
My marijuana corporation’s CEO told us budtenders that its priority was to sell BHO (Butane Hash Oil) high THC concentrates (wax and shatter), that were over 90% THC. We budtenders were told that high THC wax and shatter were a “more medicinal way to medicate”, compared to our flower that was 20-30% THC.
When the big day finally arrived, when my corporation achieved its prime directive of selling high THC wax and shatter, I bought a gram of shatter and a dab rig from the dispensary. I went over to a fellow budtender’s house after work in order to learn how to dab because I was an old school marijuana user. I was completely clueless about dabbing and intimidated by the unfamiliar blob of shatter, the dab rig and butane torch. After inhaling my first dab hit of 98% THC shatter, my mind was overpowered with an incredibly stupefying high. I kept saying “WHOA!” over and over again between coughing fits, because I could barely handle the dab hit effects.
I should have heeded the disconcerting effects that dabbing had upon my body and brain, but being under the influence of high THC made that impossible. I immediately became hooked on dabs. High potency THC concentrates became my main method of consumption. I became a great promoter of high potency THC concentrates.
At my budtender counter, I educated and upsold high THC concentrates to customers, which included 15 year olds. I parroted what my management told me to say, that high potency THC concentrates were a “more medicinal way to medicate”.
However I began to witness harms of high THC upon co-workers and customers, who started to demonstrate escalating psychological problems, aggression and explosive outbursts. Yet I was completely incapable of perceiving the harmful effects that high THC had upon me.
High THC caused me to develop a severe marijuana addiction, a Cannabis Use Disorder. I became what the marijuana industry values and creates: one of the 20% of heavy users who consumes 80% of its products. I eventually had all 11 out of 11 characteristics of Cannabis Use Disorder. I continued to use despite experiencing alarming symptoms. After dabbing, my eyes would roll up in the back of my head and I would pass out. I would remain unconscious for some time, come to and then dab again.
Even more disturbing, I experienced onset and escalation of Cannabis Induced Psychosis: paranoia, hallucinations, and vivid daydreams of committing violent acts. First I thought about vandalizing cars. Then I imagined beating people with a baseball bat, stabbing people with a knife then shooting people. My thoughts were so terrible and my self-hatred grew so great that I began to think of ways to commit suicide.
Friends told me to stop dabbing but I felt powerless to stop and continued to dab more and more. I was caught in a high THC death spiral but was fortunate to wake up to the harms before it was too late. I quit my job as a budtender, threw out my dab rig and stopped using marijuana.
However I was far from being out of the dark woods of high THC. I went through a painful detox, losing 15 pounds in a few weeks. I was not eating or sleeping. Despite my not consuming marijuana, my mental state went from bad to worse. I used to wonder why this happened until I found research. A study shows that increased metabolism with loss of weight results in a substantial release of THC from fat stores into the blood known as “THC re-intoxification”. After having dabbed up to a gram of shatter daily for almost a year, the tremendous amount of THC stored in my fat was released.
My Cannabis Induced Psychosis worsened substantially. It went into a whole new level of bizarre and scary. I was suddenly convinced that there was an Illuminati conspiracy using 4th dimension shapeshifting reptilians to manufacture poison marijuana to bring about an apocalypse and a New World Order. Since I was the sole human on the planet who knew about this dastardly plot to end humanity, 4th dimension shapeshifting reptilians were going to find and kill me in a most brutal manner.
I became completely terrified and incapacitated. I stopped speaking. I armed myself with 4 knives 24/7 but still did not feel safe. I thought that my phone was bugged, my friends’ entire house was full of hidden cameras, and their phones were bugged. I was afraid to go out in public and be around people, because I could encounter a person who was not really human, someone who was actually a 4th dimension shapeshifting reptilian out to kill me. I began plotting ways to kill my corporation’s upper management in order to save humanity.
My friends were extremely worried about me, as my mind was teetering on a precipice, and they believed it highly likely that I would either have a complete psychotic break or kill myself. Fortunately this did not happen, for as time passed and the months went by, my mental state slowly improved and I managed to recover my mental health. When I was finally able to perceive reality clearly, I felt greatly ashamed of the delusions that I had been utterly convinced of and how close I had come to harming others.
It took a heck of a long time, but the day arrived when I no longer felt shamed into silence by what high THC dabs did to my mind. I am just one of many harmed by the marijuana industry and its unnatural, harmful high THC products. I am fortunate to have been a middle aged woman with a fully developed frontal lobe, able to survive and be a voice for those who perished from high THC, such as young Johnny Stack.
The greedy, callous marijuana industry should be shamed for its harmful ways, for the destruction it causes. If the marijuana industry continues to be at the reigns of regulation, acting with impunity for the carnage it produces, lives maimed and destroyed, the tragedy of high THC will intensify.
Such an enlightenment! Your personal story screams loudly what may be going on with so many people, now. I have never even smoked a cigarette, I would be scared as heck to ever want to experience any of those side effects. Praise God you came out of this!! Thank you so much for educating me.
Anne this is an amazing and introspective informative and brave story. I can’t thank you enough for sharing it in the detail that you have. I work with teens presenting stories of recovery and addiction in the high schools. This story reinforces the dangers of High THC use and details the reasons one gets taken in and the spiral out of control. I would love to get in touch to talk more with you and use some id your story to share with teenagers. You should speak out to your representatives and to young people too! Thank you so much for sharing. This is unfortunately not an uncommon story!
A very powerful story – thanks for sharing it and helping to educate others as to the truth behind the industry and the un-natural high THC products. You made it through a very scary time period and so happy you are back to being you. Others are not so fortunate as you mention – especially if they are under the age of 25 and doing high THC products.