Hey folks! Another week means another chance to kick back, pour yourself a cup of joe and imbibe some cannabis knowledge. Anyone who has ever smoked an appreciable amount of weed over a prolonged period of time has probably encountered a point where their high has started to lack intensity, turning what was once an epic space journey into a decidedly terrestrial experience. Not to worry, your endocannabinoid system hasn’t taken an irreversible hit from which it will never bounce back, your THC tolerance has just hit the invisible ceiling.
What’s happening to me?
Reaching your cannabis tolerance limit is a fairly common thing that occurs with virtually every chronic cannabis user; whether they smoke, eat, or take their cannabis in suppository format (seriously, look it up). To put it simply, you’ve consumed enough THC that your system is going to be less affected by it and its minor cannabinoid siblings. To put it in a more complicated way, your CB1 receptors which interact with THC and other cannabinoids have become slightly resistant to the chemical effect of THC due to over exposure and are now less sensitive to their psychoactive nature. Ergo, so are you. It’s sort of like how the first dozen times I watched that last scene in Armageddon where Bruce Willis is saying goodbye to Liv Tyler I cried so hard I dehydrated myself. After a while though, I managed to contain the grief I feel watching John McClane get whacked by a meteor and now I just whimper to myself while my wife looks at me strangely. Repeated exposure to anything, be it the chemical components of cannabis or the trauma of watching the dude from Looper die to the sultry tones of Aerosmith’s “Don’t’ Wanna Miss a Thing” eventually results in a tolerance to those stimuli. It’s an unavoidable by-product of how we interact with the world around us that comes with a fairly easy fix.
How do I get my groove back?
If you want to return your cannabis tolerance back to a much more manageable level, the method for doing so is equal parts straightforward and annoying: simply stop smoking cannabis for a bit. This will allow your CB1 receptors to recover and get back to helping you soar the skies of highness. If the idea of giving cannabis the cold turkey treatment doesn’t appeal to you, you can also switch it up and start consuming products that contain higher amounts of CBD than THC. This way you’re still giving your THC tolerance a bit of a break while not depriving yourself of the multitude of other benefits of cannabis. As far as how long of a break from THC you’ll need to take…. That will vary person to person. Generally, it can take anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks depending on the average amount of cannabis the person uses as well as the unique nature of their own endocannabinoid system. Best practice is to give it at least a few days if you’re abstaining or at least a week if you’ve switched from THC to CBD. Also be prepared for the possibility of some mild withdrawal symptoms from the lack of THC! Expect a potentially diminished appetite as well as altered sleep habits.
Want to take a bit of THC break but not sure where to start? Check out some of flower that contains little or no THC, like Mango Haze by Color Cannabis or Premium CBD Flower by Wholehemp!
