Reduce the Risks: Cannabis

In the second half of our two-part episode on harm reduction , we discuss the different ways that you can reduce some of the risks associated with cannabis use. Topics include the pros and cons of edibles, and how using weed to help with anxiety can be a slippery slope.  

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Marissa: Welcome to the Last Call Podcast. My name is Marissa Whitaker, and I'm the prevention educator at SUNY Courtland.

Sarah: My name is Sarah McGowan. I'm the assistant Director of Student Health and Wellness at Onondaga Community College. Our jobs are to educate students about potential risks associated with substance use.

Marissa: We approach substance use from a neutral stance, and our episodes are rooted in public health with a focus on science and harm reduction. This week, we're going to continue our risk reduction series and discuss ways to reduce some harms associated with cannabis use. Legalization is really opening up the dialogue that we can have around safe cannabis consumption, keeping in mind that if you're under 21, it's still illegal to consume, possess, sell, or grow cannabis. But if we wait until everyone's 21 to have conversations around safer or more responsible use, that's a huge disservice to people who might need to hear this message at 18. So, Sarah, can you get us started with one of our first strategies?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So one of our first strategies, we're going to be talking about ways that using cannabis can pose less of a risk than other. It really varies from person to person and how you've been using. So every meeting that we have with students is really individualized and based on your current use patterns and your goals. So there are different tools and devices to consume the platform of cannabis versus smoking a blunt. So, news flash, smoking anything is not good for your lungs, but if you vaporize it, that's a safer way for you to inhale cannabis without inhaling all the things that come with the blunt, the rolling papers, and all the other burning materials. So the thing that I really wanted to clarify with this is that we're talking about actually vaporizing the flower. I'm not talking about you hitting your friend's THC pen. It has the concentrate in it because that might not be regulated, especially if it's not coming from a dispensary.

Marissa: Another way that someone could reduce smoke inhalation is to consume it or to take an edible. So just as Sarah said, no smoke is good smoke, and someone might run a risk with edibles, that the dosing is very subjective, meaning it varies from person to person and batch to batch of brownie cookie candy, whatever way you're consuming it. So again, if it's not coming from a regulated market that says you're getting 100 mg per candy bar, you have no idea what the THC content of the product is. So be very mindful when using edibles, and that might not necessarily be a safer bet in terms of the psychoactive components. It's kind of a bit of a catch 22. So either you smoke and then you could be able to titrate or control your dose a little more, or to not have that smoke in your lungs, you could be running a risk of accidentally consuming too much cannabis. So you're really going to have to weigh the options for which would work better for you.

Sarah: The next thing we're going to touch on is dosing. So we always try to tell students to take the least amount of THC that you need. But now concentrates can have up to a 99% THC concentration in places where the legalized market has been up and running for a while, like Colorado, California, and Oregon. So thinking about regular street level lead, which has a THC concentration on average of about 12% or less, those really high THC levels are completely unnecessary. Something else we like to touch on is that if you're going to use one substance, stick to that substance. So if you're going to use cannabis, use cannabis. If you're going to use alcohol, use alcohol. But if you mix two things together, bad things can happen. Yeah.

Marissa: And that's a really great thing to bring up. And so when this happens, in terms of one's physiological response, your body is trying to get rid of the toxins that are inside of it. So cannabis is an antiimtic, which means that it helps people to prevent nausea. That's why it's often given to people that are going through chemotherapy, which causes nausea. Cannabis can help remedy that. So that's going to try to keep everything down. So when your body is trying to get rid of something like alcohol, when you have too much, you want to get rid of it, and then there's another substance added to keep it there, your body can go into some turmoil.

Sarah: And I think now is also a really good time to talk about not driving after consuming cannabis. So there's a huge misperception that consumers think that consuming cannabis makes them a better driver. So this is absolutely not true, and accidents can happen. So being impaired from cannabis, as well as playing on your cell phone, adjusting the radio, having a conversation with your friends who are in the car, you add a substance into the mix. Driving is dangerous anyway, so adding cannabis on top of driving it's not going to make you a better driver, especially when cannabis is something that slows down your body's natural responses anyway.

Marissa: Switching gears to the time of day that someone uses cannabis, this might seem a little bit obvious, but the later in the day that someone can use it, the better. And there's actually research that supports this. If you're on the fence about going to class and someone's like, yo, let's go smoke a blunt, that might tip your decision, especially if you weren't sure about going to class. Are you going to be productive the rest of the day? Is your judgment going to be a little bit clouded where you wouldn't do the quality of work that you normally would? So the later in the day that somebody can use it, the better. And also for our listeners who might be using cannabis medicinally, taking a pause before you consume are you taking your medicine right now, or do you want to get high? Sometimes that area can be very blurred, sometimes it can be both, and that can get a little bit complicated. So taking a pause and being mindful of why you're using cannabis can be beneficial.

Sarah: Absolutely, morris and thinking about that, I think a lot of the students that I work with are using cannabis because of problems that they're having. They're stressed out, they're anxious, but at the end of the day, the problems are still there. After they're using cannabis, they're not addressing the root cause of the issue. They're just postponed it for a time when they are high. So it's always better to address the cause of what's going on compared to just getting high.

Marissa: I'm glad you brought up that anxious piece, because a lot of students report using cannabis because it helps them with their anxiety. But cannabis can be a very subjective substance, meaning it's different for different people. So to some people, when they use cannabis, it gives them nothing but paranoia and anxiety. Where other people are reporting that it helps them with that, then that could kind of become a bit of a vicious cycle. So you're anxious, so you use cannabis because it relaxes you, it calms you down. But as you said a second ago, Sarah, those issues are still going to be there after that high wears off. So sometimes it can kind of be a little bit of a vacuum of using cannabis to relax. Then you relax to use cannabis, and then it's just a snake chases its tail a little bit.

Sarah: One more thing that I just wanted to throw out there is that a lot of the time, students will say to me, I'm bored. I have nothing else to do. It's a stress reliever for me. So at the end of the day, if cannabis is the only thing you use to relieve your stress, it's not always something that you can do. So it's really important for you to figure out other ways that you can relieve stress. Working out, taking a walk, listening to music, calling a friend. There's different artistic things that you can do if you're into that drawing, painting. It's also important to really take a deep look at yourself. Are you using cannabis as something to relieve your stress or because you're bored? If so, find a hobby.

Marissa: If you're basing your friend group on people who also use cannabis, it might be beneficial to have a diverse group of friends. So if you're not in the mood to use cannabis, you have some people to hang out with.

Sarah: Yeah, for sure. I think that's really important is to look at the people that you're surrounding yourself with. You always want to have friends who are into different things. You can call if you feel like doing something else.

Marissa: Yeah. And going back to that stress piece, it's a way to cope with stress, but it can't be the only way to cope with stress. So if you're using a substance every time that you're stressed out, it's not really a sustainable way to live. So if you feel like your cannabis use is getting a little bit too much that you're out of that balance, taking a tolerance break is never a bad idea. It doesn't mean that it has to be forever. You can set it for whatever you're comfortable with. I would go at least for three weeks to a month to receive all of those psychological benefits and then to truly bring your tolerance back down. But again, because we're based on harm reduction, any break is better than no break at all.

Sarah: I think, Marissa, as cannabis use becomes kind of more common, these things are going to be something that people need to think about more and more. So excellent points. We have a lot of episodes dedicated to signs of cannabis misuse and how to go about taking a tolerance break, so check them out if any of this is hitting home. And you can always feel free to call and set up an appointment with either one of us.

Marissa: Excellent. Yes. So that brings us to a close of this episode. Thanks for joining us. Bye.