NYC,

I'm new here but hope I can provide something with my own personal experience. For me, smoking pot DURING the trauma helped with the anxiety that I would experience during trauma phases. However, as I got older, pot started making me paranoid - I'm not sure if it had any relation to me experiencing trauma and being high at the same time, earlier in my life. I will say this: if I could smoke pot and not get paranoid from the high, I would smoke every day instead of taking anti-anxiety and anti-depressants.

Personally, I DO think that certain kinds of pot CAN distort certain realities. It certainly has happened to me. I might take that into consideration with regards to your question.

best,
rachel

Oh, one more thing!!! And this is fairly important - a side-effect of PTSD is memory loss, pot does not help with this. I have a very hard time remember how I "felt" during certain situations. The combination of the two (pot and PTSD) doesn't help.

I also smoked weed (pot) before my trauma i was not stoned at the time had had not smoked for a few days but personaly i dont think being stoned could have made things worse. this is just my opinion i could be wrong....

i am also intrested in this thread.

Well NYC

Doesn't look like you have gotten any real answers yet to your question. But, I bet eventually someone will come along with some help.

There is such a wide variety of people and issues here, just wait long enough and an answer will come your way

If pot reduces anxiety... hmmm

So you have two identical twins in the same room with the same life experience. One sober, one stoned out of his mind. Both witness the same traumatic event.

So if pot reduces anxiety, the event will be less stressful on the stoned twin.

So therefor the sober twin would have a more severe form of PTSD?

I've never been stoned, so help me out here. Is this a plausible theory?

Hi upstream - I see two flaws in your question - firstly, you're assuming that simply because twins are made up of the same genetics that they will respond to stress in the same manner. That simply is not true. Secondly, you're assuming that each twin will respond to getting high from pot in the same manner, (or not getting stoned in the same manner). Genetics make a portion of your reaction to life experiences but is not the end all. Each individual will respond in their own way.

Personally, when I first starting smoking pot it quenched a lot of my anxiety but that changed dramatically over time. What once worked eventually stopped working. I have friends, who in times of trauma, smoked pot and it put them over the edge. I don't think Anthony meant that pot reduces stress in EVERY individual, however it has been proven that it does reduce stress for others.

I don't mean to speak on Anthony's behalf, but that is simply what I gathered from his statement.

This conversation has been interesting.

-Rachel

That's why I stated the assumption that they have identical life experience. I'm trying to convey the idea that they are in essence identical in every way. While this is impossible in real life the question is a hypothetical.

Appreciate the input.

This brings me back to what i was saying i personaly think if i had been stoned during my trauma it would not have been so bad, but again this is just my 2cents

John

Hi nyc,

I doubt anyone knows the answer to that because the mind is complex. I believe any answer given here would be hypothetical. Unless a study was done on people that were high and exposed to trauma versus a placebo group (which those don't always tell the facts) there is no way of knowing.

I initially thought you were asking if pot would help reduce the anxiety after the fact. Sorry for my comments, as I was unaware of the real question and must have jumped to conclusions.

I smoked pot several times when I was a teenager and it made me paranoid, and wanted to go to the hospital. One hypothetical is if pot makes you scared it probably would make the trauma worse, and if it relaxes you then it may lesson the effects of the trauma. It stands to reason, but with the mind it is difficult to answer such a question.

Peace
Tammy

I guess we'll just have to wait for the next sociopath mad scientist to come along. He could also test Anthony's concussion theory