Name: What Happens When You Quit Marijuana?
Uploaded: 2021-04-20T17:45:04.000Z
Duration: 7 min 9 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Right now, 55 million Americans use marijuana, and in Canada marijuana dispensaries are popping up everywhere like their Tim Hortons for weed.

And I in Toronto can even order these whittle THC drinks delivered to my front door from the Canadian government.

Weed is being pitched to us as kind of amazing, right?

Well, the recent survey found that 4.3% of Americans have tried to quit marijuana at least six times and failed.

Plus now withdrawal symptoms are being fully understood.

So today we are going to explain exactly what happens to your body when you try to quit weed.

Day 1 to 2 of quitting is when withdrawal symptoms start.

A meta-analysis of over 23,000 people found that 47% had at least three of the following withdrawal symptoms,

nausea, headaches, depressed mood, difficulty getting to sleep, sweating, anger, nervousness, decreased appetite and strange dreams.

Now the risk of withdrawal symptoms is proportional to the amount of marijuana you've been consuming.

For example, someone who consumed marijuana three times a week would likely have less withdrawal symptoms than someone who consumed marijuana every day.

Day three of quitting is an irritability and anxiety peak. Thankfully, they begin to dissipate in the coming days.

But on the other hand, the strange dreams and difficulty getting to sleep only begin to increase on day three.

This information has led to new research suggesting that chronic cannabis users may induce intrinsic sleep problems.

Around day four of quitting is when the amazing physiological changes in your brain start to occur.

Marijuana contains molecules which mimic natural neurotransmitters that are already in your brain called cannabinoids.

At baseline, cannabinoids circulate at lower quantities in your body.

But when you ingest marijuana, you create an influx of cannabinoids into your system, most specifically an increase in the psychoactive component, THC, aka delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol,

which is what I like to call it, THC is for noobs. When I see someone with an edible I say, "How much delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol you got in there, bud?"

The THC you've consumed while getting stone resembles the natural neurotransmitter and anandamide and creates increased neuronal activity in certain parts of your brain which cause thoughts, imagination and perception to magnify.

The THC binding to your neurons also affects dopamine and norepinephrine levels in the body which can lead to euphoria, pain, modulation and anxiety.

But the thing is as you continue to consume weed, it becomes harder to quit.

You start to create a desensitization and down regulation of your endo cannabinoid receptors, specifically the CB1 receptor.

Since this receptor modulates systems of short-term memory, increased cannabis use means a decrease in short-term memory.

THC also affects neurons involved in the experience of novelty.

When THC binds specific neurons, the influx creates an exciting sense of novelty even for mundane repetitive tasks, like washing dishes.

It's why you might get stoned and walk down your same street and feel like everything is heightened.

It's like, "Wow is everything in bloom?" It's the middle of winter.

But regular cannabis use leads to the down regulation of these same neurons, making it harder to quit and making it harder to feel the bliss of a new experience while sober.

After too much weed, you might go to paris for the first time and see the Eiffel Tower and be like, "Is it a lighthouse? Oh, it's pointless."

But thankfully on day four of quitting marijuana, the CB1 cannabinoid receptors will likely have returned to normal functioning.

Essentially, it only takes around four days of quitting marijuana for the neuronal changes in your brain to go back to baseline.

Now, this is new research and I think it is important that we continue to study this, especially as the popularity of weed skyrockets.

We need lots of long-term evidence about how this could be affecting our brains.

I am focusing on how the THC affects the systems in your body, how you get that THC into you might involve smoking and the act of smoking could have lasting effects on your lungs.

But there is actually a specific way that the THC in your system can have longer impacts on your neurology in your brain.

If you consume too much marijuana during development, such as an adolescence, you can create long-term neuro physiological effects.

So yeah, I started smoking weed in grade 10, which by definition is adolescents, so whoopsy!

As a closeted gay kid in a high school with no other gay kids, I was sort of drawn to that stoner, skater crowd because to be honest, they were the most fashionable.

So when people come up to me and be like, "You're gay," I'd be like, "Actually no, I'm sort of like a quirky, cool, like skater bro."

As a queer kid, weirdly weed was an asset for me.

But all those reasons aside, scientific evidence now suggests that I could have been doing long-term damage to my neurophysiology.

So was it worth it because when it comes to marijuana's lasting neuronal effects, the age of your brain matters.

Okay, but back to day 5 to 7 of quitting weed, a recent study found most people who tried to quit marijuana would fail on days 5 to 7.

And it was hardest for people who were dependent on marijuana.

Marijuana dependence can be defined as someone who has consumed weed daily for 10 years and has attempted to quit numerous times, but not made it past day seven.

It can also be defined by a continued use of marijuana despite social psychological and physical impairments.

It should be noted that although many scientists agree that marijuana dependence does exist, they also agree that dependence on marijuana is less severe than dependence on alcohol, cocaine or opiates.

But for marijuana days 5-7 are important days to focus on when trying to quit as statistically, they are the biggest hurdle.

I still consume weed. Yes, it's been decades, thankfully not daily, but I do wonder if I'm dependent.

And it is on day 5 to 7 where I usually find myself ordering a little edible from the gov gov and taking my Just Dance skills to the next level.

It's also honestly because the weekend comes and I want to watch a movie stoned.

To be honest, in my adult years, I don't know if I've ever entered a movie theater not stoned.

For me, movie theaters represent the munchies and spending about $79,000 on their largest popcorn, also getting chocolate to pour into the popcorn, then the gummies to eat to take the popcorn out of my teeth while I'm eating the popcorn and also nachos with an extra fake cheese.

So I have enough fake cheese to kill a small horse.

But finally, if you make it to day 28 of no weed all withdrawal symptoms disappear.

Your affected endocannabinoid system and CB1 receptors will return to baseline. And you might be able to understand a movie.

So I'm not saying that you just have to go out there and quit weed right now, for example, that's not what I'm planning to do.

But I think it's really important to understand what will happen to you if you do decide to quit.

Life is hard and I do think that education and learning is what allows you to make the best choices for you.

And I think science shows us that quitting weed isn't as easy as we might think it is.

You can click a link to our podcast where we discuss more about the science of quitting weed, make sure you're subscribed and we'll see you next week for a new science video piece.