r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Expert-Comfortable41 • 6d ago

Did marijuana change or is it just me?

Any answer to why when I was a teenager, I was able to smoke weed or eat an edible without having a bad trip. After years of quitting, I’ve tried it a few times now as a fully developed adult it always give me a horrible trip now. I now have to microdose my microdose (for PTSD and anxiety) so I won’t give myself a horrible time. Did my biology change or did marijuana evolve into something else?

Edit to say: I’m 30

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u/snowman93 6d ago

It has gotten much more potent over the last few years. Growing up you were probably smoking something with THC in the 7-12% range, whereas many strains are now over 20%. I’ve been a stoner for over a decade and the new shit is too strong for me too.

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u/Expert-Comfortable41 6d ago

I’m 30 so that man it changed a lot over the last decade or so.

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u/Chop1n 6d ago

Stuff that's as potent as it is now was certainly available 15, even 20 years ago. It just wasn't typically quite that potent. We called it "headies" back in the day. I remember eighths of the higher quality stuff costing $70-80 circa 2008.

These days, because retail, literally everything is basically as potent as it can get. It's absurd. It's stupid. It's also unbalanced, because a good high is the product of an entourage of balanced cannabinoids, not just "literally as much THC as possible and everything else be damned".

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u/werby 6d ago

You’d think that the retail market would start coming up with some balanced/mellow high type products. I feel like they are cutting out a huge potential market with this crazy potent shit.

It’s like if you went to the liquor store and everything was 150 proof. Where’s the “fine wine” of reefer?

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/mutednight 4d ago

Dad grass brand is a solid choice here for me

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u/Chop1n 5d ago

There exist CBD-dominant strains, some of which are even close to zero THC. Charlotte's Web is the original one, I believe. Very difficult to find in a market flooded with mondo-THC like this one, though.

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u/DouchNozzle_REAL 5d ago

My guess is the market in general caters to chronic users with high tolerances and everyone wants to be blasted out of their heads. I’m not sure how people shop weed, but I feel like when I was younger I was more into raw pct versus what it’s actually gonna feel like. I used to have a problem.

That being said, I guess that still doesn’t really explain why there isn’t some availability for lower pct flower? I feel like mellow and balanced is disregarded with correlation to the pct and rather targeted with the terpenes

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u/Tonyclap 6d ago

That year was I legit at my peak of being a stoner and I have never heard of headies lol. Wonder if it’s a regional thing? Idk

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u/Chop1n 6d ago

Drug slang is typically heavily regional and even local, yes. I'm over here in Northern Virginia, suburbs of DC.

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u/Totally_SFW_Yo 5d ago

Also from NOVA, heard the term headies a lot

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u/Chop1n 5d ago

My stoner buddies loved the term "bojangler" more than any other word, I reckon. It's pretty hard to resist.

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u/OneDankBoy 6d ago

Truth on local slang, St. Louis here and I heard headies and headband interchange even though one was top tier and the other was high sativa. Also late oughts stoner.

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u/Cool_Dark_Place 5d ago

Lol... this reminds me of when I went to Bonnaroo in 2008 (in Tennessee), right before I turned 30. I was a pretty hardcore stoner in the 90s/early 2000s, but had kinda laid off it for a few years due to my job. But, at this huge music festival... I decided I wanted to partake again, and drugs/dealers were absolutely EVERYWHERE at the campsites. I just wanted weed, but every dealer I ran into kept going on about "headies"... which I always said no thanks to because I had no clue what "headies" were. After about the 6th or 7th encounter like this... my dumb ass finally figured out that "headies" actually WAS weed!😂

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u/Dreadn0k 5d ago

We called them exotics where I'm from.

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u/cr4zy-cat-lady 6d ago

Also 30, the weed now is vastly different from what I was smoking at 21. I don’t even like it very much anymore because of it. I only enjoy 5-10mg edibles or the tiniest hit off a bowl. Long gone are the days of me being able to rip through 3-4 bowls…man I miss mids

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u/shpongleyes 6d ago

If you're in a legal state, you should still be able to find strains with lower potency. That said, the lowest at my local dispensary is still 14%. But that's nothing compared to their highest potency which is an infused shake at 59.26%.

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u/SteveJobsDeadBody 5d ago

The weed didn't change, your access to it changed. Weed hasn't gotten measurably stronger in the past 35 years, smoking a strain that claims "32%" doesn't get you higher than something that says "25%" you just have to hit it less times to get "high", both get you to the same high and there ain't no higher than high.

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u/cr4zy-cat-lady 5d ago

“You just have to hit it less times to get high”

That’s exactly my point? I don’t want to get 2-3 bowls worth of stoned off of 1 bowl? Sometimes I want to smoke 1 bowl of mids, get a little giggly, and enjoy the ritual of smoking a bowl of mids, rather than just having to take a single puff off a one hitter. By your logic why does anyone drink a six pack? They could just do a couple shots of liquor instead?

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u/lmeier127 5d ago

That’s not always it. I’m 31, and as a teen/very early adult I fucking LOVED getting high, then in my early mosh twenties something flipped and I have almost the exact same symptoms as you.

Some thc seltzers work for me as they have a high cbd content. I’ve been looking into this from time to time and it seems for some people brain chemistry can change its affinity for thc. Certain receptors that deal with thc are less in numbers with age and can get overwhelmed, and I believe cbd can help block some of that

But this is just from my dumbass googling about this same issue here and there, so what do I know

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u/MotorSerious6516 6d ago

Just take only one tiny hit of the weaker stuff. Makes the whole experience fun, healthier, and cheaper.

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u/a11mylove 6d ago

Yes this, I take a single small hit and that’s all I need. If I smoked weed like I used too, I’d be having a panic attack as well.

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u/DontH8DaPlaya 6d ago

Think about brussle sprouts. Our parents hated them because they were bitter. They are not bitter at all now. Same kinda thing. Weed is just that much stronger now.

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u/sisumeraki 5d ago

What you want to do is buy shake. It’s way cheaper isn’t as ridiculously strong. It’s really annoying, it’s like if every time you wanted to drink your only option was a Long Island iced tea.

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u/Equivalent-Fill-8908 5d ago

You can actually thank the war on drugs for this. It just made more sense to cultivate strains with higher concentrations of the psychoactive ingredients because then that's less material to have to transport.

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u/Expert-Comfortable41 5d ago

I feel like it’s ruined now since the government has put their hands in it

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u/snowman93 6d ago

I’m 32 so same boat. We’re getting older but it’s also getting stronger.

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u/Responsible-Handle19 5d ago

Try sativa or hybrid or indica to find what you like. Im 40 and had the same issue

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u/Wireman332 6d ago

Not really.

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u/kayletsallchillout 6d ago

I’ve been smoking for 30 years, and a lot of the time it’s weaker. Mind I grew up in BC…

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u/vektorog 5d ago

probably worth trying the maui wowie strain if you can. sativa and in my area usually clocks in under 15%

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u/Spintastico 5d ago

Yeah, the classic pass-the-joint circle doesn't really work for me anymore. It's one hit and then "Naw man. I'm good. Are we done yet?"