As marijuana legalization spreads across the country, people are consuming more of the drug, more often and at ever-higher potencies. Most of the tens of millions of people using marijuana, for health benefits or for fun, don’t experience problems. But a growing number, mainly heavy users, have experienced addiction, psychosis and other harmful effects, The New York Times found.

“Cannabis is a lot of things at once,” said Dr. Kevin Gray, a psychiatrist and specialist in bio-behavioral medicine at Medical University of South Carolina Health. “It can be medically therapeutic. It also can be highly problematic.”

In interviews and surveys, hundreds of people told The Times about serious — sometimes frightening — symptoms that they were stunned to learn could be caused by cannabis. Here are some of their stories.

ImageDavid Krumholtz sits on a park bench, in a blue shirt and dark pants.

David Krumholtz said the symptoms he suffered nearly cost him his dream job.Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome

‘A Real Danger’

David Krumholtz, an actor known for films like “10 Things I Hate About You” and TV shows like “Numb3rs,” resumed smoking marijuana in 2016, after a decade-long break. Within months, he started to experience cycles of intense nausea and vomiting — a sometimes debilitating condition called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. It can lead to dehydration, seizures, kidney failure, cardiac arrest and even death in rare instances.

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He lost 100 pounds and was in and out of emergency departments. At home in New Jersey, he would spend 10 hours at a time in hot baths, which for unknown reasons can temporarily relieve symptoms.

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“I had numbness in my extremities, pain in my chest and my blood pressure skyrocketed,” he said.

Mr. Krumholtz, 46, believes he would have eventually died had he not suffered an episode that almost derailed his dream job, a role in the blockbuster 2023 film “Oppenheimer,” and inspired him to quit marijuana for good.

“It seems like such an innocent drug,” he said. “But for some of us, there is a real danger, a really harmful side effect.”

Image

Aimee Washington stands outdoors, facing the camera, wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans.

Aimee Washington has tried multiple times to quit cannabis.Credit...Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

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addiction

‘Every Day, All Day’

Aimee Washington, a 44-year-old mother of four in Grand Rapids, Mich., starts smoking cannabis within a half-hour of getting up and consumes six joints. “It’s like an every day, all day thing,” she said.

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She can’t sleep without it. She can’t eat without it. When she tries to stop, she has panic attacks. “It took over everything,” she said.

This summer, she thought again about quitting, but was daunted by the withdrawal symptoms she had experienced in the past: headaches, no appetite, mood swings, increased anxiety and insomnia so bad that she once stayed awake for several days.

“If I don’t smoke,” she said, “my anxiety is so high.”

In August, Ms. Washington started work at a local dispensary. The job has flexible hours and benefits, but it has made it even harder for her to quit using marijuana.

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Annika Sheehan sits on a front stoop, facing the camera and wearing jeans and a black jacket.

Annika Sheehan, now sober, has struggled with symptoms.Credit...Kim Raff for The New York Times

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Psychosis

‘Like a Constant Whispering’

While working a data-entry job at home in Richfield, Utah, during the pandemic, Annika Sheehan escalated her use of high-potency cannabis concentrates, eventually smoking every 15 minutes. She began hearing voices, seeing demons and experiencing other hallucinations.

These psychotic symptoms have trailed her over the past three years, as she has been diagnosed variously with PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and substance use disorder, and at times used marijuana heavily.

“Especially when I’m smoking, those voices become so much louder,” said Ms. Sheehan, 24. “It’s like a constant whispering in my ear and like these intrusive thoughts.”

This year, a physician in a drug-treatment program who diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder explained that cannabis was likely contributing to her psychosis. “It was the first time someone connected the dots,” she said.

Now three months sober, she still sometimes hears voices and footsteps that aren’t there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48170947)

weed

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48170952)

the hardcore anytime anywhere people are completely wrong and insufferable and freak out if you point out that some people just can't handle too much weed, and it is depressing to smell weed constantly in every urban area and at every stop light and in front of kids. Probably has something to do with the huge increase in schizo homeless people everywhere too, and I know multiple people who went off the deep end mentally in the last few years who initially were basically high a lot of every day.

Weed was better when it was "illegal" but wink wink people did it at home.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171157)

it was annoying in a venial sense for about two-two and a half years trailing the midpoint of COVID and the first Biden year but has completely leveled off here. I don't even hear people talking about it in public anymore; once the novelty of legalization wears off it seems to fall back to the wayside in states and counties that are not completely blighted by plagues of nihilism, economic related despair, and cultural dearths of meaning

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171238)

Lmao at someone who can't stop smoking weed ljl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48170976)

She began hearing voices, seeing demons and experiencing other hallucinations.

...

Now three months sober, she still sometimes hears voices and footsteps that aren't really there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48170979)

Also, people who are really against weed without ever having smoked it.

People who make weed their entire personality and are annoying twats can be shoved in the oven too.

Basically, anybody who has an extreme opinion either way.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171008)

My main issue is with lifelong potheads, and people who are really pro weed. Weed people are universally stupid. I have never met a pothead who wasn't a worthless human being.

I also know a lot of people who are addicted to weed. I have seen it first hand. It's extremely sad to witness. Weed people fundamentally cannot enjoy life without weed. That's the most depressing thing about it. Career lifelong potheads get REALLY upset if you take their weed away.

Speaking as a recovering alcoholic, I can honestly say there was NEVER once a bad time because I didn't have booze. Was I psychologically dependent on alcohol to feel good about myself? Yes. But when I couldn't get it did I ever really care? No. There wasn't a single sober night in my entire life that I look back on and think man that time was really ruined because I couldn't get drunk

No. Is drinking really, really, unbelievably fun? Yes. Did I have some great times boozed up to high hell? Yes. But I never NEEDED it. And my life hasn't gotten one iota worse since I stopped drinking.

Cf. potheads who feel like life is an UNBEARABLE fucking burden and EVERYTHING SUCKS without weed.

Another thing I hate about potheads is when you're forced to be around someone who's really baked, whilst they may be having a great time traversing the universe in their own mind, they SUCK to be around for the other people in their lives. The way I would describe having to deal with stoned people: it's ass! It's complete ass and they often give bizarre responses to normal, obvious questions and are totally unable to behave normally because they're high as hell. In other words, it's a profoundly selfish drug. You're on some weird solo journey and everyone thinks you're acting strangely but you have to do it because you're addicted to WEED and weed people think LIFE IS HELL without being high literally ALL THE TIME.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171084)

----------

then you were not an alcoholic

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171137)

Also isn't quitting evidence that you're not a real alcoholic? Surely your ability to stop is a knock against your record. If you were a real achy you wouldn't be able to quit.

Most alcoholics don't reach the stage where they're about to die from it. But you can still compare to your peak dependency. And it will always be a spectrum.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171247)

So is using management power as leverage to fuck employees

So is 40-60% of what bourgeois society does with money

It's a symptom. Don't blame the cope, put in the thankless work to figure out why the cope exists to begin with

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171022)

truth is that loser retards don't produce much more than the wages they're given. all their jobs are largely useless make-work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171043)

i care about the lib coup d'état of definitions

these are not elites.

elite should always mean a through c. it should not mean d. d is an antonym

1

a

singular or plural in construction : the choice part : cream

the elite of the entertainment world

b

singular or plural in construction : the best of a class

superachievers who dominate the computer elite

—Marilyn Chase

c

singular or plural in construction : the socially superior part of society

how the French-speaking elite … was changing

—Economist

d

: a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence

members of the ruling elite

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171090)

i am against people smoking weed and being degenerate, and i encourage being non-degenerate, but i also don't want to live in a CCTV-camera nanny/police state in which 1/2 of adults have some kind of 'criminal record' due to heavy-handed overpolicing of things (like marijuana) that will never be 'policed away.' Trump is right in arguing that criminalizing drugs does more harm than good, on balance. 'smelling weed' has historically been the pretext for 99% of illegal police searches and harassment of all kinds.

this is all a sideshow. the only issue that matters is demographics. if you have the demographics of the Netherlands, you can legalize IV heroin and nothing terrible will happen. cops can walk around unarmed and everything is fine. demographics, not 'more prisons and cops', is true 'law & order.' just focus on that and the rest of these discussions become moot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607627&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5309775",#48171399)