Can’t Get Stoned—Take a Tolerance Break or NOT

tolerance breakNeed a Marijuana Tolerance Break?

By: Mat Lee

“I can’t seem to get stoned anymore. Is there anything I can do?” I saw this being asked by a cartoonist friend of mine on Instagram. I got to thinking, and came up with what we feel is a pretty sound theory. I would definitely love to hear your comments and feedback below.

First the basic premise. Cannabis, for the most part, has a different cannabinoid and terpene profile strain to strain. Strawberry Cough, and all of the phenotypes within the Strawberry Cough genotype share a very similar profile with each other. Of course you find differences in the phenotypes, because of growing conditions, harvest times, or just from random mutations. But for the most part they will be quite similar.

Now consider a completely different genotype, something like Sour Diesel, which is a sativa just like Strawberry Cough, but has a completely different terpene and cannabinoid profile, which gives it a completely different taste, smell, and high, among other things. Your endocannabinoid system is different from everyone else, but they all share similarities, which is why one person’s experience with a strain can be completely different than someone else. Same goes for psychedelics,  just a different mechanism.

So, if you keep smoking the same strain, or more importantly, the same phenotype of a particular strain, perhaps your endocannabinoid system gets used to, or develops a tolerance to that particular phenotype profile. Maybe it’s time for a tolerance break? If this is the case, you should notice a difference in feeling that buzz when you switch to a totally different strain, and a slight difference between smoking visually and aromatically different phenotypes within the same strain.

Granted this isn’t always easy, depending on where you live, but if you have access to a decent variety, try to diversify your bud stash as much as possible. A friend pointed out that switching between overloading the system with dabs then back to flower in a cycle of different phenotypes for the am and different phenotypes in the pm help him stave off that trip to Not Stonedville we will all eventually meet up with if we do what the late, great Nate Dogg said, and smoke weed everyday.

If that doesn’t work, well, you have achieved what we like to call the optimal operating temperature. If you ever hope to get that dick in the dirt stoned on the couch feeling again, you’ll have to actually stop smoking (GASP, I know right?), and give your endocannabinoid system a chance to get itself cleaned out a bit. I’m sorry my friend, but it might be time for a reset. Go cleanse, fast, get water pumped into your anus, or whatever the woo peddlers are peddling these days that’s in fashion. I kid, but honestly, you should probably drink lots of water, get your metabolism up to burn some fat, and find something else to get high on during the reset. I’m not saying go get a crack habit or something silly like that, but you know. If you need something, there’s a lot more interesting highs I would recommend besides herb, and instead of resorting to the booze. Booze is poop.

As far as I know, quitting the weed stuff for a week or two, aka taking a tolerance break, is the only sure fire, tried and true way to get your receptors reset and your tolerance back down. You can try different flushes and crap like that in your system, but is it really worth it? I don’t think it is, but your mileage may vary. Your body might be way more used to guzzling a gallon of disgusting swill than mine is.

Personally, I like to stay in the maxed out, optimal operating state as long as possible. Life is just better for me that way. This is where you can basically go through your normal day to day life while smoking as much weed or extract as you can. Of course if you aren’t a regular dabber, then like my friend stated about switching methods can really work well if done properly. I don’t usually eat edibles, for overloading my system that way is a good short cut to planting my dick in the dirt.

Regardless of how much purple weed you smoke, unless you eat a ton of edibles and flood your system that way, you don’t get that blazed out of your mind, sit here on the couch and malfunction feeling. You simply become more nice and tolerant of all the bullshit the day is going to throw at you, and a somewhat decent head change with every session. Once you get to this point, it becomes a fun game trying to find a strain that actually has the power to plant your dick in the dirt.

It’s also fun to watch your less enthusiastic weed smoking friends pass out while you keep on smoking, because they thought they could hang, but it turns out they can’t. It definitely can get expensive maintaining a tolerance that high though, but I find when properly done, you become the master of your own personal zen garden.

For a basic primer on terpenes, check out this article on High Times, and for the more advanced, check out this post on ICMag.

For Stuff Stoners Like, I’m Mat Lee.



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