I am the most straight edge I’ve been since I was a teenager. Not even caffeine. It has been almost two months (with at worst a few beers and some chocolate).

The past few years I’ve grown weed, ever since recreational use in Massachusetts was legalized. I built a raised bed and hardware cloth enclosure at the back of the property. I framed it well, made it as discrete as possible, built the door and everything. Applied techniques from giant pumpkin growers and had absolute monster plants. More weed than I knew what to do with.

I managed it well, tried to only indulge on Fri and Sat nights. Maintained solid performance in my career. I took it as edibles, pretty gross how I did it actually. Just eating decarboxylated ground flower, rinsing it down with a flavoured drink. The last couple years, making gummies. It was nice to zone out at night. The insidious thing about weed is that you don’t always realize it makes you dumber. I would say if it’s in your system, you are at best 85% of who you usually are. Sometimes this is really nice. Sometimes not ideal. It’s a motivation killer too.

I wanted to understand what went on in the brain of chronic users. It’s interesting (at least to me).

The molecular biology is a bit similar to caffeine. In the brain, neurons have adenosine receptors. When adenosine binds to these receptors, they activate. This creates the signal that we feel sleepy and should rest. Caffeine does a really good job getting into the brain, binding and out competing adenosine for the receptors. The difference is, when caffeine binds it doesn’t activate the receptors, so when we have a cup of coffee the sleepiness signal is blocked. So caffeine is an antagonist. The brain responds by making more receptors, humans drink more coffee to block more receptors and the cycle continues. Then when you quit caffeine it’s miserable because you have a head full of adenosine receptors that you don’t need. You want to sleep all the time, headaches and it takes weeks to reset the brain to baseline receptor levels.

There’s another receptor in the brain called CB1 (Cannabinoid Receptor Type 1). The molecules that bind to it are produced when we have stress, pain and intense neural activity. CB1 receptor signalling likely evolved as a trauma response. When the natural ligands (binders) bind to them, pain sensation decreases, stress and anxiety is reduced, the neurotransmitter glutamate is decreased as you think slower, short-term memory is impaired, and appetite is stimulated. When this natural signalling occurs, it’s your body trying to calm you down during a traumatic or maybe life-threatening event. There’s something beautiful about that – your body trying to help you calm down under conditions that are really, really bad. (just an aside – honeybees gorge themselves on honey when they think the hive is on fire. Increased appetite as a stress response isn’t unique to humans).

So weed (Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) does a similar thing as caffeine, except it isn’t an antagonist (inhibitor), it’s an agonist (activator). It binds to these CB1 receptors, but instead of blocking the CB1 signaling response, it increases it, to give you a cheat code to that stoned, hungry, slow-brained euphoria. It’s interesting to think of it from the perspective of the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate is your daily “thinking power”. It is limited. Each day you can only expend so much glutamate before your brain slows down. Sleep clears it out and resets our brain to a full tank. Weed inhibits glutamate, and it shows. Stoned people clearly aren’t thinking at 100%.

But what happens over time, with constant use? Just like with caffeine, your brain tries to adapt. It reduces the number of CB1 receptors in your brain. Now THC inhibition of glutamate decreases – your brain is trying to restore your thinking power. Now you need more weed to feel stoned. This is tolerance. CB1 receptors are downregulated.

Now what happens when a heavy user quits weed cold turkey as I did about two months ago? The CB1 receptors are still downregulated but there is no THC in the system, so there is zero inhibition of glutamate. “Thinking power” shoots through the roof and you feel creative and big brained (also more prone to anxiety and restlessness). I felt this too. I’ve never felt more super-charged and big brained than the week after I quit weed. Interesting? No? Well whatever, I’m going to stay straight edge for a while. It feels great.