Think cannabis is harmless? So did I. But I know better now

Opinion: In 2017, 567 people were treated at Vancouver-area hospitals for cannabis overdoses or related mental issues. I was one of them

The emergency entrance at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver is seen in a file photo from June 24, 2009.Ian Lindsay/Postmedia

By Jennifer Foden

 

Last year, shortly before cannabis was legalized, StarMetro Vancouver reported that in 2017, 567 people were admitted to emergency rooms at St. Paul’s, Vancouver General, Surrey Memorial and Kelowna General hospitals for cannabis overdoses or related mental and behavioural issues.

I was one of them.

 

This isn’t easy to write about. I’m well aware that this will be part of my story forever, for anyone to look up online. Still, people need to know the risks.

 

In mid-2017, on a typical Saturday night, two friends and I were cooking dinner. A friend offered me half a medical marijuana gummy. She took the other half. About 45 minutes later, I started to feel strange. It’s hard to explain how. I had had bad experiences with weed before. This felt similar; like I knew something very bad was about to happen.

 

People need to know the risks

 

I decided to go home. I, still, to this day, don’t know what actually happened that night and what didn’t. I was totally disconnected from reality. I was hallucinating, dreaming while awake. 

 

Welcome to a weed overdose, friends — a drug-induced psychosis.

 

I remember walking down the street, not being able to swallow. Falling down. Laying face-first on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver yelling at people driving and walking by that I was dying. 

 

I remember the paramedics kicking me out of the ambulance. I remember dead people being wheeled past me in the emergency room at St. Paul’s. But I’m not entirely sure if any of these things happened.

 

I didn’t know my name or who I was or where I was or what it even means to be human and have a body and a brain. I didn’t understand time or space, life or death. It was very metaphysical.

My friend, who ate the other half of the gummy, showed up to hold my hand in the hospital. She was high, but fine. She wasn’t having an adverse reaction like I was.

I started feeling strange after that “bad trip.” Unlike before, my brain was filled with thoughts of suicide, death and existential questions. I attempted to push the thoughts out of my mind, assuming it was the after-effect of that little green drug.

Six weeks after that drug trip, I had nervous breakdown. I was sitting at my desk when suddenly, something felt different, something felt off. I felt uncomfortable in my body. My heart started racing.

I began to think a lot about existence. I felt disconnected. Like my mind and my body had separated. Like I was living in an altered reality. I thought I was losing my mind, or perhaps I was dying.

The worst part? I wanted to die.

I wound up in the emergency room and then a mental health facility. Further psychiatric assessment would tell me I was suffering from panic and residual drug-induced psychotic disorders. Later, I’d have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

It’s been almost a year and a half since the drug trip. I continue to suffer from panic attacks.

And, every single day, I still feel disconnected, like my mind and my body have separated, like I’m living in an altered reality. Some days are worse than others.

For some reason, I feel compelled to clarify that up until this point — for over 30 years — I was mentally stable. I have the privilege of white skin, a middle-class upbringing, great friends, a university degree and a post-grad education, too. I’ve held staff editor jobs. I’ve freelanced successfully. There were no red flags for my mental health.

There were no red flags for my mental health

A recent report claimed that a bad drug trip can be a sign of mental illness — not as a cause, but as a trigger. I’ve spent a lot of the past year and a half feeling guilty. Like I caused my mental illness by eating that weed gummy. But how could I have known? I have smoked and eaten weed before, sometimes with adverse effects. But the end result has never been multiple mental illnesses: panic, post-traumatic stress and residual drug-induced psychotic disorders. Maybe it was the perfect storm: I ate the right amount of the right strain at a time when I was stressed, and therefore vulnerable to a breakdown.

This is not a pity party. I don’t want you to feel bad for me. I’m telling this story because I think it’s important for people to realize that although cannabis has a reputation as being safe and benign, that’s not always the case. As my psychiatrist likes to remind me: people’s minds and bodies are different, and have varying reactions to drugs, to alcohol, to stress.

I’m still going through the process of healing. For people who haven’t been through something similar: be careful. It’s been reported that the current endorsed guidelines to prevent mental illness risk from marijuana consumption is to use less, use lower levels of THC or abstain. But, talk to your friends.