Marijuana, Cannabis, Cannabinoids, and the Spotlight of Attention

Disclaimer: Follow the laws wherever you are at all times. The following is my opinion.
Marijuana Helps Lower Fear?
Some people harbor too much fear to do what they want. What if there was a drug to decrease or eliminate that fear? What if all we had to do was tweak our dosage of this drug and use this drug responsibly to unlock the power of this fear destroyer?
Would that not make us superheroes? Last I heard there isn’t a shortage of superhero movies that pretty much subsidize the entire movie industry. I mean, I’ll fuck with superhero movies. I paid twice to see Batman Begins in theaters. Clearly, other people fuck with superhero movies, too. Who doesn’t want to live vicariously through those with superpowers? But what if we could BE superheroes by overcoming our fear?
I’m not saying marijuana will help lower everyone’s fear, but it is my experience.
We Don’t Understand Marijuana But We Have Lots of Stories
Cannabis can be useful for lots of things. At least that’s what people say. Weed (a.k.a. marijuana, cannabis, or cannabinoids) can apparently fix inflammation, pain, anxiety, appetite, nausea, seizures, and more. But how many fad diets, exercises, and supplements also promise the same benefits? As more governments legalize marijuana, more corporations will sell it, and more people will consume it. So people need to know how it works and if it can be helpful for them. Where in the brain and body does the drug take effect? How much should one take and when?
Yes, We Need Research, But Insights Are Coming Slowly
One of the main reasons we can’t research marijuana and fine tune the delivery of marijuana is because marijuana would put Big Pharma out of business. Or, at the very least, Big Pharma would not be profiting at anywhere near its current rate if marijuana were widely available, understood, and prescribed.
Look at that list of ailments again. Countless stories have emerged on how marijuana helps those ailments. Now think of how much money Big Pharma makes off their own products that help with those ailments. ‘Follow the money’ as Lester Freamon of The Wire taught us.

It’s sad and there’s almost nothing we can do about this aspect. The Commissioner of the FDA is usually in bed with Big Pharma. If you Google each former commissioner’s past, you’ll find a cozy relationship with Big Pharma.
Add to the lack of research, information, and education surrounding marijuana the fact that each person’s experience with marijuana is unique and you have a deluge of possibilities and outcomes from using marijuana that can be overwhelming and frustrating for someone trying to optimize their experience or discover if it is even useful.
We sorely need more research on marijuana, but the powers that be have rules in place that prevent this from happening.
However, the legalization in Canada and across the US validate the anecdotal evidence that something undeniably positive is happening. So what’s really going on here?
Dosage, Variants, and Side Effects
Like anything you consume, dosing is of the utmost importance. However, the marijuana plant is complex. THC and CBD are the two main cannabinoids or compounds within the plant that we understand the most, but we still do not understand them nearly enough.
There is no consensus on the exact number of other cannabinoids in the marijuana plant, but many other cannabinoids exist. What do these cannabinoids do and what amount of these cannabinoids should people use and for what purposes? How do terpenes and the dichotomy of sativa and indica affect cannabinoid effectiveness? What are the related contraindications? The heap of unknowns surrounding marijuana presents a daunting task for researchers.
Unwanted side effects from marijuana do exist depending on the person consuming the plant. Paranoia, heightened fear, or anxiety can be experienced depending on your environment and your natural fear tendencies. The areas of the brain that stimulate or regulate fear and calm and other emotions can often be the same. We still don’t completely understand how these opposing feelings can arise in the brain with or without marijuana. Drowsiness or lethargy is another side effect. Decreased working memory is yet another unwanted side effect. How do we use cannabis and minimize these side effects while maximizing the potential benefits?
The lack of research, knowledge, and education means that the number of fragmented stories and conflicting information we do have is copious, hard to sift through, and hard to understand. In short, we’re all just figuring this out as we go in the laboratory of our own minds and bodies.
We Need To Consume Cannabis More Intelligently
A lot of times, however, people aren’t thinking about what they are doing when they consume cannabis. Many times, marijuana use is recreational. It’s a nice way to relax or get ‘messed up’, and that’s good enough for most people. But, we can be better. We should be better.
We can experiment with lower dosing to figure out the optimal amount and frequency for our goals. We can experiment with different ratios of THC:CBD to find better and more sustainable experiences based on our unique body chemistry and tolerances for getting high. The less THC, the less high you experience. The successful execution of this experimental process requires heightened self-awareness, dedication, and a desire to be better.
Raising the Ceiling of Human Potential
Expanding on a desire to be better is the idea of the betterment of healthy humans. Movies like Limitless glorify the effects of cognitive PEDs, but taking away the hyperbolic, fictional cases, maybe there are ways healthy human beings can use marijuana to improve well-being or performance.
For example, using the proper dosing to take the edge off or to sleep better as an alternative to alcohol could be an example of relatively healthy humans using cannabis productively. Used appropriately, I believe marijuana can overtake alcohol as the drug of choice for happy hours and weekend get-togethers (another reason regulation and research on marijuana is slow — the alcohol money powers that be want to hold onto their incumbent spot as the chill drug of choice). I can take the edge off without hangovers and the unwanted side effects of alcohol? Sold. Where can I buy more of that stock?
Understanding and Creativity from Cannabinoids
Cannabis has also been known to spur creativity in artists. It’s an open secret. Indeed, it is common for healthy human users to partake in a morning dose like a shot of espresso (called ‘wake and bake’). Creative juices can be useful in almost all lines of work.
A lot of creativity boils down to gaining and articulating new insights through a unique understanding of different viewpoints previously unconsidered. Each human has different capacities for empathy or understanding. We can all improve or enhance our understanding or empathy of almost anything. Understanding is knowing and knowing is a good thing most of the time.
I say most of the time, because some humans actively avoid knowing certain things or ideas or memories or thoughts. Some ideas or truths are simply too much for many humans to handle. Self preservation wins in these situations. However, if we can understand things better instead of avoiding this understanding, then wouldn’t that be a good thing for each individual and for the world as a whole?
The neural correlates and mechanisms that bring about understanding and empathy are also poorly understood in the human brain. But what if we could improve these capacities and abilities through our own experimentation of marijuana usage? Why should we wait for high-powered journal articles to realize the positive effects of cannabis?
Marijuana Improves Understanding
When people get high, they can experience awe, sadness, laughter, fear — basically any enhanced state of emotion. I know from personal experience. My theory is that the spotlight of attention turns into an intense high beam light of attention when one consumes cannabis appropriately based on their body chemistry. Wherever our attention is aimed, this temporary cannabinoid-powered, high-beam light magnifies and exposes the thing on which the light shines. This thing can be anything.
What I have also experienced is the ease at which the spotlight of attention wanders. We are so easily distracted. The thoughts, sensations, or external stimuli that can capture our attention from moment to moment are staggering. If we don’t have an awareness and control over our attention, using cannabinoids can ramp up the ease with which we’re controlled by the whims of what captures our mind from moment to moment. Indeed, this is often how the experience goes for those who use marijuana without awareness. We can get lost in or distracted by external stimuli, emotions, or thoughts normally, but with an intense, high-beam of spotlight directing our attention, the intricacies and details of an object — thoughts, emotions, TV shows, conversations, anything — can mesmerize us into an unproductive haze. The term ‘couch lock’ is a term many have used to describe various forms of this frozen state.
However, with improved dosing and a heightened awareness, we can better aim and focus the high-intensity, cannabis-induced spotlight to gain understanding and increase the empathy for whatever has captured our attention without the unwanted side effects (lethargy, forgetfulness, distractedness, paranoia) and with more of an ability to process the understanding (increased working memory and focus to absorb, to write down, and to act on ideas and insights).
Cannabinoid receptors can be found throughout human bodies and brains, but particularly in areas of the brain (prefrontal cortex) where empathy, understanding, and value determination are happening. When these receptors are activated, our attention is enhanced, and the value of the spotlighted object is magnified, and thus, the object elicits stronger than normal emotions, which help our valuation process. Our understanding of the object increases. This is my theory.
Maybe Your Brain Can Do It On Its Own
Meditation practice has helped me strengthen and increase my awareness. I am more aware of the present moment, less distracted, and more able to aim my attention. Increasingly, I am able to focus my attention while under the influence of cannabis to tap into creativity and unique insights for my work instead of becoming distracted and unproductive with diminished working memory function.
With more focus, I can remember to write down my thoughts or I’ll create calendar reminders that notify me during my heightened state of attention to stay aware and to remind me to stay on track. I’ll journal now while using cannabinoids, recording my experience for future analysis. It’s just about being proactive and planning your experience. I don’t get paranoid anymore, but for someone who does, notes or reminders written on your hand or otherwise can help attenuate bouts of fear. Michael Pollan talked about doing this for his psilocybin trips (my thoughts on this coming!).
I’ve even found extra boosts in confidence (anti-fear, if you will) and inspiration when I think about a problem cannabinoid-free for weeks and then consume marijuana. When I finally decide to focus on the problem I’m trying to solve under the influence of cannabis, I’m flooded with new possible solutions. The inspiration can be a rush of new and profoundly useful ideas. And all it took was a little discipline to avoid weed for a few weeks while the problem simmered in my head.
My first few experiences with marijuana were terrible. I had no idea the quality or composition of the substance I was consuming. I mixed it with alcohol. I did not even consider dosing.
These days, I can tap into these capacities without marijuana. The possibilities to enhance the human experience through varying levels of meditation and/or cannabis use are infinite. I personally choose a combination of the two.
In summary, informed consumption and calibrated microdoses of marijuana can increase productivity of my work by speeding up the creative and inspirational process. This is my experience, but I’ve talked to other people who share the same experience. The truth will reveal itself, but with some discipline, determination, and dosage experiments, we can all get ahead of the game without having to wait for formal research and education.
Do you want to be better? Do you want to be a superhero?
