For some drugs, building tolerance can mean a higher possibility of overdosing, for some drugs, it simply means the user can no longer get an effect at all. When it comes to cannabis tolerance, what does it really mean, how will it affect the user, and how to avoid it.
Cannabis tolerance is a bummer, but you can avoid it by taking a few days off, or waiting longer intervals between smoke sessions. This goes for both delta-9 THC and delta-8 THC. Delta-8 is a newer alternative to delta-9, which produces slightly less psychoactive effect, while providing a clear-headed high, and less couch locking and anxiety, which are often experienced by delta-9 users. Sound good? Check out our selection of delta-8 THC deals, and just remember to keep your tolerance down!
Tolerance
According to the site cancer.gov, tolerance indicates “A condition that occurs when the body gets used to a medicine so that either more medicine is needed or different medicine is needed.” It’s actually a pretty basic concept, and it doesn’t just apply to substances. A person who has undergone a lot of pain, can build a tolerance to further pain. A person who gains a suntan, creates a stronger tolerance to burning from the sun. It happens all the time that patients receiving medication for things like cancer, MRSA, HIV or epilepsy, have to continually switch medications when their bodies develop too much resistance to a specific medication.
In fact, medication resistant epilepsy was one of the main reasons that cannabis started to become big medically. And think of the whole disease-resistant bacteria problem, like MRSA, and antibiotic-resistance in general. In this context, it can either be a person’s body no longer responding to a medication, or, that so much of a population has been continually exposed to something (like antibiotics), that a tolerance occurs across a larger population.
Since the use of substances has skyrocketed in general, with nearly everyone swallowing down prescription pills, supplements, and illicit drugs, the idea of tolerance has become more well-known. Tolerance necessitates either a larger dose to get the same effect of something, or the necessity of using something else completely. Now think of opiates, and the huge overdose rate that occurs with them. In smaller doses these drugs are less dangerous, because the body can handle the sedative effect on the autonomic nervous system.
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The dangers of tolerance
If a person no longer feels high on a depressant drug, and starts taking higher doses to keep getting to the same high, or mixes drugs to obtain a stronger high, at a certain point the CNS depressant effect will be too much for the body to handle. The idea of getting high, and being able to breathe – for example – are two very different things. The body can only handle so much depressive effect before the autonomic nervous system will be overridden. The autonomic nervous system refers to the involuntary part of the nervous system that regulates things like heartrate, blood pressure, and the rate of breathing.
With the right amount of tolerance, the amount a person needs to feel the ‘high’ effects, will be far past what the autonomic nervous system can handle in order to maintain functions like breathing. The majority of overdoses happen because the amount taken to get high (or obtain other effects), is too much for the autonomic nervous system.
This can be due to one drug being used, or when multiple drugs are used, with their combined effect being more than the body can handle. This is the same with depressants and stimulants. A person might build a tolerance to cocaine which necessitates taking more to feel high, but at a certain point, the heart will not be able to withstand the stimulant effect. If enough is taken as a result of trying to get around this tolerance, the heart could simply stop working properly under the stress.