You might be interested in this interview with Dr Miyabe Shields about cannabis and ADHD and autism. I mentioned it in a thread on /c/neurodiverse last week, but I’m starting to feel like it needs it’s own post because it keeps coming up.

One of my big takeaways was that she truly believes that most daily users of cannabis are self-medicating neurodivergents trying to survive in a neurotypical word.

Video description: Dr. Miyabe Shields has a PhD in endocannabinoid pharmsci and is co-creator of ‘Network of Applied Pharmacognosy’ with Dr. Riley Kirk, a non-profit contributing to education and destigmatising of emerging medicinal natural products. Miyabe is also a thriving queer and neurodivergent Instagram personality with over 40K followers, which is often used to promote ‘Project Chronic’ from ‘Dose Like A Scientist’, a community-based educational platform for neurodivergents providing a network, teaching them about pharmacology and advocacy.

In my opinion it’s not that bad. I’d just recommend taking tolerance breaks from time to time. Also checking in with yourself to make sure it’s not holding you back from doing the things you want to in life.

If you have a daily habit, you could do some harm reduction and get a dry herb vape (like arizer or tornado). Smoking daily can be harsh on your lungs.

I’m a daily smoker and it’s pretty great unless I get too high, and then I get tired and don’t accomplish anything. For me there is a line between “no more ambient anxiety and depression, everything is fantastic and I’m ready to start my day” and “nap time, can’t focus brain is sluggish”, and sometimes I fumble myself over that line at inconvenient times.

thats what i do, its better than constant rumination and ideation and executive dysfunction. maybe some pill would be better but id have to find one with acceptable side effects and pay for a doctor to prescribe it and it would probably end up just as expensive if not more so. weed just gives me dry mouth, but i know people personally who went through absolute horror stories on ‘legal’ ‘safe’ ‘actual real medicine and not street drugs’ mental health drugs.

Grabbed a burrito and smoked two bowls on my lunch, I will now literally be better at my job for the remainder of the day

There’s the risk of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome which sucks really hard. Also everyone I know who did this got fried once year 2 started rolling around and could barely carry on a conversation.

Honestly the only real downside I can think of is the damage smoking everyday does to your lungs, which is already become enough of a problem for me that I’ve had to switch to edibles

I know someone’s gonna bring up vaping but that’s still inhaling heated plant matter which is basically the same thing as smoking and vaping is most of what I did so I know it damages the lungs

Seriously hope I haven’t done permanent damage to myself but that’s just another reason to get high

Going to take a little tolerance break starting tomorrow tho, this week no getting high until the Elden Ring DLC drops so I can properly enjoy it

like others commented, be careful of CHS. best way to avoid that is to wait some unknown number of hours before using after waking up (basically don’t wake and bake)

how do you not get tired? i really only get one good happy energized buzz a day. everything afterward just makes me stupid, sluggish, and sleepy

i’ve tried every combo of alt cannabinoid too. HHC, THC-V, and CBD-V vape i made. should have been the closest thing to cannabis ADHD medication you can get. instead it’s just like a really nice sativa buzz with the same sleepy crash

also, do some T-breaks with a good Type-3 strain (CBD dominant, little THC). you’ll still get the mood boost, even if it’s shorter lasting. and type-3s are better then ever and readily available (legal most everywhere, thanks Farm Bill) as well as cheap

If weed doesn’t get in the way, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. However what I’d be worried about is weed turning on you and you not realizing it. It happens with long term drug use quite often, the effects change and it stops being helpful. If you ever fall into a rut where everything got worse for no reason, try going without weed and seeing how that goes.

I think you answered your own question

I quit recently after years and it was a personal choice and by no means would I say one should stop if it is something that helps them get a long in their day to day. I will share my reasons were many, but after years of using it on a daily basis I began to suspect that even though it seemed to relieve acute anxiety, it was also playing a part in elevating my baseline anxiety, and was kind of operating in the same way nicotine does (ie alleviating the symptoms which it was playing an outsized roll in causing in the first place). Like, I would get frustrated and feel anxiety about things I would forget to do, and it was a sort of attrition of small things seemingly related to my using weed. I was, in hindsight, “paranoid” about certain aspects of my social life, and to the extent that certain suspicions were real, they did not warrant the stress I felt. I quit using for other health reasons, and I experienced elevated irritability and anger for a few weeks, and then it stopped. I’ve noticed that I am not as stressed in my day to day as i was when I was high everyday, and I am more emotionally composed. Dreams came back, and though sometimes they are bad, I am grateful they have returned. Like bad sleep on alcohol, I think it’s important to weigh the benefits of use against its effects on such an important facet of learning and processing. Again, this is personal and anecdotal and I am happy for you if it helps you and would not suggest that what works for me should work for you, especially if what you are doing works so well. As someone else mentioned, tolerance breaks are recommended not only to save you money, but to give you the opportunity to see how it is without it now, in your current context. Best wishes and sorry if this was rambling.