Trying to cut down on weed?

There’s a lot of reasons people decide to quit using cannabis. You might be smoking every day, spending more time or money on it than you want to, or be worried about the very real health harms that can come with chronic cannabis use.

Cannabis harm reduction is one way to make sure you’re not doing yourself a disservice – it might include cutting down the amount you’re using, seeking treatment, or making use of some savvy tips that will help you keep it together and stay healthy when smoking (especially for daily smokers).

SEEKING TREATMENT FOR CANNABIS USE DISORDER

If you want to cut down or stop using cannabis, you have various options, including getting help from healthcare professionals. A lot of people have quit smoking weed before – you’re not alone.

Cannabis Use Disorder is a condition where a person continues to use cannabis despite experiencing health and social harms and finds it hard to stop or reduce their use. We cover this topic in depth in this article. Whether you think you might have Cannabis Use Disorder, or you’re just trying to reduce the amount you’re smoking for other reasons (e.g. work, life or caring responsibilities), there are options available.

Living with Cannabis Use Disorder, or just smoking more than you want to be, can be difficult to deal with. People might feel shame about their use, use in secret or in isolation, or face social and financial problems relating to their use. While these are challenging issues that people who use cannabis may face, it’s important to know there are options for treatment. If you’re using more cannabis than you’d like to, or think that you might have Cannabis Use Disorder, options to help you quit include:

Self-help and peer support groups: Groups like SMART Recovery can be a great option if you’re trying to quit using cannabis.

Counselling: A lot of people find counselling with a psychologist or counsellor helps them rethink or change their relationship with cannabis. Counselling can help motivate you to change your cannabis use and can give you the skills to stop using – and stay off of it.

Medication to manage withdrawal: Short-term use of medications for sleep and anxiety can help people get through cannabis withdrawal – however, researchers have not yet found any pharmaceutical medications that help people reduce their cannabis use long term. If you’re interested in trying out a new medication to help you stop using cannabis, you might be interested in the CBD-CUD study — check out this article for more information.

CUTTING DOWN CANNABIS

Cutting down cannabis doesn’t refer to this year’s harvest, we're talking about reducing the amount you smoke!

Here are some tips to help you cut down the amount you’re using:

Weigh up your deal and divvy it out: Some people find that weighing out their deal and the amount they smoke for each sesh helps them reduce the amount they smoke each day (and can help save you money too). Try to stick to a maximum of 1-2 grams per day, by weighing it out before you chop up/grind up and putting the rest away until tomorrow. This should be enough to get you as stoned as you want without going overboard.

Don’t chop up too much in one go: While it might feel good to see a massive sesh in the bowl, the truth is it’s just not necessary. Try and just chop/grind enough for the joint you’re about to roll, or for one or two cones – you can always chop up more again later.

Don’t finish the mix: This is some of the best advice on how to cut down your excess usage. If you’ve chopped a big mix and are having a sesh, remember you don’t have to smoke it all in one go before you call it for the night. Plus, some people will find it a beneficial way to save time, not having to chop up again when you decide to smoke again.

Spin it out: While we all know the negative health effects of tobacco smoking, spinning your mix with something other than weed is one way to reduce the amount of cannabis you are smoking per cone/per sesh. If you’re not a tobacco smoker, you could try other common smoking herbs, such as damiana or passionflower – these are available at most smoke shops, apothecaries and herbal shops.

Avoid daily use: If you use every day, consider trying to introduce some ‘cannabis-free days’ into your weekly schedule.

Other cannabis Harm Reduction tips

If you choose to use cannabis every day, you might be putting yourself at risk of some bodily and mental harms. To reduce the risk of long-term damage, here are some points on cannabis harm reduction that you might want to consider:

Change how you use: Consider vaping or edibles rather than bongs or joints. Vaping using a ‘dry herb vape’ is one way to reduce some of the smoking related harms of cannabis use. Dry herb vapes don’t contain the toxic chemicals that nicotine e-fluid does, and you won’t be getting the tar, carbon and burnt plant matter into your lungs that you would if you were smoking. Many tobacconists sell dry herb vape machines. Similarly, using edibles means you won’t be consuming tar and burnt plant matter. However, effects of edibles last longer and are subjectively considered by some to be more psychoactive and intense, so be careful either way. Edibles also vary in strength from batch to batch, and will come on slower (taking up to 2-3 hours in some cases before you feel the effect), so make sure to start with a small amount, and wait a decent amount of time if you choose to have more.

Avoiding deep inhalation: Breathing too deep and holding your breath while smoking can cause damage to your lungs — and isn’t a proven way to get you more stoned. Stick to small tokes for better lung health.

Stick to cannabis only: Avoid mixing with alcohol or other drugs. Not mixing cannabis with other drugs means you’ll feel the stone more clearly, getting the true cannabis experience, and lessens the risk of harms (e.g. driving incidents and other accidents)

Don’t drive stoned: While some people say they drive fine when they are stoned, especially regular users, the truth of the matter is roughly 20% of traffic accidents that happen while the driver has cannabis in their system are fatal. No one wants to hurt someone else or even kill someone in an accident, so it’s better to abstain for a few hours before you get behind the wheel. This, combined with the risk of being drug-swabbed and losing your licence, means that you should definitely think twice before driving stoned. Roadside Drug Tests can usually detect if someone has used cannabis in the past 6-12 hours, and possibly longer.

Watch out for your mental health: If you’ve noticed any mental blockages or challenges from weed smoking, you should think about stopping your use temporarily until you recover. If you’re feeling forgetful, mentally or creatively dull, or are having trouble with your general life duties or responsibilities, it’s a good idea to think about not using for a while, to allow yourself to recover or to at least assess the effects of cannabis use on your brain. Even more importantly, if you’re starting to wig out when you smoke or are coming down, are feeling regularly paranoid, or are having thoughts that are out-of-the-ordinary, it’s solid advice to stop using for a while. Don’t try to push through because you will put yourself at risk of a mental break or negative mental symptoms such as delusional thinking.