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Even After the Health Scare, I Still Couldn't Quit
Spice-Like Smoking Blends (Wicked & Medusa)
Citation:   avoidavoidavoidavoid. "Even After the Health Scare, I Still Couldn't Quit: An Experience with Spice-Like Smoking Blends (Wicked & Medusa) (exp94009)". Erowid.org. Dec 18, 2017. erowid.org/exp/94009

 
DOSE:
1.5 g smoked Products - Spice-Like Smoking Blends (daily)
BODY WEIGHT: 185 lb
Synthetic cannabinoids do not equal marijuana. Please do not repeat my mistake by thinking the two are similar enough.

Back in my early-mid twenties I was a 24 hour/day marijuana user for about 4-5 years. I moved cities, got a drug testing job, and lost contact with all old contacts so any experience with marijuana in the last 4-5 years has been sporadic at maybe once or twice per year.

Jump to 2010 when I heard about synthetic cannabinoids and products like K2 and Spice. I started using these occasionally because I miss marijuana. This continued for about 9 months until the ban went into effect in the US. By that time, I needed the ban to break my addiction. Withdrawal from habitual use of synthetic cannabinoids is not like withdrawal from marijuana. There are a lot of night sweats and shaking along with the psychological withdrawal. Using these synthetics for 9 months gave me a worse withdrawal than using marijuana for 5 years.
Using these synthetics for 9 months gave me a worse withdrawal than using marijuana for 5 years.


Jump to June 2011. I still thought about K2 and those a lot even though I had been off for half a year. More than anything I craved marijuana but that is because the synthetics have a tighter grip on me now. Since I am at a new job, I tried without luck to score from a few different people at work and a few different friends. How pathetic that I can't find weed in Chicago. So I started going to the head shops around my area and sure enough, the next batch of synthetic cannabinoid smoke products are out there. I started testing a few, starting from a small hit from a chillum. They made me buzzed but paranoid. They reminded me of marijuana but are not the same. The best I found was Wicked X.

I would try out a different flavor vial (1.5 grams) of scented vegetation soaked in whatever chemicals they use. I started at about one vial/week occasionally in the afternoon or evening to unstress or enhance a movie experience, etc. but soon was up to one/day. Then I had to switch to Wicked XXX when I started smoking chillum after chillum without effect. This was highly highly addictive stuff.

I couldn't sleep without doing it. I would leave work on lunch to have a hit so I would stop thinking about it. I would have to wake up in the middle of the night to smoke to go back to sleep. It isn't the same as with habitual marijuana use. There is a different urgency with this stuff. When my girlfriend would come over, I would sneak hits in the alley when I was taking out the trash. Then it got so bad that I would leave the bed in the middle of the night and have a hit in the bathroom. I was ashamed of this stuff but couldn't break it at this point.

At some point I started getting terrible diarrhea every day about 5-8 times/day where it was all burning bile at the end. Doctors found some liver enzymes. My shits haven't solidified in six months. I also had a bunch of blood clots so now I am on blood thinners. To be clear, I didn't use other drugs or alcohol or tobacco at this time.

Now this is the kicker, even after the health scare, I still couldn't quit for months. I know I have a psychological addictive personality but this was is a physical addiction. I've read that synthetic cannibinoids bind magnitudes more tightly to receptors than marijuana, causing worse addiction. I tried to go off of it for two weeks but I couldn't sleep through a night and I was angry and achey all over. One hit fixed everything.

A couple moths later, the work situation started deteriorating so I took a week off to get away from them. It was a last minute thing so I decided to try to stay home and study to level up on some computer skills. I ended up just smoking this shit at about 3 grams/day for a week straight. Towards the end of the week I took a hit that tasted nasty and made me throw up. After that I couldn't stop vomiting for three days straight or go outside or do anything. I still am tweaking from the experience 6 weeks later with shakey hands and a bad stomach. My stool has not solidified yet either. Also, there is some strange metallic taste on the roof of my mouth. I don't know what is wrong with me but it feels bad. I'm scared to go to the doctor. I still can't seem to hydrate myself ever no matter how many gallons of water (literally gallons) I drink every day.

This is bad shit and should be avoided.

Exp Year: 2011ExpID: 94009
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 30
Published: Dec 18, 2017Views: 2,597
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Products - Spice-Like Smoking Blends (472) : Various (28), Post Trip Problems (8), Addiction & Habituation (10), Health Problems (27)

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