Who Uses Cannabis and Why?

            One of the reasons I have this blog is so that there is more information available about cannabis use in the general population. There is a lot of literature out there around the misuse and abuse of cannabis and recently I started wondering what motivates the average cannabis user i.e. a person who uses the plant (for recreational purposes or medicinally) without it interfering in their lives. There are so many areas that are rich with potential for investigation so I settled on one near and dear to my heart (given that I’m a queer, neurodivergent, person of color): marginalized populations.

                                  Neurodiverse and other marginalized folk exist in a world that claims to value open communication unless the message is: said in a certain tone, said using certain words, said using a certain volume, said withing a certain amount of time. These are things everyone can struggle with from time to time but when you come from a marginalized population you are scrutinized because one false move and you are officially “a disgrace” and more likely than not, it is based on an unconscious bias that paints people in marginalized groups as “other” and “bad.”  Marginalized folks are constantly asked to fit into a society that deems us “too much” if we talk about/engage in  our passions, express ourselves too enthusiastically or authentically (i.e. without tact though there is no malicious intent), or use our unique skills honed from hyperfocus on a sport or topic. We are also called  “not enough” because of the unique challenges we face trying to merely exist in a world that is (for a lot of us) a constant assault on our sense of self. We are told we think too slow or too fast yet we are praised when we have a unique solution to a problem no one else thought of. We have difficulties with communication and social interactions due to our different way of thinking. Our way of thinking is different because when you are marginalized your whole life is about trying to fit in and stay safe so you have a whole different perspective on how to function in the world.

                 I began to wonder if people who don’t have to worry so much about their place in this world had different reasons for consuming cannabis. Most people in my social circle are marginalized in some way so I know my perspectives can be biased. I decided to create a brief survey asking people to state in their own words, what effect cannabis has had on their lives. I posted the survey on a few online forums and received 124 responses.Two of the respondents did not use cannabis while the majority (105 people or 84.7%) used cannabis despite the legal status of cannabis in their hometown.

I decided to focus on the responses of Neurodiverse respondents (78 people or 62.9%) versus those of neurotypical respondents. (46 people or 37.1% ). I gathered information about age,gender,and sexual orientation as well. There were a lot of comments about pain relief in addition to emotional and mental health benefits. One thing that really stood out to me was on the comments that had to do with cannabis negatively affecting a persons life. There were 7 negative comments from neurodiverse folk and 6 from neurotypical people and though both mentioned lack of motivation it was the neurotypical people that felt this most often, with half of the comments citing this as a negative of cannabis use. I’m not quite sure what to make of that particular finding, I just thought it was interesting. What I found more fascinating was the difference in quality of responses to the question “What effect has cannabis had on your life?”

In general, there was a lot of overlap in the reasons that neurotypical and neurodiverse people use cannabis with the top four being : recreation,  to increase positive feelings, reduce anxiety, and as a sleep aid. I am not surprised since the world is kind of falling apart, but that’s a blog for another time. Neurodiverse people seemed to be more introspective about their use and what the plant means in the context of their lives whereas the majority of neurotypical responses seemed to indicate cannabis was more of an incidental stress reliever.  This is not to say all neurotypical people do not suffer severe stress, it seems like their perspective on it (and its weight in their lives) is  lot more relaxed than it is for neurodiverse.

Example:
ND response:

“Helped me to step away from my own brain when I couldn’t manage it myself. Helps me relax, be less affected by sensory issues”

 

similar NT response:

‘It’s my little escape when the world gets to be too much”

                         The simplicity with which neurotypical responses were expressed makes me think there is less analysis on their motivations for cannabis use. This made me think about the stereotype of the “typical stoner” and the uselessness it embodies. The image IS based on non-marginalized people (white, straight,neurotypical and able bodied), afterall. Of course, it is much safer to be “out” as a cannabis user when you are protected by virtue of being in a non-marginalized group. Now that cannabis is legal or decriminalized in a lot of places I would hope more the cannabis community would work to increase the positive image of cannabis users. This might mean that more marginalized people come out to tell their stories and show the world, by thriving, that cannabis use does not make you a bad person the same way being part of a marginalized population does not make you a bad person.

If you would like to see a sample of both positive and negative responses from the survey you may do so here: CUAMP comments.

At the Intersection of Autism and Race…with Some Cannabis in the Mix

         Today is International Women’s Day. As such I’ve been seeing many posts highlighting women’s struggles in already marginalized groups (i.e. women of color, queer women, disabled women etc.). While I am glad to see that these articles exist I keep noticing how a lot of them are written by white women and they seem to be missing a key point when they write things like “just be yourself”: sometimes being your true self is dangerous simply because of the color of your skin. I love activism and activists and encourage everyone to be vocal about creating a better world for the powerless in our society but you’re fooling yourself if you think white activists face the same amount of danger during a protest than activists of color.

          It’s a fact every child of color learns at some point in their lives,sometimes even before becoming school aged, whether explicit or implicit: your life will be inherently more dangerous/stressful/doubt-ridden due to a physical characteristic you cannot change, in a society which can change but does so slowly and with A LOT of violence along the way.

         As a kid, I was constantly told by my family to stop doing certain thing or that certain thoughts I expressed were “weird.” I came to accept that I was (am still am) “the weird one” but as an adult I realized that I could’ve been waaaaaaay weirder. One of the reasons I’m not is because my parents taught me the secret language of “safe behaviors around white people.” I didn’t realize this was what they were doing whenever they reprimanded me for being too loud, too expressive or too effusive. They probably didn’t realize they were also doing it when talking to their friends about how I’m “so quiet and well behaved ” (code for doesn’t question authority, avoids conflict and doesn’t express own thoughts/ideas for fear of being labeled weird or worse).  Another thing that added difficulty to my experience of life is that I’m pretty intelligent. Yes, it did make certain things like school and finding patterns in behavior I could emulate so as to not fly above the radar but it also made not thinking about why very,very difficult. Why did everyone seem to buy into societal norms so easily? Why couldn’t they take the data in front of them, process it rationally, as well as emotionally to some degree, and then make a decision on how to behave so that it benefits the world as a whole? Trying to think about all that while navigating an American school system and Guatemalan/Mexican-American home made life as a teen interesting to say the least.

          My parents had a sense of the difficulty I would face for stepping too far outside the “normal” (cisgender, heterosexual, traditional female) and tried to get me to behave accordingly. When I pushed back they did not put up a fight and let me be a bit of a “tomboy” sure, but they still always made me wear dresses to formal occasions.  I remember being in grade school and getting some sort of Christmas-shopping-gift-experience for low income students. As we were walking down the sidewalk one of the chaperones announces we have to pair up 1 kid:1 chaperone. One of the chaperone chuckles and tells me and my all girl group of friends “One of you can come with me but you might end up with all boy clothes since I have 3 sons.” Now, at this point I had firmly rejected the idea that girls were bound to the traditional female gender role but, the idea that a girl could actively pursue the boy gender role,even if merely in dress??? My pre-pubescent heart leapt at the thought however, was quickly shut down by the oh so active Super Brain, which reminded me that I was already weird and didn’t want to draw more attention to myself for fear of ridicule from peers and siblings, rejection from parents and other things I couldn’t name because I had never been introduced to any ideas that weren’t “safe.” My parents made the usual gay jokes, so common in the 90’s but “obviously didn’t mean anything by it.” They were not purposefully malicious, just had never been exposed to, or cared to find out about LGBT culture because they were too bust doing things like earning money to keep themselves and their family alive. All these experiences are far too common for queer people of color.

            All the thing discussed above are pretty much magnified 1,000,000,000x when you’re autistic. I believe it is even more difficult for those of us who were not aware of their autism until adulthood. When my girlfriend called me autistic on out third date there was a brief moment of confusion followed immediately by denial. Being a therapist however, I decided to stop and really think about it because, obviously, “I’m way too socially competent to be autistic right??!?!” All of a sudden it clicked, “All the “weird shit” I do is in fact, autistic, *breathes sigh of relief* The reason I know how to be socially competent is because it was drilled into me thanks to traditional gender roles and my anxiety around displeasing people AND THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG.*breathes sigh of resignation*.” As I was going through my memories trying to collective evidence for or against an autism self-diagnosis I remembered back to one of my early meetings with a then-SO’s friends. This SO had a weekly dinner with pals at a local burger joint and we went as often as we could. I would always stay in the car while he went to get in line because 1) I needed to mentally prepare for being around these new people, in a loud environment where most of said new people and I had pretty much nothing in common and 2) in order to aid this process I would load my sativa cart into my vape pen and take a few meditative puffs before heading inside.  Now, of the 10 or so people that showed up every week only one of them shared my interest and enthusiasm for cannabis. One week, the mostly male get together actually had enough women so we could sit at our own table. I was reflecting on the rarity of an all woman space when someone asked what I was thinking and in true autistic fashion I launch into the thought process that led me to reflecting on the immediate happiness I was feeling at being in a female space, calm enough to enjoy it yet also wishing I could express my delight in finding that cannabis helps me get out of my head enough to enjoy the present moment. This, of course,  fell upon deaf ears as most of they did not care about cannabis and were so used to men dominated spaces that it did not bother them. (Again, why not?!?! Do they not feel the same freedom in women only spaces? If they do, do they not care?) So I returned to my happy little shell, eating my delicious garlic cheeseburger and enjoyed observing the neurotypicals do their thing.

           Cannabis helped reduce symptoms of anxiety enough for me to process other feelings or think more objectively about situation XYZ. Maybe, this is because my brain is wired different, maybe this is because cannabis plays on emotional and physical parts of our system but the end result stands: cannabis can be a tool to alleviate anxiety related symptoms when used in non-excessive amounts.