Holding a Hit - Make You Higher?

[birdgirl73]

The problem with this website is that people claim to "know" about things. Are you a doctor specialized in lungs? if no and even if you are what the heck do you know? "Gives your longs longer contact with the bad stuff, not the good?" seriously how can you say this with a straight face

I'm a medical student who's just gotten through studying lung physiology and function in great depth. I'm also a cardio-pulmonary patient, so I have had years of teaching and information from my own doctors, along with my husband, who's a cardio-pulmonary physician, about lung physiology. You seem to have some challenges learning things from other people or trusting that they may know what they're talking about thanks to education. Fortunately, I do not. That's how I learned about lung physiology.

Someday you might want to do some reading about pulmonary physiology. You can confirm what I said above within the first 15 minutes or so.

[prairieplantsystems]

I'm sorry that you would believe me to come off as just talking shit and trying to get attention. I'm not saying you're wrong at all, I'm just saying when someone says something, I need more proof than simply "because I know". Sadly this is what is happening with pretty much everything concerning the cultivation of cannabis, since it is not legal and not much research has been done regarding it (at least compared to how much would be necessary), there is not much you can use as a reliable source since people can pretty much say anything they like and come off as knowing what they're talking about. Believe me I do not claim to know anything about this, but please if you do try and at least back it up with a "reliable source" not a pro cannabis website or one persons (yourself perhaps) experience, because I will just not believe you. The same goes for ANY info on the effect of cannabis on your body. You must understand that people on this website may not be unbiased opinion towards cannabis and this is a simple fact.

Also, using phrases like this one "Gives your longs longer contact with the bad stuff, not the good" do not appear to have much scientific basis and just sounds childish. If I am to believe what you say, you have to at least explain your claims.

[birdgirl73]

I agree with you that we don't have unbiased studies and that there's a lot of hearsay around regarding cannabis since next to no testing has been done. We have pages and pages of links here on this site about its wonders as a medical substance, but they're not solid or large-scale studies, most of them, and they're largely completely biased. The links themselves are mostly to the abstracts, not the complete study data. What studies have been done have largely been done with isolates of cannabis compounds. Like isolated THC and isolated CBD, not whole cannabis. So the vast majority of those studies don't reflect what happens with inhaled whole cannabis; they more often report what happens when lab mice ingest or receive injections of cannabis isolates. Mice studies with cannabis isolates don't translate directly to how whole smoke of different strains affects humans. What's rarely pointed out is that for every pro-cannabis link people share here, there are just as many studies and abstracts out in cyberspace that say the opposing things.

Now to basic pulmonary physiology. You need to do some serious reading in a number of places and do your own legwork on finding the bibliographical references that will satisfy you. Go to the NORML site and read medical studies there. Go to Erowid and read there. Find as many links as you can to the Tashkin pulmonary studies at UCLA. Get yourself the Saunders Textbook of Medical Physiology and an MD-PhD medical professor at any accredited medical school to teach you how respiration physiology works. It's standard information that you can satisfy yourself with. Then visit any pulmonary study lab in academic medicine. You can literally go to any medical school in the country (Denver and St. Louis are particularly good places for pulmonary medicine) and watch someone in a lab demonstrate a respiration device/artificial lung with air, oxygen, and smoke of any kind, including pollution. You'll see how and when the gas-exchange occurs and how, with smoke or particulate of any kind, an extended or deliberately delayed inspiration allows more time for tars, particulate and combustion by-product chemicals to settle into contact with the surface areas of the alveoli and bronchioles.

You're not going to get a bibliographical source on this site every time people say things. We're not an academic site and will not be becoming one in the future. If you're hearing things from people whom you doubt, you might want to check their profiles for more information about them or look at their post history to see if, for instance in the case of growing, they have considerable experience in that area. In the case of inspiration/respiration and smoke inhalation physiology and damage, that's some of the most fundamental information that's been studied since cigarettes first began to be recognized as a harmful substance in the 40s and 50s, when spirometry studies were first done (and when pollution in the 60s and 70s began to be studied, too). It's available in standard physiology and medical pathology books. If you have a problem with interpreting things as "sounding childish" and unfounded, you should open your mind long enough to realize that information worded in a basic, comprehensible fashion is going to be far more understandable to our audience here than sentences full of anatomical and medical physiological terms. Any problem you're having with childish terminology is an indication of prejudice in your own interpretation, not a problem with what's actually being said.

I don't have a problem with your being a doubter or a questioner or someone who wants solid facts and references. You're quite in sympathy with me there. I do have a problem with the fact that, as a relatively new member here, you've seemed to often be far more quick to criticize than to open your mind and take in information, consider the credibility of the source whoâ??s speaking, then do your own research to confirm it.

[prairieplantsystems]

Listen, this was more a comment spurred by the general mentality towards the effects of cannabis on your body. I agree this website is not for a necessarily more informed public but still the threads containing info and claims that are simply unfounded are plentiful. Concerning the aspect of growing, sure general knowledge is quite precise since growing is something that can be experimented with on a personal level and the information collected can be quite factual. When it comes to the effects on the human body the fact is we don't have much. I'm not saying we don't have much on the effects of it on your lungs, but the effects of it in general concerning most aspects. Perhaps I didn't pick the best thread to criticize the mentality of people on this website towards studies related to the effects of cannabis on your system, since others contain info which is much more frivolous.

You should not base yourself on the fact that I am a new member here to judge how I should criticize information, granted a new member will more likely not know what he's talking about but this is not necessarily the case.

On an other note, simply to continue the debat started here, I understand the gas exchange happens quickly, but saying holding a hit allows more time for your alveoli to have contact with the "good stuff" or resin vapor I suppose and less with the "bad stuff" or tars and carcinogens I suppose seems unlogical. The resin vapor is not only on the "exterior" of your hit, the smoke that first penetrates the lungs is the smoke you will have the quickest gas exchange with, but by holding a hit the resin vapor will further continue to stick to the cells in your lungs no? I don't think holding a hit will make you much higher but it should slightly increase the resin which sticks to your lungs which seems logical to me. I understand that the logical thing is not always what happens when you don't understand the mechanism assiciated with the gas exchange in your lungs (which is my case) and I don't recommend holding a hit but it seems it would logically get your at least a little higher.

[happiestmferoutthere]

^ hmmmm...... I thought elves were supposed to come out at Christmas. Not trolls!:what:

[LIP]

Listen, this was more a comment spurred by the general mentality towards the effects of cannabis on your body. I agree this website is not for a necessarily more informed public but still the threads containing info and claims that are simply unfounded are plentiful. Concerning the aspect of growing, sure general knowledge is quite precise since growing is something that can be experimented with on a personal level and the information collected can be quite factual. When it comes to the effects on the human body the fact is we don't have much. I'm not saying we don't have much on the effects of it on your lungs, but the effects of it in general concerning most aspects. Perhaps I didn't pick the best thread to criticize the mentality of people on this website towards studies related to the effects of cannabis on your system, since others contain info which is much more frivolous.

You should not base yourself on the fact that I am a new member here to judge how I should criticize information, granted a new member will more likely not know what he's talking about but this is not necessarily the case.

On an other note, simply to continue the debat started here, I understand the gas exchange happens quickly, but saying holding a hit allows more time for your alveoli to have contact with the "good stuff" or resin vapor I suppose and less with the "bad stuff" or tars and carcinogens I suppose seems unlogical. The resin vapor is not only on the "exterior" of your hit, the smoke that first penetrates the lungs is the smoke you will have the quickest gas exchange with, but by holding a hit the resin vapor will further continue to stick to the cells in your lungs no? I don't think holding a hit will make you much higher but it should slightly increase the resin which sticks to your lungs which seems logical to me. I understand that the logical thing is not always what happens when you don't understand the mechanism assiciated with the gas exchange in your lungs (which is my case) and I don't recommend holding a hit but it seems it would logically get your at least a little higher.

But sadly, it doesn't. :rastasmoke:

[burnable]

I think a coupling of established scientific research and one's own perception and experience is the best way to come to an acceptable conclusion. What birdgirl said makes perfect sense, esp. the fact that the essential gases in a breath of standard air are absorbed instantly. But are the lungs just as efficient with a breath of thicker, heavier gas (i.e. potsmoke)? How would the lungs even recognize which particles they were supposed to absorb and which they are supposed to expel when given exposure to a big cloud of smoke?

Could it be that the pure THC content is absorbed instantly and other active cannabinoids are discarded through exhalation? If not, how would one explain the efficacy of hotboxing a car? Being surrounded by a captured cloud of second-hand potsmoke (in many cases, the smoke is all second-hand, without any fresh runoff smoke from the bowl), seems to add to the feeling of being stoned. And I would discount placebo and oxygen-deprivation, since I've done it so many times, and people don't complain about getting light-headed in a closed car under normal conditions.

Also, if you're running low on herbage, use a balloon to blow your hit into. Breathe fresh air, then re-inhale the contents of the balloon. No oxygen deprivation, and heightened stoney effects. The body seems to adapt quickly to this method and a plateau is reached, which is why I recommend doing it sparingly, during times of famine.

It's obvious that without free, unrestricted research on mj, it's hard to come to a consensus, and we will all be content with our own notions.

[Dave Byrd]

I don't think holding a hit will make you much higher but it should slightly increase the resin which sticks to your lungs which seems logical to me. I understand that the logical thing is not always what happens when you don't understand the mechanism assiciated with the gas exchange in your lungs (which is my case) and I don't recommend holding a hit but it seems it would logically get your at least a little higher.

Increasing the time you allow resin to stick to your lungs is what you don't want unless you want to increase the amount of tar deposits you accumulate over time.

That's apparently what you do want. You're clearly someone who needs to hold his hits for as long as you possibly can both in order to get 1% higher and to hold onto the position you've taken here.

So hold your hits as long as you can. Don't give your lungs or your health the benefit of the doubt. Just go for it. Eek every last bit of crap out of that hit. Someday when you're willing to educate yourself on how and when gases, vapors, oxygen, combustion chemicals, tars and particulates are absorbed (or caught and stored when they're not absorbed), you'll likely see things differently.

[WeedyBoyWonder]

I hold my hits longer so I'll die quicker.

[LIP]

I hold my hits longer so I'll die quicker.

Good. Make it quick.