Cannabis (resin)

Desired Effects:

• Euphoria
• Relaxation (feeling chilled)
• Increased sociability and sensuality.
• The giggles or finding anything funny and/or fascinating
• Appreciation of music etc. People use cannabis for all sorts of reasons from creative thinking to reliving boredom. Some people use it to cope with mental health issues or past trauma.

Side Effects:

• Anxiety
• Paranoia
• Confusion
• Slight decrease in blood pressure and heart rate
• Short term memory loss
• Increased appetite (the ‘munchies’)
• Pink, blood shot eyes
• Cannabis may cause you to sleep too much or not sleep enough.

• Mixing cannabis resin with tobacco carries all the harms associated with smoking tobacco. While smoking resin neat also carries risks from the smoke, it does not contain all the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. So, provided you don’t end up smoking more as a result, is less risky.
• Although vaping cannabis resin is safer than smoking it in a joint, pipe or bong, there may still be some risk of lung injuries.
• If smoking cannabis resin, avoid inhaling too deeply or holding the smoke in your lungs. It increases intake of tar and other junk in your lungs without getting you any more stoned.
• Smoking bongs or water pipes filters out more THC than tar and you lose lots in side stream smoke.
• A cigarette filter will also filter out THC (reducing the effect) as well as tar, so most people use a cardboard ‘roach’.
• If you start to feel paranoid or freak out, go somewhere quiet where you feel comfortable and safe. Paranoia will wear off in an hour or so when the cannabis does.
• If friends are experiencing a ‘whitey’, stay with them and try and keep them sitting upright, although don’t force them. Some people think a sugary drink helps, but again don’t force them to drink anything.
• If your mates become unwell or freaked out after taking cannabis, stay with them to calm and reassure them. Look after mates in the same way you would want to be looked after yourself. If you are really concerned about a friend, it is best to call for help.
• If sleep becomes a problem, there are more practical ways to help get your sleep back on track than smoking cannabis.
• As your tolerance increases, you will start to use more to get the same effect. This can get out of hand and lead to dependence.
• Try not to use every day, have days when you go without, particularly if you have to study for an exam.
• Don’t get cannabis laid off or borrow money to pay. Only buy what you can afford.
• If you start to feel worried by your use, cut down or stop. There are services that can help people who feel cannabis has become a problem.

Long term risks:

The two main psychoactive chemicals in cannabis are quite different. THC produces the high and is known to trigger psychotic episodes (psychosis). CBD on the other hand has no psychoactive effect and is thought to dampen down or reduce the risk of psychosis. Most hybrid herbal cannabis has high levels of THC with tiny amounts of CBD, while traditional cannabis resin has lower amounts of THC and higher amounts of CBD. It was long believed that it less of a risk to use cannabis resin as the CBD acted to dampened down the effects of THC. However, recent research suggests that this may not be the case and that cannabis with higher levels of CBD is less likely to cause adverse effects simply because it has less THC. So, it may be cannabis resin has a reduced risk of psychosis, depression and Dependence compared to high potency herbal cannabis. But this is probably because the low-grade product currently available in the UK has less THC.

Short term risks:

As most of the cannabis resin around has a lower THC content than herbal cannabis, it could be seen as less risky. However, smoking cannabis resin can still lead to;

• Confusion
• Memory loss
• Paranoia
• Nausea
• Accidents (if driving).
• Risk of Covid-19 if sharing
• Getting caught etc.

Cannabis effects a variety of different neurotransmitters in the brain so has a wide range of effects. It has been classed as a hallucinogenic drug, although it very rarely causes hallucinations. It is now more commonly classed as a cannabinoid.

Resin is sold in blocks, that vary from soft and sticky to crumbly or quite hard. It can vary in colour from dark brown to olive green to a yellow ochre colour. Larger blocks can be embossed with fancy designs.

Class B, under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Cannabis resin is crumbled or sometimes heated and crumbled into a joint or pipe with tobacco. Cannabis resin is sometimes heated between two knifes (hot knifes) until it smokes or lit and put onto a pin under an upturned glass and inhaled when the glass fills up with smoke.

Cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) are a name given to medicines that contain varying doses of THC and/or CBD. There are currently no resin-based forms of CBMPs.

• Cannabis resin, known as Hashish or Hash is traditionally made by separating the sticky cannabis resin from the buds then drying and moulding them into a block. It can be home-made, but traditional hashish often went by the name or the country where it was grown and pressed such as Pakistani black (Black was traditionally the dried flowers pressed into a block), Red Leb (Lebanese) and Moroccan.
• Good quality hashish is sometimes called pollen (or pollem), although much of what’s commonly available in Britain is a low-grade product, known as soap or slate produced in Morocco.
• More recently, Moroccan hashish has been made in a new way using hybrid plants. This type of resin is very potent and can have nearly twice the amount of THC of even the strongest herbal cannabis. It has been seen throughout Europe but at present is rare in the UK.