Health - Can Melatonin really be the answer to "Cannabis Fatigue"?

[FuBai]

A little while ago I was in New England, browsing one of the huge and homogeneous super-market things they have there and wandered into the OTC drugs isle, remembering articles I had read on line about DXM containing cough syrups and whether they were really that available. Browsing through the different medications and being constantly stupified by the open hypocrisy of the American drug regulations I found Melatonin, a natural substance that, it claimed, would help allay my god awful jet-lag. You seemed to get allot of pills for your money, and the whole thing cost less than $5 so I thought I'd give it a try.

Obviously, as anyone would, I decided that before I took the melatonin I'd better find out a little bit about it. Browsing on-line I found some interesting references to the use of Melatonin in allaying some of the short term side effects of cannabis use, which interested me:

I see so many posts here about many hard core smokers that find throughout the years they begin to lose the fun out of weed and become anxious, stressed, and cant sleep at night. You people need to realize that the reason this happens is because marijuana is directly linked to your body's melatonin system.

Melatonin (not the pigment melanin in your skin) is the protein that is responsible for sleep regulation, hunger, and nausea. When you consume weed your body's melatonin levels surge to a whopping 4000%. However, your body cant produce enough melatonin to keep up with the huge release when you smoke everyday and bleed out your melatonin reserves dry.

So the only ways to replenish your melatonin are to take a break from weed for a couple weeks and eat healthy and exercise so that your body can produce more in the given time, or to take melatonin supplements at night which can be purchased from the grocery for dirt cheap.

So stop feeling like you have lost the love of your life and start feeling good again!

Taken from a forum which, due to the rules in force here, I am unwilling to name

And an experience report on Erowid entitled Melatonin is the Answer.

The major problem is, of course, that these are individual experiences and purely anecdotal. There appears to be little hard evidence to go on. I have found a few articles that seem to back up the idea of the importance of melatonin in the cannabis high, that levels greatly increase and, by inference, may be depleted, but only a passing comment in a Cannabis Health article caught my eye ("I will explain the health benefits of melatonin supplements for regular cannabis users in my next article."[Full article here])

Of course I cannot conduct tests upon myself for two reasons: 1) I do not use illegal drugs and 2) Melatonin is not available OTC in the UK, the USA is its last bastion of free dispense, so I wondered whether or not forum users have any experience of this, whether it works or not and, indeed, whether the short term conditions that the Melatonin is supposed to counter even exist. From a purely theoretical point of view (and I know very, very little about the actual chemical reactions that take place when Marijuana is consumed) it seems to make sense that this could be of some use.

[ima-do-proprio-ser]

please,what OTC stands for?
I tried UTFSE,but the dictionary there found was useless.

sorry for the outposted question,I am indeed very interested on the topic issue.

[Alicia]

Originally Posted by ima-do-proprio-ser

please,what OTC stands for?
I tried UTFSE,but the dictionary there found was useless.

sorry for the outposted question,I am indeed very interested on the topic issue.

Otc - over the counter , store brought bits and pieces.

This thread is very interesting. like to hear more if people post experinces with melatonin in regard to cannabis.

[The_Doc_#_2]

It is bullshit.

I been taking melatonin for a long time now and all it does for me is help me get to bed and have a good night's rest. Swim loves the bud too If someone is looking for that first time someone used pot experience, it's not going to happen.
And wtf!? pot does not "bleed-out" all of your melatonin. I have heard lots of shit like this but never seen anything medical written about it.

It's good for a peaceful nights rest is all.

Peace.

[FuBai]

I think one thing that we can be pretty sure about is the surge in melatonin levels during the cannabis high - that is quite well documented. From this it follows that if large amounts of melatonin are being used on a regular basis (for instance, if someone were to smoke everyday) then, in the long term, depletion will happen in the same way Serotonin levels can become depleted with regular MDMA use.

Obviously you have been taking melatonin for quite a while, so you are not really a fair test subject. What would be needed is, say, 100 people who smoke marijuana regularly but do not take melatonin. Find out what conditions and problems they perceive from their long term marijuana use and, after a period of melatonin use, see if those are lessened. It would be best to give half of them placebos and half melatonin to try and even it out. In any case your evidence, like the evidence provided in the main post, is anecdotal and individual at best, and also limited. You do not, for instance, say how much cannabis or melatonin SWIY consumes and in what time frame, and you do not say if SWIY have even experienced "cannabis fatigue".

[Lethargy]

SWIM happens to have a supply of melatonin sitting on his bookshelf right now. He will do what little he can to get his own data but unfortunately he has decided to cut back on the cannabis so his data will likely show some irregularities due to tolerance level changes.

[Alicia]

when swia gets some melatonin she would be happy to add to the findings..

[skatealex2]

swimmy's gonna get some soon too,a report would be nice

[chrisn]

My pet dragon actually has a nice stash of melatonin that he hasn't really been using, so he would definitely be willing to try out this experiment. Weed definitely causes eating and sleep problems for my pet dragon--after a night of smoking a large amount, he often has difficulty eating very much food the next day, until he smokes again. Also, when he takes a day or two off, he definitely has a little more trouble falling asleep, although he usually takes a diphenhydramine to help him on those nights.

Any idea on what a good dosage of melatonin would be for this experiment? My dragon's bottle is filled with 3mg pills, and the bottle actually says not to take more than 3mg in 24 hours, but I do not know of any evidence of melatonin toxicity.

[imyourlittlebare]

It may make you feel better. According to neuropsychopharmocology by feldman, meyer and quenzer, melatonin is converted from serotonin. So maybe the positive effects are from melatonin being broken down and recycled, you know?

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Swim once was prescribed something called Rozerem,it is a melatonin isomer or something along those lines.The thing to watch out for with melatonin is it can create some very vivid and unpleasant nightmares.

[skatealex2]

melatonin can cause nightmares? damn. my pet frog just got some. maybe someone will say different

[imyourlittlebare]

well, according to laura freeburg, melatonin should be avoided by people diagnosed with epilepsy and people taking certain blood-thinning medications. interesting.

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Melatonin is indeed known to cause vivid dreams and nightmares.

[ima-do-proprio-ser]

shit,hate my country : couldn't find melatonin to buy

[ima-do-proprio-ser]

it's illegal :/

[FuBai]

My experience of melatonin was that I was more able to remember my dreams. I had combined it with alcohol, which may have had some bearing on it. The dreams were not nightmares as such - there was little that was scary about them, they were just incredibly strange and, in a way, awe inspiring. I wouldn't go so far as saying they were pleasant, but they were easily bare-able. Of course, I had to leave the rest of the pot in a bin in New England. I'm not sure if it's illegal to bring back melatonin from the USA and I thought "Why risk it?".

[Joe Duffy]

Many moons ago SWIM used to take melatonin for insomnia and every time SWIM smoked cannabis SWIM experienced terrible nightmares, it was for this reason SWIM stopped taking melatonin.

SWIM may give it a go again just to see if the combination still gives SWIM nightmares, but I don’t think melatonin is available OTC in Ireland anymore.

[Lethargy]

Trial One:

Day One: SWIM's Stoner Friend has some nice stuff from Humboldt, so SWIM got some and took it around to various friends to share. Smoked a bit more than usual of more potent bud so perfect specimen for temporary cannabis burnout.

Day Two: SWIM Woke up, took 1mg melatonin (SWIM has used it for sleep and found 1-2mg more than effective, SWIY may need more or less depending), took a shower, and afterwards felt much better (possibly placebo, or just showering, or not having work at all that day) so he lit up a small bowl of the same stuff he had smoked the day before.
He got SOO HIIIIIGHHHH....
The "cerebral" part of the high lasted a full few hours, rather than the paltry half to 3/4 of an hour that it had lasted the night before. The "body stone" felt the same as the night before.

Conclusion: Too many confounding factors, SWIM only smokes cannabis on the weekends now so his "Cannabis Fatigue" hasn't seriously debilitated him. He also got a good night's sleep between sessions. However, and I find this a big deal even if SWIM sort of ignored it... the cerebral effects from what he had previously experienced as a "body high" strain seemed quite unusual. SWIM always found one of the first symptoms of burnout a loss of the cerebral elevation from marijuana...

Will do a second trial in the coming week and report back. Perhaps SWIM will enlist some friends for us although the trials will not have much objectivity they will provide at least some more data.

[FuBai]

Melatonin should be taken in the evening, not the morning, or else you risk giving yourself synthetic jet-lag. Take between 1-3 mgs in the evening after having smoked cannabis. When you wake up in the morning your "burnout" should have diminished or gone entirely, there should be less of a head ache/tightness etc. if it works.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Advice much appreciated, SWIM will use melatonin in the evenings

[Bajeda]

For all the people who experience random, bizarre, and vivid dreams/nightmares after using Melatonin, you are using too much. Studies have shown that as little as 0.5mg is more effective at inducing sleep than taking 2-3mg. If you want the crazy ass dreams, take as much as you'd like though! Search the archive for more info, or just search for other Melatonin threads in the fora (I know there is at least one or two).

[skatealex2]

does melatonin makes it easier for my friends dog to wake up in the morning after my friend's dog smokes weed?

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by skatealex2

does melatonin makes it easier for my friends dog to wake up in the morning after my friend's dog smokes weed?

That's what we are trying to establish.

[skatealex2]

anyone know if 3 grams of melatonin will give me nightmares? the ones i bought are 3 grams each one

[chrisn]

That's a hefty dose of melatonin! I think you probably misread it and I'm guessing that those are 3mg pills SWIY has, not 3gram.

3mg is a reasonable dose, my pet dragon has been using that dose for the past few nights and it restores some of the vividness to his dreams that cannabis seems to take away.

Melatonin has never given my pet dragon nightmares, only more vivid dreams and he has taken doses as high as 15mg at once, there's no clear answer to your question. It seems that only some people get nightmares and the only way to figure out if you're one of them is to try.