For people like me, the mild, somewhat psychedelic effects from cannabis are nothing compared to the side effects of pharmaceutical pills. When people suggest that medical cannabis shouldn’t be used because of its impact on our daily functions, or because it’s slightly psychedelic, it’s always good for a good laugh. I learned this through lived experience.
In 2011, I was diagnosed with HIV while living in Long Beach, California. A team of student nurses launched a project to pay people on the street $90 cash to get checked for HIV. One of my friends convinced me to join him and get tested. I was just there for support. After taking the test, when I saw the red plus sign on my card, I struggled to breathe. Growing up in the ‘90s and watching shows like KIDS taught me about the horrors of AIDS. I was completely ignorant about advances in medicine and the disease’s transformation into a chronic illness.
In the past, getting diagnosed with HIV was virtually a death sentence, plain and simple. But today, HIV drugs that work much better and have fewer side effects are rolled out every few years. These have dramatically increased the average life expectancy of people with HIV over the past 25 years. For instance, one of the latest HIV drugs is a twice-yearly shot—you can essentially forget about medication for six months. There is also now PrEP for people without HIV, which is a pill that aims to block transmission, lowering the rate of infections.
Pills are mandatory for people with HIV in the U.S. to stop the spread of the disease. My doctor opted to hold off the pills for me for six months, due to the side effects. During this period, I took nothing but medical cannabis, and within that timeframe, I was able to control my viral load, which is the number of HIV copies in a blood sample.
Tripping on HIV Medication
My first pill, Atripla, contains efavirenz, a powerful hallucinogen with LSD-like effects. The way my doctor and Atripla commercials describe the effects talks about “abnormal dreams,” but in reality, they are nearly identical to an acid trip. Psychonauts have explored its recreational potential as a hallucinogen, but the hallucinations can be hit or miss. For me, I hallucinated about every three days—for two years—until my medication was updated. I took my pills in the evening, so I tripped during my sleep; however, I could remember all of the visuals when I woke up. The first night, my hallucination was the strongest, and I found myself in a technicolor carnival, and I saw family and friends participating in the trip.
In places like South Africa, efavirenz is the key ingredient of street drug blends like “whoonga” or “nyaope,” crushed up and smoked like crack. But it’s important to remember that for people in South Africa who have HIV, efavirenz is a life-saving drug.
Efavirenz can also cause a false-positive THC drug test. Efavirenz and THC share several similarities: Both closely affect peripheral neuropeptides, which signal inflammation and tissue repair, and both reduce oxytocin. And it’s ironic, because I got my California medical card days after my HIV diagnosis. “I finally have a legit reason for medical cannabis,” I told myself. I’d recommend taking both the pill and cannabis at the same time.
I was also prescribed steroids for HIV. Even the lowest dose of testosterone made me angry, and it was most evident while driving. Medical cannabis was especially effective at lowering anger while I was at home. I also smoke it before jogging every day.
Efavirenz is the only HIV drug with weird or unwanted side effects. Other HIV drugs can keep you up at night.
“I first got an HIV diagnosis nine years ago,” says Doug Cahoon, a medical cannabis patient who was diagnosed in 2016. “Triumeq was the only option that didn’t have kidney side effects. And because I have kidney issues, so I went to Triumeq, but the side effect was insomnia.”
To get help falling asleep, Cahoon tried taking melatonin, sleeping pills—you name it.
“I tried all sorts of stuff,” he says. “And then I learned about cannabis. And I learned very quickly that I did sleep much better with an indica. I used it to sleep. I got on medical cannabis from a doctor and it was primarily for me to sleep. I started with gummies, I started experimenting with like tinctures and oils and different kinds of weed. I learned that indica was the calming strain within the college. So started doing that and I have not been worrying about it ever since.”
The physical dependence associated with some sleeping pills was another reason to opt for cannabis instead.
“It was like my mind wouldn’t calm down, and it was constant,” Cahoon says. “I’d lie down, my body’s tired, I haven’t slept for like two days, and just exhausted. I’d close my eyes and couldn’t go to sleep. I had my mind just about to shut up. I was taking Ambien to try to counterbalance it for a while, but I did not want to get hooked on that. Yeah. And so I moved to cannabis to try and see if that worked.” It did work, to an extent, and Cahoon takes cannabis at night to get some sleep.
Cannabis, Drugs, and HIV
Since the horrific AIDS epidemic was a key driving force in the original crusade to legalize medical cannabis—California’s Prop. 215, which took effect in 1996—many states list HIV or AIDS as one of the top qualifying conditions, and for good reason: Many people who advance to AIDS die of wasting syndrome—the loss of appetite—and an assortment of horrifying opportunistic infections that cause lesions and other scary side effects. And take a wild guess what can increase appetite? That’s where cannabis comes into the picture.
That’s precisely why early medical cannabis advocates like Dennis Peron and Mary Jane Rathbun, aka Brownie Mary, focused on HIV and AIDS as a reason to legalize medical cannabis. Back then, HIV drugs simply didn’t work. HIV is an entirely different beast compared to other viruses. It burrows into bone marrow and the brain, where it’s very difficult to deliver drugs. It hijacks T-cells, also called CD4 cells, and turns them into HIV factories. Scientists were finally able to control HIV with new medications. HIV needs specific enzymes in humans to make copies, and some modern drugs block the body from producing these enzymes.
To be clear, what I went through is nothing at all like what people who were diagnosed with AIDS in the ‘80s or ‘90s. I didn’t watch my friends drop dead left and right. I was never afraid to leave the house due to opportunistic infections. I never had to be a guinea pig and take early drugs like AZT. I was never bedridden. Back then, people with full-blown AIDS took cannabis just to be able to eat and not die from wasting syndrome. I know because I’ve interviewed them.
The Trump administration is currently considering slashing life-saving drugs that will certainly lead to deaths for people who have HIV, perhaps 14 million. The administration is considering slashing and eventually phasing out the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—installed by former president George W. Bush—to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. It’s pretty black and white that anyone who stops HIV medication will likely die, and the U.S. cannot let that happen. Without efavirenz and other drugs, I’d certainly be dead, perhaps around 2018 or so. Many people can say the same about medical cannabis.
Disclosure: This article is a personal account from a contributor and reflects their lived experience. It is not intended as medical advice. All medical decisions should be made in consultation with a licensed healthcare provider. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent High Times. This story has been fact-checked for accuracy, and all medical claims are supported by linked sources.
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