People that are drawn to drinking Ayahuasca usually are very friendly of other substances including with mushrooms, smoking other substances, sometimes LSD…

The question comes often – what happens if you mix, smoke, drink, eat THC derived products if i’m preparing for a plant medicine journey?

Short answer is you should stay away from it if you’re doing Ayahuasca and i’ll explain to you why:

Imagine that every plant medicine is a song and every song on its own can teach you a lot, if you use it ceremonially, not casually.

Passing a blunt with your friends, getting high out of habit and compulsion, this is 99% of the people who ask this question, the 1% do it in a conscious way.

It is a teacher that can teach a lot, but one that is very delicate to work with…

Marihuana is a feminine energy, in the Shamanic world it’s seen as somewhat possessive…
You will find men that develop a relationship with this plant spirit consciously or unconsciously…

They end up having a lot of troubles with the female in their life, their partners usually are not very fond of their weed abuse, usually their demeanor changes.

You will see that most people who smoke a lot of weed tend to not be very driven, there’s the pothead stereotype; the person that is rather slow and chill, relaxed, nothing wrong with that, but you can notice a deterioration over time of this person’s capability and aliveness.

How vibrant their energies used to be,
Less and less with the passing of time.

When it comes to Marihuana or to any other substance, there’s a lesson to be learned in each song, but each song is very different, you can grab a song from Mozart and one from Beethoven and if you listen to each of them separately they’re very beautiful.

But play both of them at the same time and you will end up with noise, confusion, maybe end up a little bit overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, not really understanding what’s happening.

The same goes for mixing psychedelics.

In the tradition that we work with in Colombia they are very strict about avoiding the use of Marihuana at least two weeks prior to ceremony, because otherwise your consciousness is in a place that is very mixed.

Your experience can be colored by the leftovers of the other medicine in your system and this is rarely a positive thing, my empirical and personal experience of people that come to the community (especially the ones that come over and over and over) are many that don’t really grow, they seem rather stuck in spite of the amounts of Ayahuasca they drink, and what most of them have in common is that they have an uncontrolled and unconscious use of weed.

They are always smoking a joint just for fun, when they wake up, when they go to sleep.

If there’s no ritual or ceremonial process with it, it’s a relationship that is mostly addictive but they are in denial about it, and it’s very hard to make progress when you don’t have the energy to do it.

Marihuana is a substance, a plant that if abused takes a lot of your energy.

My recommendation is that if it’s your first time drinking Ayahuasca, give yourself the chance to take a space from your weed consumption, after all if you’re doing it consciously it shouldn’t be that much of a big deal, if it’s compulsive and you quit for 3 or 4 weeks before a ceremony it will feel very difficult.

Nothing that we do compulsively is freeing…

If your relationship with Marihuana is one of addiction then this is a good time to explore within yourself and realize, debate and question whether or not that relationship that you have with this plant is nourishing you or perhaps you just ended up in this loop of avoidance due to the relaxation, numbing.

Long story short: Do not smoke weed close to the times before and after drinking plant medicine, weed is not a bad plant but it’s a different song that when played too closely to Ayahuasca may have really detrimental, emotional and health side-effects.

If you’re using it consciously, then there’s nothing wrong with it, you shouldn’t worry about stopping for a few weeks, however, if the thought of not smoking triggers you.

It may mean that there’s an addiction there…

If you feel the calling to sit with Ayahuasca, in a container held by Colombian shamans at a sacred temple in the middle of the mountain forests, please check: www.ayahuascacolombia.com/retreats