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Greening out

Greening out: what it is and what helps

Disclaimer

The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace advice from a qualified healthcare professional. If you're worried about something that happened, speak with a doctor or another health professional. Read our full disclaimer.

If you're greening out right now, it will usually pass with time.

It can definitely feel scary and overwhelming, especially when your heart's racing, you're feeling nauseous or dizzy, or you're suddenly feeling anxious. Luckily most reactions will settle as the effects wear off.

If you need help right now, skip straight to what helps.

If you're with someone who's greened out, stay with them, keep things calm and help them feel safe.

What greening out is

"Greening out" is a term mainly used to describe the experience of when cannabis affects you more strongly than you expected, usually leaving you feeling physically and/or mentally unwell.

It can be quite a common experience and a lot of people who consume cannabis regularly have either been through it themselves or have been with someone who has experienced it.

Depending on your circle it might not be talked about too openly, which can catch people off guard and is part of why it can feel so alarming the first time.

For most people it passes without lasting harm but it can definitely be horrible while it lasts.

What it feels like

Not everyone gets all of these effects and the mix can vary from person to person, one experience to the next.

Some effects include:

Nausea, sometimes vomiting
Going pale, sweating, clammy skin
Dizziness, or a sense that the room is moving
Feeling cold or shivery
A racing or pounding heart
Anxiety, panic, or a sense of dread
Feeling detached from yourself or your surroundings
Needing to lie down, or feeling like you might faint

The physical and psychological effects can feed into each other. A racing heart can make you anxious and anxiety can make the racing heart feel even more noticeable.

What helps

Get somewhere you feel safe. Somewhere quiet and calm, with people you feel comfortable with. Leaving a loud, crowded and/or overstimulating room can often make a noticeable difference.

Lie down somewhere safe. If you feel faint and like you might pass out, don't try to push through it. Find somewhere comfortable and lie down to prevent any possible falls or accidents, especially if there's alcohol or other drugs in the mix.

Slow your breathing. Try breathing in gently and making your exhale a little longer. It might sound too simple to be useful when you feel awful but it sure can help slow down anxiety and a racing heart.

Sip some water if you're awake and able to. Take small sips rather than a lot at once if you're feeling sick. If you're alert and can manage it, something light to eat could possibly help. If you're supporting someone else avoid giving food or drink to someone who is very drowsy or struggling to stay conscious as it's possible that they could choke.

Tell someone. Having someone you trust and feel safe with nearby can make it feel a lot more manageable. You don't need to explain it perfectly, even just something like "I've had too much and I don't feel too good" is enough.

Give it time. How long depends on how and when you last consumed. Smoking or vaping tends to peak and ease off more quickly. Edibles take longer to come on and longer to wear off, sometimes considerably. The most intense part usually passes before all of the effects have fully worn off.

Things people swear by. Plenty of consumers reach for something sweet, like a soft drink or a lolly, or sniff or chew a few black peppercorns. Some take a cold shower. Some take CBD. There's very little research on sugar or pepper for greening out, so treat them as community knowledge rather than proven fixes. There is some sense behind them: something to eat or drink can settle you if you've been running on empty, and people point to a compound in pepper that acts on the same body system as cannabis, though that hasn't been tested for greening out. The research on CBD is mixed and deserves more attention. If one of these helps you feel calmer and more in control, that counts for something.

What tends not to help: Caffeine, alcohol, trying to walk it off somewhere unfamiliar or pushing through it somewhere you feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

Why it happens

Usually one of a few things, and often more than one at once.

The amount. More than you're used to consuming, or a stronger product than you expected. Potency varies a lot between batches and between products, and looking at something tells you very little about how strong it is.

Edibles in particular. The delay between eating something and feeling the effects can make it easy to take more before the first dose has fully kicked in. Someone consumes it, feels nothing after an hour, has more, and then both doses arrive together.

Concentrates. Dabs, extracts and cartridges are considerably stronger than flower, so if you aren't used to consuming concentrates it can be easy to accidentally consume more than intended.

A change in tolerance. Coming back after a break, when your tolerance has dropped but you try to consume the same amount as before you went on your tolerance break. This can sometimes cause unpleasant effects if you haven't consumed for a considerable amount of time.

Everything around it. An empty stomach, being tired, being dehydrated, or being somewhere that already makes you anxious. None of these necessarily cause a green out on their own, but they can make the experience feel a bit rougher or harder to manage.

Mixing with alcohol. The combination can hit harder than either on its own, and in one small study, drinking first pushed blood THC levels higher. Our page on mixing cannabis and alcohol covers it in more detail.

Mixing with tobacco. If you mix your cannabis with tobacco, you're also getting a dose of nicotine. Too much nicotine, especially if you don't usually smoke cigarettes can cause its own nausea, dizziness, sweating and racing heart. That can pile on top of the cannabis and can make it harder to tell which one is making you feel off.

Reducing the chance of it happening again

These steps aren't made to tell you how much you should consume. They're about giving you more control over your experience and reducing the chance of another unpleasant one.

To make informed choices…

With anything unfamiliar, start with less than you think and wait
With edibles, give it at least a full two hours or longer before considering more
Eat something beforehand
Consume somewhere you feel comfortable and safe, with people you trust
Be aware of how much you first consume when your tolerance has dropped after a break
Be careful when combining cannabis with alcohol. Drinking before consuming cannabis may make the effects of THC feel stronger, but there isn't yet a proven “safe” order for combining the two. Our page on mixing cannabis and alcohol covers that combination in more detail.
If you've greened out before, have a think about what the circumstances were. You might notice a similar set of circumstances each time.

If reading this has you thinking about your consumption patterns more broadly, The Cutback Pack has three free tools for exploring your relationship with cannabis. It doesn't assume that you want to stop and can be used in whatever way you want to use it.

When it might be something else

There's a different pattern worth knowing about. It can sometimes get mistaken for repeated greening out for quite a while before anyone actually recognises what it might be or decides to see a medical professional.

Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, usually shortened to CHS, involves repeated episodes of severe nausea, vomiting and stomach pain in people who have consumed cannabis frequently over a long period of time. What distinguishes it from single bad experiences is the pattern. Generally it includes episodes that keep coming back over months, rather than a single difficult experience. The other distinctive sign is that hot showers or baths relieve the symptoms, this can be a clue but it doesn't define CHS alone.

If any of that sounds familiar, it could be worth seeing a doctor. Repeated vomiting can also lead to things like dehydration and other complications that are also worth taking seriously. A doctor can also help work out what's actually going on because other conditions worth getting looked at can sometimes look similar to CHS.

According to current evidence, the thing that reliably resolves CHS is stopping consumption and symptoms generally return if consumption starts again. Nothing else has been shown to work as consistently as that.

What you do with your cannabis consumption is yours to decide. We're not here to tell you the answer. We'd just rather you had the accurate version than a softer one.

If you’re with someone who has greened out

If they're able to communicate, simply ask them what they need or what would make them feel comfortable or safe. Sometimes having someone check in can make a difference.

More generally, stay with them. Keep the room calm and the lighting low. Don't crowd them, and try not to make a scene of it, because feeling embarrassed usually makes the anxiety worse.

If they're vomiting or very drowsy, keep them on their side rather than on their back, and don't give them food or drink until they're fully alert and able to swallow without risk of choking.

If they're hard to wake or get a reaction from, especially if alcohol or other drugs are in the mix, don't leave them to sleep it off. That's one of the situations where it could be time to get help rather than wait.

When to call 000

Call an ambulance if the person:

Can't be woken, or is becoming harder to get a response or reaction from
Is having trouble breathing
Has a seizure
Has severe or worsening chest pain
Has collapsed or lost consciousness
Is vomiting while unconscious or too drowsy to protect their airway
Is severely confused, agitated or seeing things that aren't there, and isn't settling
Has taken other substances and you're worried about an overdose or a dangerous combination (see mixing cannabis and alcohol)
If a child has consumed cannabis, call the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26 for advice, even if they don't have symptoms. If they're unconscious, having trouble breathing, having a seizure or seriously unwell, call 000.

You don't need to wait for every sign before calling.

Not sure if it's an emergency? Call the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26, anywhere in Australia, 24 hours a day. They give advice on drug and poisoning exposures. In a medical emergency, call 000 instead.

Calling an ambulance doesn't automatically mean calling the police. Paramedics are there to provide medical care. Healthdirect advises that paramedics don't need to involve police unless they feel they are in danger.

Where to get help

Emergency: 000

Poisons Information Centre: 13 11 26. Advice on whether something needs medical attention, 24 hours a day.

National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline: 1800 250 015. Free and confidential, and it connects you to the service in your state.

DirectLine (Victoria): 1800 888 236. Free and confidential, 24 hours.

None of these require you to want to stop consuming. They'll talk with you about a bad experience, about cutting back, or about someone you're worried about and none of it commits you to anything.

Sources and further reading

Alcohol and Drug Foundation: cannabis. For the acute effects of cannabis and national support services
DirectLine: Victoria's alcohol and drug counselling and referral line
Healthdirect: drug overdose. For emergency and recovery position advice
StatPearls: Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. For the clinical criteria and course of CHS
More of the research behind Buducation is on our sources page