http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarijuanaIsLSD

note Context available here. And it's medicinal marijuana, no less!

Will: Can somebody call me an ambulance? Because I'm in trouble. Time is moving really, really slowly, and everything is flat. I need you to call me an ambulance, or failing that, my mummy. I really want my mummy because, and I'm not being dramatic, but I think I might be dead. Is that clear? Mummy or ambulance.

(two scenes later)

Paramedic: (incredulously) Are you sure it was just cannabis you took? The Inbetweeners : Can somebody call me an ambulance? Because I'm in trouble. Time is moving really, really slowly, and everything is flat. I need you to call me an ambulance, or failing that, my mummy. I really want my mummy because, and I'm not being dramatic, but I think I might be dead. Is that clear? Mummy or ambulance.(two scenes later): (incredulously) Are you sure it was just cannabis you took?

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Marijuana is one of the less potent psychoactive drugs. It causes euphoria, thirst, hunger, and occasionally lethargy or paranoia, and it can also cause your thought processes to become one long string of Fridge Logic and/or Fridge Brilliant moments (which may or may not be remembered once the effects wear off). It also takes a little while to get used to it—often, people doing it their first time don't feel any effects at all. Even very high doses won't cause hallucinations in 99% of the population.

You wouldn't know that from the movies, though.

Dean Bitterman or the Doting Parent is tricked or cajoled into smoking up, or more likely eating a pot brownie. Five minutes later, they're riding a unicorn through a rainbow, or arguing with the plants, or being chased by musical notes in time to the background music. Expect to hear Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" or "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. It's almost as if they've taken a powerful hallucinogen. Yes, in their universe, marijuana is LSD.

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It is worth mentioning that large doses of marijuana can produce hallucinations in some people. The array of effects experienced from any dose vary considerably from person to person, and from one strain of the plant to another. Research into the former effect may be partly responsible for the myth, along with journalists that ignored how large a dose the "psychonauts" used and what counts as a hallucination to experimental psychologists. Also, even those who regularly smoke cannabis may experience unexpectedly strong effects when vaporizing it, which is a more efficient method of administration. When eating it, it can take a long time to kick in, so a common mistake is to eat too much because it seems to have little effect - only to find oneself extremely inebriated for half a day when the full effects come on. Such an overdose can cause visual and auditory hallucinations, but those are not enjoyable at all and are often combined with panic attacks, nausea and so forth. Hallucinations remain unlikely, but judgement and driving will be impaired. A person who has consumed enough marijuana to experience hallucinations is unlikely to be able to walk on two feet, let alone drive, so anyone who would have consumed it unwittingly would have called an ambulance at this point and would not go on a wacky drug-fueled adventure.

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It's a matter of debate whether second-hand marijuana smoke has any real effects (sometimes referred to as a "contact high"), beyond giving some people a splitting headache and nausea from the smell. Contact highs do occasionally turn up in fiction, usually in the context of someone being exposed to pot for a long period of time in an enclosed space like a vehicle.

May be a case of research failure, especially in older works. Seldom played straight in recent decades, but there are exceptions. Often overlaps with Scare 'Em Straight. Subtrope of G-Rated Drug.

Another cause of this trope may be that the medium lacks the ability to portray intoxication from a first-person perspective accurately while also not making the intoxication seem much less powerful than it is. There are many drugs that have subtle and/or mild visual or auditory effects, if any at all, making it very difficult to portray the severity of a high dose accurately. It can sometimes help to think of the effects as metaphors.

Continuing on this trend, often when the effects of LSD are shown, they are powerfully overstated. Even on low doses, characters will experience detailed hallucinations and Datura-esque delusions, when in reality a single tab of LSD will usually only give someone visual distortions that are readily distinguished from reality.

This page also covers the use of exaggerated or inaccurate effects in other drugs. Examples which involve alcohol may also fall under Pink Elephants.

Examples:

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This PSA . If your dog is talking to you, chances are you have more than weed in your system.

Anime and Manga

Mugen in Samurai Champloo torches a field of weed, which makes the fight scene with the warrior monks who grew the crop a bit... non-euclidean.

Leigharch in the Black Lagoon anime hallucinates pretty wildly using marijuana, while driving . Averted in the manga, where his drug of choice is cocaine.

. Averted in the manga, where his drug of choice is cocaine. Justified in one case of Detective Conan, where the marijuana that drove a manor full of society elites into a murderous frenzy is said to have been laced with something far more dangerous.

Fanfiction

In Empath: The Luckiest Smurf, smurfnip is treated like marijuana with this trope. Notably in "Smurfnip Madness", Smurfette's hallucinations while under the influence include seeing Vexy and Hackus from The Smurfs 2. Also in the story, Handy created a special pair of glasses that simulate the visual effects of being under the influence of smurfnip. In "A Haunted Christmas", Nabby eats his stash of smurfnip during a village famine and starts having Meat-O-Vision. Mostly averted in "The New Shop In The Village", since at the time Empath as the new Smurf Village leader has legalized smurfnip, a new strain of the plant has been developed that produces only the high, without the hallucinations.

Averted in this Emergency! fic. The station crew ate pot-laced brownies and had a realistic experience: euphoric period followed by a lethargic, calm period.

Films — Animated

Dumbo's drunk sequence looks like this to many modern audiences, but it's actually just Pink Elephants made literal.

Plutonium nyborg, a Fantastic Drug in the film Heavy Metal, is a powder that is ingested like cocaine by the alien pilots of the segment "So Beautiful, So Dangerous" and produces hallucinogenic effects while leaving its users in a mellow state of euphoria, as sort of a combination of marijuana and LSD.

Films — Live-Action

Literature

According to Doctor Wood, Modern Wizard of the Laboratory, Robert W. Wood (patron saint of Education Through Pyrotechnics) in his youth once tested whether it's true that cannabis is hallucinogenic when ingested—for the sake of experiment and because, well, there weren't any reports of fatal poisoning or something. It was. Most memorable scenes of this trip report "experiment summary" involved turning into a fox whose eyes were inside the mouth and being scared shitless by a two-faced doll. As if he'd never heard of a pot brownie. note Considering he was born in 1868, he may well not have depending on how young he was when he tried this out!

"experiment summary" involved turning into a fox whose eyes were inside the mouth and being scared shitless by a two-faced doll. Author J.T. Edson was violently opposed to marijuana and any time it is portrayed in his novels, it is shown in a negative light. However, he also appears to have no idea of what its effects actually are, and it is portrayed as everything from a date rape drug to driving people into a berserk frenzy like PCP.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the speaker at the drug conference seems to have no idea of what pot actually does. Much lampshaded by Duke and Dr. Gonzo, who are quite familiar with several different drugs. If she smoked grass at her age, she'd have one hell of a trip!

In Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Evelyn smokes a joint with her daughter, only to have all the potholders on the kitchen counter get up and start walking toward her.

In the fictional Misery Lit book Go Ask Alice the protagonist tries marijuana, amongst other drugs such as heroin and ecstasy, but they all seem to give the same effect.

Live Action TV

There's an episode of Frasier which simultaneously averts and parodies this—Martin eats a hash brownie, not realizing what it is, realizes he's stoned after a short period of time, and then starts to think he's hallucinating when he sees a video in which Eddie, the dog, appears to be speaking. However, he's not hallucinating: the video is actually a mock-up commercial, introduced in another subplot, which overdubs Eddie with his mouth moving with Frasier's voice. Martin spends most of his "trip" thinking he feels strange because of the cough syrup he took that morning. There is a brand of cough syrup well known for mild LSD-like effects. In the same episode, Niles ate a normal brownie which he thought was a hash-brownie and started showing the symptoms of being stoned at once until he was made aware of the mistake, at which point he instantly began acting normally again. Niles: I'm especially looking forward to something called the "munchies" stage. It's where one enjoys bizarre food combinations... I'm thinking of pairing this Chilean sea bass with an aggressive Zinfandel!

Parodied on Monk in the episode "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm". Monk (mistakenly) thinks he's inhaled some weed smoke when he ends up catching Jimmy Belmont in the act of destroying marijuana crops that Harvey Disher had threatened to turn him in for, and starts freaking out. Hilarity Ensues. "I'm getting the munchies! Oh God! Reefer Madness!"

That '70s Show: the scenes where Eric has to talk to his parents while high, and the wallpaper behind them is moving/swirling and his parents swap heads. There was one episode where Leo accidentally fed his marijuana stash to his dog, who ends up having such a hallucination.

Parodied in an episode of Taxi, which features a flashback to Reverend Jim's college days, where he is a straight-arrow book-grinding nerd named James Caldwell. He gets talked into eating a marijuana-laced brownie: one bite, and his expression instantly (and hilariously) dissolves into Reverend Jim's crazed bug-eyed stare.

In Breaking Bad, Jesse sees two men in white shirts who want to talk to him about Jesus as hulking, leather-clad thugs with machetes and hand grenades after smoking methamphetamine. Justified, since he could have gone for a long period without sleep or began to suffer from stimulant psychosis, both of which are meth-related issues that cause hallucinations. Alternately, it could have just been a visual representation of meth-induced paranoia.

In Party Down, Roman eats multiple pot brownies without realizing they're laced. He curls up in the bathroom and calls for an ambulance, because he is either dead or soon will be. After the paramedics show up, the hippie fellow who baked the brownies leads Roman on a journey to meet his spirit animal and Roman writes a screenplay (on the toilet paper). The paramedics take him to the hospital, not because he's overdosing on pot, but because they've never seen anyone that high before and want to show the nurses. And strangely enough, about 75% justified. Party Down is pretty good about portraying drugs realistically and it's specifically mentioned that Roman ingested about a tenth of an ounce of high-grade marijuana. For someone not accustomed to the effects of marijuana, eating that much certainly could make one feel as if they were going out of their mind. The other 25% is Rule of Funny.

In Community, the pill Star-Burns gives Pierce during a Halloween party has Pierce acting like he's rolling on ecstasy... then he starts hallucinating Annie making cracks about his age as talking calaveras fly around. That he was also mixing this with his regular prescriptions (of which he had lost track and was taking random doses) probably contributed.

In the Room 222 season 1 episode "Goodbye, Mr. Hip," a teacher gets in trouble because of a student prank, a fake joint filled with pencil shavings placed on his desk. The teacher tries to prove his innocence to the principal by saying "Look at my eyes! Are my pupils dilated?" Marijuana makes eyes red and puffy, but only LSD dilates the pupils.

In the Two and a Half Men episode "Gumby with a Pokey", Charlie finds himself with insomnia and is given prescription marijuana by his pharmacist to help him sleep. After smoking it, Charlie has disturbing visions of women he slept with in the past and sees ZZ Top in his living room.

In the opening of an episode of House, the soon-to-be patient of the week is a priest who hears a knock at his door. When he answers, he sees a floating Jesus complete with stigmata and crown of thorns. Later in the episode Dr. Hatley chalks this up to the single highball of liquor the man consumed just before.

According to the Decoy episode "Saturday Lost," marijuana makes you hallucinate vividly, experience such extreme time dilation that 110 mph feels like a standstill, and possibly develop temporary amnesia, all while speaking in pseudo-poetic nonsense. Billy : The city gates close at midnight. Cinderella's the watchman. And she looks like Marilyn Monroe.

In the Broad City episode "Wisdom Teeth," a combination of Vicodin and pot causes Abbi to hallucinate a giant version of her stuffed toy, Bingo Bronson. With Bingo's encouragement, she leaves Ilana's apartment and spends $1,487.56 at Whole Foods.

Music

The jazz song Have You Ever Met That Funny Reefer Man? is about a pot user who lives in Cloudcuckooland and goes around doing weird and funny things.

Stand Up Comedy

During his 2002 "Live on Broadway" special, Robin Williams came down on the IOC for treating marijuana usage in athletes on the same level as steroids: Robin : [A snowboarder tested positive for marijuana], which is kind of redundant, number one. Number two, they said marijuana was a performance-enhancing drug. (imitates "Incorrect" buzzer) Marijuana enhances many things—colors, tastes, sensations—but you are certainly not fucking empowered. If you're stoned, you're lucky if you can find your own goddamn feet! The only way it's a performance-enhancing drug is if there's a big fucking Hershey bar at the end of the run.

Played straight by Woody Allen, who describes marijuana as a "major hallucinogen," and recounts an incident where he took a puff of the wrong cigarette and ended up trying to hijack an elevator to Cuba.

One Louis C.K. story involved him overdosing on weed (as he forgot that modern weed is vastly more potent than the stuff he smoked in his teenage years), and proceeded to have a very unpleasant experience.

Sam Kinison tells a story about having to catch a flight but he was nervous, so he smoked a joint on the way to the airport to calm his nerves. He describes walking through the terminal as seeing visions and Aztec temples.

Video Games

Inverted in Sam & Max Season 2: Moai Better Blues, where basalt is said to make Moai 'turn on, tune in and drop out' (a phrase associated with LSD). If you feed one of the Moai basalt, he claims that he's hallucinating, but otherwise just acts giggly and stoned. He also exhales stone dust in a way that looks like smoke, Sam jokingly calls him 'Cheech', and Max teases him for being a lightweight by not holding it in for more than a few seconds. Obviously this is justifiable, though.

In Grand Theft Auto V, there is a "Freaks" mission that Michael can take on where he comes across a man trying to get marijuana legalized in San Andreas, and keeps insisting Michael, a man who typically only smokes cigars, to try his "home grown" joint. Upon reluctantly doing so, Michael suddenly goes into a bad trip where he is shooting aliens with a minigun (which is fully playable). After the trip ends Michael tells the marijuana guy to screw off and says he'll never try a joint ever again. Trevor is also offered a joint, and after initially refusing because weed "interferes with the speed" already in his system, has a similar trip, only with clowns instead of aliens. Franklin however is unaffected since he's already a habitual pot smoker. Somewhat averted, however, in that it is clearly indicated (by the more experienced Franklin) that the pot in question has been doctored in some fashion (but one must play the optional mission in order to find this out), as Michael can smoke pot in his house a get a more mundane high.

Webcomics

Web Original

Filthy Frank once smoked a contaminated joint (in reality, a carrot and a piece of cabbage wrapped in notebook paper) and hallucinated that a flying banana killed Pink Guy.

Spike lights up a joint in the final episode of the PONY.MOV series, which turns the fight between Rainbow Dash and Discord into something from the Yellow Submarine. Since this is the only time in the series smoking marijuana does this, one can chalk it up to Rule of Funny, that Spike slipped something extra into the joint, or that Hot Diggedy Demon was parodying this trope.

Western Animation

Real Life