this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I don't know how I feel about this. I regularly smoke/use edibles, and I get that it can easily become habitual. You get home afterwork, smoke a bowl, and get on with your life.
But not once have I ever felt that I NEED to smoke. I've been using for over 4 years now. I grow my own. I make my own oils and edibles. I've never felt that it's something that I need to do. For example, I can very easily stop for a few weeks and suffer literally zero withdrawal from it. So, I don't really understand what's so "addicting" about it.
You can be addicted to the feeling of mellow and high that marijuana gives you, that’s psychological addiction. It’s the same as how you can become addicted to eating oreos. You can stop eating oreos or smoking weed and physically be fine, no withdrawals. But psychologically, you may feel the need to go back to it.
If you can be "psychologically addicted" to anything, then why label marijuana specifically as "addicting"? We don't label wintergreen mints as psychologically addicting, even though some people will routinely crush a bag of them in one sitting. It seems that we're misattributing the human, habit-forming parts of ourselves (or possibly our need for pleasure) as a negative-characteristic of marijuana, and I don't think that's being genuine to the problems.
Articles like this only further the demonization of marijuana and give cause to ban it.
Because it's still a thing. Gaming addiction and porn addiction is only psychologically addicting, yet nobody ever argues against those terms.
the same that leads to the harder to beat parts of nicotine addiction: A mixture of having a habit and using it as a coping mechanism. If putting the green glasses on becomes how you deal with negativity in your life, cutting the stuff loose will be incredibly hard. If you always dealt with shit that went on by making yourself chemically happy, how are you supposed to know how to deal with shit that goes on without that? This is the main issue with most mind-altering things, be it nicotine, caffeine, or even fitness exercises. The other part is that an addiction is often just a habit that has gotten too far. This can make an addiction out of literally anything.
By your argument then, it's not the weed thats addicting. It's a human, habit-forming mechanism. You said it yourself, that you "can make an addiction out of literally anything."
So, I'm still at the same impasse. Why blame weed for what is clearly a human issue? It seems to me that we need to figure out better coping mechanisms, and how to break bad habits. Articles like this will only demonize cannabis, especially in a time when things are about to change for the better.
You omitted one really crucial thing of what I said:
The level of mind-altering a substance can achieve determines the extent of this effect. So THC is bound to be more addictive than -say- caffeine or melatonin supplements. That's not "demonizing". Your reflex to downplay the issue in order to defend the status of THC in society is - at least in part - responsible for the issues for people who suffer from an addiction to THC, since their fellow users will be the greatest sceptics if they are told one has gotten addicted. Yet not, because they can't fathom that weed might be a thing one can get addicted to, but because they don't want to jeopardize the legality of weed.
You didn't spell out any reason why that's exceptional. You literally used working out as an example. At that point, any form of self-soothing is a mind altering addiction. Tapping your foot while waiting would fit that definition if exercise does.
There's nothing exceptional between being addicted to marijuana, just like fast food or gambling. It's purely habit, not the item itself. It's psychological, not physiological. Physiological addiction exists. That's why withdrawal is a thing for certain addictions and I don't just mean "aw, they're in a bad mood cause they stopped smoking weed" or "oh, they went on a diet so they're cranky."
Gambling isn't the core problem when someone is addicted to gambling. Theyre filling a void with the wrong thing. It's, again, something for emotional therapy. But it says nothing about marijuana.
You make several good points, and apologize for omitting your crucial point. I agree that anything that provides some "effect" could become psychologically addicting (for example, you could become addicted to NSAIDs). And I agree that I downplay THC addiction due to my personal anecdotal experience. But I'm hesitant to believe that the THC (or cannabis, in general) is the root cause for the addiction, and not the human that uses it. Would we treat someone for THC addiction, specifically? Or would it be better to treat the habit-forming characteristics of said person?
I think searching for "The root cause" is moot. Imagine a car that has a construction flaw in the driver side door. A strut in the door breaks easily when rammed and forms a spike towards the driver. If you are driving this car, you are more likely to be injured in a crash than in a car that does not have this flaw, right? Yet, the "root cause" of your injury would not be the construction flaw, but the force applied to the door by the other vehicle. Now imagine fans of the car after this had lead to a tragic accident, telling everyone that it wasn't the flaw in the car, the driver of the other car should have been more careful. They are right, technically. Yet, denying the higher likelyhood of inflicting such an injury due to the specific characteristics of the car would be missing the point somewhat either, woudn't it? I think it's the same here.
We have to acknowledge that weed will be more likely to cause an addiction (not only of the habit variety) more easily than other things. Going off on the "but weed itself does not form addictions" bandwagon only belittles those who have an addiction from it from the perspective of the addicted themselves.
By that logic, nicotine is hardly addictive, neither is cocaine nor caffeine. When talking about addiction, we sometimes tend to only count the physical addiction formed by things like Heroin as "caused by the drug" and to blame psychological addictions on the user's psyche. That's what the war on drugs taught especially Americans. Yet, psychological addiction is the more prevalent type of addiction and it is way more likely to form - regardless of one's tendency to form addictions in the first place - in substances that get you high in some way.
Nicotine addiction isn't the same. That's physiological. Same with alcohol. It's literally changing your body chemistry and that creates the addiction. This is emotional/psychological addiction. It's like video games or sex. You can become addicted to it, but it's the exception, not the rule.
That's a good point. I guess I have an issue with labeling psychological addictions to specific things then as I dont think it's so much the "this thing" that's addicting as it's something that you've psychologically latched onto.
Treating a generalized psychological addiction seems like it would be pretty straightforward in terms of treating vs a chemical or physiological addiction. But I'm not a therapist, and I'm sure there is a great reason as to why these things are labeled the way they are. Apologies for my stubbornness on this subject.