Is marijuana addictive?
A common question asked “is marijuana addictive?” Of course anything can be addictive from sugar, to sex, to watching Netflix. However, when people are asking this question they typically are asking if it’s addictive in comparison to other drugs. As a former poly addict who’s experienced every drug out there I can share my experience with dependency on this substance relevant to other drugs I’ve used.
Before jumping into this article I want to disclose, a problem is a problem. Too many people get caught up in “well at least I’m not addicted to ‘hard drugs'”. What they’re doing is minimizing the problem they currently have as a rationalization to continue the destructive behavior. Because of this, they’re turning their “relatively small problem” into a bigger problem. If you think “marijuana isn’t as bad as alcoholism” then you’re more likely to continue. This means it can slowly eat away at your relationships, finances, motivation, and time until you wake up 50 years old and realize how much you lost over the years. A problem is a problem, if it’s a problem solve it regardless of how “small” you think it is.
Hard to get into…
Marijuana addiction is harder to get into than most other drugs. The reason being is before a tolerance is built to THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) it has a psychedelic/dissociative effect many find to be unpleasant. As tolerance builds from regular use the effects of the drug change quite drastically. It turns into more of a sedative, and eventually it stops having any effects. When I got deep into marijuana smoking a gram blunt would do little outside of a headrush that lasted 2 hours.
Hard to get out of…
Once this tolerance has built to where you get little to no effects from smoking marijuana, you start to experience psychological withdrawals. They were very intense for me personally. They weren’t as intense as opiate withdrawals physically, in fact, there wasn’t a physical withdrawal at all. However, the psychological withdrawal was brutal. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days, had a hard time eating, diarrhea and irritable bowels, had extreme anxiety and discomfort, craved smoking till I would salivate, short term memory loss, fluctuation of body temperature, and felt like I was going insane with racing thoughts. It’d be nice to be able to sleep it off but sleep was next to impossible. If I managed to sleep I had vivid nightmares that would creep me out and wake up sweating. There was also the lifestyle and ritual I missed, but that was a small part of it.
In summary to answer “is marijuana addictive?” Yes. It can be very addictive. There’s a scene in Half Baked where marijuana addicts are mocked saying “they don’t suck d!!k for weed”. As someone who’s been addicted to “hard drugs” I never gave fallacio for any substance. This point is invalid. If marijuana is holding you back in any way by limiting your resources, just stop. If you can’t just stop without help, get help. There’s no shame in struggling with an addiction.
I hope this helped answer “is marijuana addictive?” Check out the embedded video for a video explanation by the author!
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Philip Markoff (Associate of Science) is an online influencer and thought leader on addiction education; he is known as his alias “CG Kid” who’s obtained a large audience primarily on YouTube as a vlogger and journalist. His current sobriety date from polysubstance chemical dependency is June 9th, 2013.