is marijuana addictive?

my friend said she gets withdrawals from it after going like a day without the ganj

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Is marijuana truly addictive?

i mean like as addictive as meth. i say no because people who try to quit hard drugs and alcohol go through severe withdrawal whilst quitting while people can just stop smoking weed and go through there days. sure the will want it but theres no physical symptoms. Facts please!!!

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Caffeine more addictive and dangerous than marijuana?

How true is this? It’s logical because I know caffeine has more severe withdrawals than marijuana. Caffeine CAN potentially kill you if you take too much of it in a short amount of time. Marijuana cannot kill you unless you smoke a half pound in an hour which is impossible. You will likely pass out before you can smoke more.

If my parents criticize me for medicating with cannabis can I criticize them for drinking coffee??

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Debate- Is Marijuana Addictive?

Since quitting and deciding to help others to do the same I am frequently asked the hotly contested ‘Is marijuana addictive?’ question. It is a subject that fiercely divides most ‘experts’ and even those who spend their entire adult lives inhaling it. So let’s attempt to establish whether or not marijuana is addictive.

Starting with a ‘hard’ drug just to make addiction easier to identify, read the following passage and decide for yourself if you think the person is or isn’t addicted to heroin:

“When I can’t get hold of heroin or if I know that I will be unable to have any for that night, I immediately turn into a different person. I am angry and emotional and I feel so depressed that I wont get that sense of relaxation and calmness from the heroin. I really hate feeling like I need it to make myself feel better.”

In your opinion, is it reasonable to assume the person is hooked on heroin?

In my view there is no doubt whatsoever. I’d stake my mortgage and life on it!

Okay, re-read that same statement but this time the drug has now changed to cannabis.

“When I can’t get hold of marijuana or if I know that I will be unable to have any for that night, I immediately turn into a different person. I am angry and emotional and I feel so depressed that I wont get that sense of relaxation and calmness from the cannabis. I really hate feeling like I need it to make myself feel better.”

With only the name of the drug altered is it reasonable to assume that person is hooked on cannabis?

Remember only the name of the drug has changed!

The statement you have just read is in fact REAL and comes from a young woman who recently contacted me via http://www.quitcannabis.net who was clearly desperate for help – not because she was addicted to heroin but hooked on our ‘friend’ cannabis. I am not implying marijuana is comparable to heroin addiction (of course not!) or even that there are physical withdrawal symptoms when we attempt to quit, but there is still that sense of desperation and need for marijuana when circumstances force us to go without it for longer than we’d like. Like when your dealer is nowhere to be found and you can’t relax or find enjoyment in anything you do. That sense of missing/needing marijuana is clearly a symptom of psychological addiction.

Imagine heroin or cocaine as a maximum-security jail and marijuana a low-security open prison. Regardless of the regime and conditions found inside the prison, the bottom line is; in spite of how thin and flimsy the walls are or how weak the security at the main gate is, the function of a prison is to restrict freedom. In this case, your happiness and enjoyment of life. Don’t worry! Once you accept marijuana is addictive it becomes even easier, not more difficult to quit!

Detoxification From Addictive Substances

Detoxification (”detox”), or withdrawal, is the period of time it takes your body to adjust to being without a substance which it used to have regularly. During this time period a previous bodily “homeostasis” is restored, one based on not using the substance or substances. This restored homeostasis is similar to the one you had before you started using the substances regularly.

Homeostasis refers to the body’s maintenance, by an ongoing balancing act, of a stable internal condition. If you go scuba diving to a depth of 100 feet, your body adjusts to having that much additional weight pressing upon it. We could say that the body is pressing back as much as the weight of the water is pressing in, thereby allowing the body to maintain its internal functioning. If you come to the surface too quickly, however, your body cannot re-adjust fast enough. You get “the bends” (decompression sickness). Proper scuba diving therefore involves coming to the surface slowly enough that you do not get sick. The time taken to come to the surface corresponds to the time it takes for detoxification from addictive substances.

Detoxification can also refer to the removal of toxic substances from the body. To the extent addictive substances are toxic this definition also applies. In addiction, however, the primary meaning of detoxification is the readjustment of the body’s homeostasis.

Some classes of substances create more concern about detoxification than others. Stimulants (cocaine, methamphetamine, Ritalin, nicotine, caffeine, etc) do not need medical supervision for withdrawal. The withdrawal syndrome can be uncomfortable (much like having the flu) but is not potentially fatal. Hallucinogens and marijuana may have no withdrawal symptoms or only minor ones. Therefore, with any of these substances, one can stop use completely at any time. Tapering off is not needed. For substances not listed here it would be wise to seek medical consultation if you are using them on a daily basis. If you use a substance intermittently, with days between uses, then you already know what it feels like when you take off a few days.

The two primary classes of substances for which detoxification is a concern are depressants-as in central nervous system depressants (including alcohol, benzodiazepines such as Valium, sedatives, tranquilizers, and some sleep aids)-and opiates/opioids (including heroin, methadone, opium, Vicodin, and Suboxone). Detox takes 3 to 10 days typically, depending on the substance and your history with it, your overall health, your age, and other factors. Detox is often accomplished in a hospital ward devoted to detox only. People get medical detox for two reasons: 1) prescribed medications can make the process easier, and 2) simply going “cold turkey” (stopping your addictive substance suddenly) can make you very sick or even kill you. Therefore, even if you do not wish to have treatment for the addictive behavior itself, it is safest to seek medical attention for the detox process.

Tapering off your substance, perhaps over several weeks, is a reasonable approach from a medical perspective, but is often a poor approach in practice. If you have the ability to taper off, you might not have become physically dependent in the first place! Tapering off has more chance of working if your dependence on the drug is primarily physical not psychological. This condition might have arisen, for instance, if you were taking a pain medication for a long time, but never developed a psychological dependence on it.

What is the Most Addictive Drug?

This is a question that people often ask but is actually a very difficult one to answer. Addiction is not just one single and simple process, it is a complex process that has both physical and psychological aspects. Nevertheless despite this complexity two attempts have been made to determine the most addictive drug. Independently Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz of the University of California at San Francisco, ranked six psychoactive substances, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and marijuana, on the five criteria they felt were most important in addiction.

 

The first of these criteria was withdrawal. This is defined as the severity of withdrawal symptoms produced by stopping the use of the drug. Both researchers rated alcohol as having the most severe withdrawal symptoms, for example hallucinations and convulsions, and the fact that withdrawal from alcohol is the only one of the included drugs that is potentially fatal.

 

The second criterion is reinforcement, that is the drug’s tendency to induce users to take it again and again. This is influenced by the feelings that taking the drug brings, that is whether it is a pleasurable high or not, obviously if the feelings are negative there will be little incentive to repeat the experience. Again both researchers were in agreement and rated cocaine as the most reinforcing.

 

The third criterion was tolerance, this is defined as the user’s need to have ever-increasing doses to get the same effect. For the first time the researchers disagree with Henningfield rating heroin first and Benowitz rating cocaine.

 

The fourth criterion is dependence. This is defined as the difficulty in quitting, or staying off the drug, usually measured by the number of users who eventually become dependent. For many dependence is viewed as the hallmark of addiction and how ‘addiction’ is usually measured by the medical profession. For this criterion both researchers are again in agreement as they rate nicotine highest for dependence. For the other drugs they both rated them in the same order that is highest for dependence, nicotine, then heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and last marijuana.

 

The final criterion is intoxication. This is the degree of intoxication produced by the drug in typical use. Again the researchers are in agreement and rate alcohol as the most intoxicating of the drugs.

 

Given the complexity of the addictive process it is not surprising that there is not a clear ‘winner’ in all criteria. What some may find surprising is that for both researchers caffeine ranked higher than marijuana on a number of the criteria and indeed Berowitz rates caffeine higher than marijuana for dependence.

 

These results have been quoted many times by many researchers, commentators and reporters. They are usually interpreted as nicotine, or tobacco smoking, being named the most addictive substance purely on the definition of the difficulty in refraining. What the results do show is that addiction is a complex and multi-facetted activity and that it is impossible to reduce it to a simple metric.