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Comment by 1457389 | Hacker News Reader

Opium comes from plants. Marijuana often has physical withdrawal symptoms for chronic users. I'm sure there are many people whose lives/potentials are limited by marijuana abuse.

Legalization/regulation is a good step, but let's not kid ourselves.

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You need to provide references for the "Marijuana often has physical withdrawal symptoms for chronic users" statement, because I pay attention to this type of stuff and I've never heard or or run across it in real life. Of course, opium addiction and withdrawal are well documented.

I'm not the same poster as above but a bit of Googling turned up several sources that appear reputable though I didn't dig real deep. I have no dog in this fight whatsoever but here's a link to one that I found interesting & that seems to have been well-conducted at first glance:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

That study selected subjects who had already experienced withdrawal from cannabis. Not sure how universal its conclusions are going to be.

[0] Lived experience [1] Gorelick DA, Levin KH, Copersino ML, Heishman SJ, Liu F, Boggs DL, & Kelly DL (2012). Diagnostic criteria for cannabis withdrawal syndrome. Drug and alcohol dependence, 123 (1-3), 141-7 PMID: 22153944

I'm sure you can search around and find a lot more, there is a growing understanding/acceptance that it exists.

Cannabis does not have medically significant withdrawal symptoms. Some people get headaches (similar to caffeine). Remember, alcohol withdrawal is life-threatening.

Do you have any references about physical withdrawal from cannabis? (serious question, I've never come across any formal evidence of this)

Not gonna link because I'm at work but check WebMD.

Your surety of social phenomena absent any presentation of evidence demonstrates only that you give credence to your biases.

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