The hardest part is understanding and coping with the issue that drives the user to use marijuana so heavily in the first place. If it can be understood what need the marijuana use is providing for, changing use patterns becomes possible.
In my experience however, withdrawal only takes a few days, I don't recall being any more irritable than before except that marijuana makes me less prone to irritations to begin with, and the thing that's the worst is the boredom.
It's what do you do with your time? Work can keep you occupied and busy, but at home the activities you are likely going to do you did with marijuana. Video games and television/movies are harder to 'feel' interested in. Eating high is just really enjoyable. And trying to sleep is difficult especially when you know you could just smoke some pot and drift off instead of being too bored and restless to sleep.
This implies that self medication has an outcome comparable to paying for mental health medication and therapy.
I would assert that it does not.
Opioid withdrawal is actually not fatal at all barring potential dehydration from excessive diarrhea/vomiting.
Something as simple as concentration percentages on packaging, as we have with booze, and smart usage pamphlets could save a lot of lives.
Alcohol dependence prevents cold turkey for some people.
Drug culture itself is riddled with such booby traps. Fallaious street wisdom backed by egos and peer pressure are powerful tools to indoctrinate a child into an unexpected lifetime of addiction to substances such as pot.
That's what I am trying to get at- problems stem from earlier sources. Whether someone eventually gets hooked on something is a consequence of earlier failure. Whatever drug/habit is ultimately picked up in the aftermath is a genuine negative, which will have its own particulars. But it is not the initial causative agent. This is an important distinction to make, because otherwise we're just rearranging deck chairs instead of managing the fundamental issue.
To expand context, when considering appropriate drug policy at a governmental level I think Portugal's experience is important to study:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
Pot absolutely catalyzes issues in people’s lives. Many would be far better off not using it at all.
I think we are talking past each other. I fully agree that many would be better off never using anything at all.
My point is that by the time someone gets to the point where drugs/gambling/addiction can act as a destructive catalyst, they're already well on their way to a negative future due to earlier causes.
Do you have anything at all to support this?
(the first bit of the linked article is, well, clearly written for the huff post. But the meat of it well worth the read)
As for destructive catalysts, no, not all people are well on their way to a negative future when they take up such habits. The drugs/gambling etc are the destructive behaviors that should be avoided altogether or stopped as a priority.
Considering the well documented effects of high grade pot, it’s fairly easy to see that a normal child can be profoundly impacted by pot. Their entire lives get off track after getting into weed. So, no, not all people that mess up their lives on pot were well on their way to a negative future.
Please stop denying that cannabis itself cannot ever be a cause of severe harm.
I strongly support legalisation, but for that to happen we must accept that some cannabis users are going to be caused harm.