Marijuana is not physically addictive. That was and is also the reasonable claim made by reasonable people. Then lots of people seems to have conflated this claim with psychological addictiveness.
I claim that HN isn't physically addictive. The fact that it is psychologically addictive doesn't amount to me "pretending".
Dozens and dozens of citations for you: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&q=physi...
Got anything from this millenium and clearly physical?
> Flawed drug awareness campaigns of the 1990s claimed that cannabis could be psychologically addictive but not physically addictive like other drugs. However, cannabis does predictably cause physical dependence—the hallmarks of which are tolerance and withdrawal—and heavy users may have great difficulty in attempting to reduce or end their use, leading to compulsive, continued use and related consequences
https://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.foc...
I think they mean truly physical, like DTs for alcohol, and dope sickness for heroin. You don't get those types of symptoms from MJ withdrawals.
Prolonged cannabis use produces both pharmacokinetic changes (how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted) and pharmacodynamic changes (how the drug interacts with target cells) to the body. These changes require the user to consume higher doses of the drug to achieve a common desirable effect (known as a higher tolerance), reinforcing the body's metabolic systems for eliminating the drug more efficiently and further down-regulating cannabinoid receptors in the brain.[7]
Cannabis users have shown decreased reactivity to dopamine, suggesting a possible link to a dampening of the reward system of the brain and an increase in negative emotion and addiction severity.[8]
(...)
Cannabis withdrawal symptoms occur in one-half of people in treatment for cannabis use disorders.[15] Symptoms may include dysphoria (anxiety, irritability, depression, restlessness), disturbed sleep, gastrointestinal symptoms, and decreased appetite. It is often paired with rhythmic movement disorder. Most symptoms begin during the first week of abstinence and resolve after a few weeks.
Whether or not there is strong evidence of physical addiction, the withdrawal experience is very real, and often unpleasant. Couple this with psychological dependence, and quitting can feel quite daunting.
The main issues right away:
- Problems sleeping due to REM rebound (vivid disruptive dreams or nightmares)
- Appetite issues
- General irritability
- Heightened anxiety (especially if using cannabis to treat anxiety)
If you’re using semi-medicinally, it’s extremely easy to hit these roadblocks, conclude “see I shouldn’t quit, weed isn’t so bad anyway”, and fall back into the habit.
I’m convinced that the reality of cannabis addiction/withdrawal is aggressively glossed over by the community of users who are very invested in what they’re doing being just fine. The truth is a bit murkier/darker.
I say this as a recreational-bordering-medical user (it does help calm down my PTSD) who enjoys using it, but who dislikes the inconvenient reality of trying to take a tolerance break.
sleeping is a big one
piercing headaches
similar effect to quitting alcohol - heightened sensitivity to light and noise
its also quite an adjustment to be dumped back out into the world again after living for years in your little blanket of quiet satisfaction.
its not the worst, and I've quit weed before without going through anything..but its not nothin
That's not true at all. Heavy marijuana dependency and withdrawals definitely produce physical withdrawal effects.
They're not equivalent to, say, alcohol withdrawal, but they will exist.
There's actually a lot of research into various adjunct medications to dampen the physical withdrawal to help addicted marijuana users quit.
But regardless, if you have to qualify the type of addiction, you're not escaping the fact that something is addictive. Too many people have used this false physical/psychological dichotomy to talk themselves into marijuana dependencies, psychological or otherwise.
Psychological addition is just as real as physiological addiction.
Ignoring the distinction can falsely equate the severity of dependence with harder drugs.
I think it’s important to leave room for both: 1) Yes, there’s a difference between physical/psychological addiction and 2) Sometimes the end result is still addiction, with all of the negatives that come with it.
No amount of self control is going to save you from organ failure when going cold turkey off of heroin. There must be a distinction.
If deaths from DT were more than a corner case, then AA would be be considered to be a suicide pact.
~%5% odds of getting DTs and then 25% of death untreated and 1-5% chance treated don't sound great to me. Treated death of all alcoholics rate looks somewhere between flu and covid death rate and untreated death rate is much worse than covid death rate in populaton. People seem worried about covid death and not considering that a corner case.
You are trying to claim that psychological addiction isn’t as real as physiological addiction, not just for alcohol.
It’s clear that you care a lot about alcoholics with DT’s.
What isn’t clear is why you want to deny the difficulties of people who have psychological addictions to any kind of drug.
Is it just a numbers game for you?
I never said such a thing and this is just a malevolent and calculated lie.
>What isn’t clear is why you want to deny the difficulties of people who have psychological addictions to any kind of drug.
It's not clear because no such denial exists, and it's only alleged as part of a malevolent and calculated lie.
My original comment said they were both real. I'm saying regarding being straight up executed, the numbers game is that psychological addiction doesn't look nearly as likely to straight up execute you. I've said nothing to say psychologist addiction isn't a difficult for some people.
I don't know about you, but I think it's extremely important, ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE WITH EXPERIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGICALLY ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES who have perhaps had insanely hard struggles with things like opiates to understand that no amount of willpower will spare them from the very real chance of involuntary death from benzo or alcohol withdrawal.
You've built a straw man as tall as the wall of china is wide.
This is the comment you were arguing against.
I was worried it could be inferred the flat out execution would be the same level of "real" for psychological as it is for the physiological. I was worried someone who has gone through insanely torturous psychological opiate withdrawal for instance would think that if they're both just as real, that means their odds of involuntary death from psychological withdrawal and physiological withdraw looks the same and they can just mentally power through physiological addiction like some strong-willed people may be able to with psychological addiction.
Of course this is wrong. You can't willpower your way out of delerium tremens. You can be executed, no matter what conscious decision you make.
I do not believe this is what you wrote. I was adding to the conversation. Do you believe it is ok to add to the conversation? Not every comment is meant to literally attempt to disprove the person above them. I was not disproving your statement.
Mental addiction is treated entirely differently and is far less severe.
No it isn’t.
> in that your body forms a physical dependency on something that can kill you if you don't have it.
Yes, sometimes it can kill to withdraw without support. But that isn’t what makes something real or not.
> Mental addiction is treated entirely differently and is far less severe.
Is it? Can you support that claim? I’ve seen pot addicts ruin their lives and die. That doesn’t seem ‘far less severe’ to me.