Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol.
Be careful with your concept of physically versus psychologically addicted, it’s not really a 100% seperatable dichotomy like that. Your brain is your brain after all, whether you decide to call something physical or psychological it’s all happening inside the brain. I think because cannabis doesn’t tend to have severe withdrawal effects (like alcohol withdrawal, which can kill you) people assume that means they’re not dependent or that it doesn’t have direct effects on the reward processing centers in the brain to reinforce its use again in the future. That’s what distinguishes addictive drugs from things that are just generally pleasant so we want to do them again, they have a direct chemical interaction with the neural circuits that are supposed to be helping decide if a behavior should be done again or not. Kind of tipping the scales in their favor, making you want to do something again more so than just the pleasentness of the past experience alone would otherwise do. You’re going to have an easier time quitting carrots than you will cannabis, even if you find them both equally pleasant in the moment.
Don’t get me wrong though, cannabis is waaaay less addictive than things like nicotine or alcohol, and has far less harmful effects than those. I think there is a tendency (especially with things like DARE lying about drug dangers when people were younger) to over correct and say things like it’s a miracle drug that’s non addicting and can never harm you and can fix everything wrong in your life! I’m for recreational cannabis legalization, but people should understand it’s actual risks, even though they are much less than other recreational drugs.
The cumulative probability estimate of transition to dependence was 67.5% for nicotine users, 22.7% for alcohol users, 20.9% for cocaine users, and 8.9% for cannabis users. Half of the cases of dependence on nicotine, alcohol, cannabis and cocaine were observed approximately 27, 13, 5 and 4 years after use onset, respectively.
Cannabis-derived psychoactive compounds such as Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and synthetic cannabinoids directly interact with the reward system and thereby have addictive properties. Cannabinoids induce their reinforcing properties by an increase in tonic dopamine levels through a cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptor–dependent mechanism within the ventral tegmental area. Cues that are conditioned to cannabis smoking can induce drug-seeking responses (ie, craving) by eliciting phasic dopamine events.
You’re going to have an easier time quitting carrots than you will cannabis, even if you find them both equally pleasant in the moment.
I would suggest that isn’t true for the woman in the link I posted, which was sort of my point about the addictive nature of cannabis. And I would say that physical addiction is not only in the brain because it isn’t your brain that kills you when you go through alcohol or opioid withdrawal.
But sure, you can become heavily dependent on cannabis. I’m just arguing that it’s a totally different sort of dependency and should be classified as such.
Yes but saying it’s psychological dependence only is is kind of misleading here. To most reading that would imply that’s just addicting because they like doing it. A carrot does not contain a chemical that directly interacts with the learning and reinforcing centers of the brain, while cannabis does. Cannabis is directly addicting, carrots are not. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.
Also it is your brain that kills you when you have alcohol withdrawal, it’s why alcohol withdrawal is treated with central nervous system depressants. Opiod withdrawal generally won’t be able to kill you but you certainly will feel like you want to die.
Be careful with your concept of physically versus psychologically addicted, it’s not really a 100% seperatable dichotomy like that. Your brain is your brain after all, whether you decide to call something physical or psychological it’s all happening inside the brain. I think because cannabis doesn’t tend to have severe withdrawal effects (like alcohol withdrawal, which can kill you) people assume that means they’re not dependent or that it doesn’t have direct effects on the reward processing centers in the brain to reinforce its use again in the future. That’s what distinguishes addictive drugs from things that are just generally pleasant so we want to do them again, they have a direct chemical interaction with the neural circuits that are supposed to be helping decide if a behavior should be done again or not. Kind of tipping the scales in their favor, making you want to do something again more so than just the pleasentness of the past experience alone would otherwise do. You’re going to have an easier time quitting carrots than you will cannabis, even if you find them both equally pleasant in the moment.
Don’t get me wrong though, cannabis is waaaay less addictive than things like nicotine or alcohol, and has far less harmful effects than those. I think there is a tendency (especially with things like DARE lying about drug dangers when people were younger) to over correct and say things like it’s a miracle drug that’s non addicting and can never harm you and can fix everything wrong in your life! I’m for recreational cannabis legalization, but people should understand it’s actual risks, even though they are much less than other recreational drugs.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3069146/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605022/#ref4
I would suggest that isn’t true for the woman in the link I posted, which was sort of my point about the addictive nature of cannabis. And I would say that physical addiction is not only in the brain because it isn’t your brain that kills you when you go through alcohol or opioid withdrawal.
But sure, you can become heavily dependent on cannabis. I’m just arguing that it’s a totally different sort of dependency and should be classified as such.
Yes but saying it’s psychological dependence only is is kind of misleading here. To most reading that would imply that’s just addicting because they like doing it. A carrot does not contain a chemical that directly interacts with the learning and reinforcing centers of the brain, while cannabis does. Cannabis is directly addicting, carrots are not. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.
Also it is your brain that kills you when you have alcohol withdrawal, it’s why alcohol withdrawal is treated with central nervous system depressants. Opiod withdrawal generally won’t be able to kill you but you certainly will feel like you want to die.