Is Marijuana Truly Addictive?
A lot of people do not think that marijuana is addictive, for a couple of different reasons. These are good arguments actually but it all still comes back to the individual who self medicates their feelings and emotions. But let us take a look at some of these arguments anyway.
The first argument that is generally made has to do with a lack of withdrawal symptoms. Most drugs, including alcohol, will produce physical withdrawal symptoms when you suddenly stop taking the drug. This is not found with marijuana, so people consider it to be a "soft" drug in this respect. But based on behavior of those who smoke marijuana on a regular basis, we can certainly say that marijuana is addictive on a psychological level. Essentially, what happens is that marijuana plants the idea in the mind of the addict that they need to use the drug in order to have fun with any other activities, or handle any sort of stress. If people continue to smoke marijuana, then this becomes a bigger and bigger problem because eventually they are smoking before just about any activity. They have to get high before they go out to eat, before they go to the movies, before they go to a concert, and so on. They are no longer using the drug in order to have fun, but merely to feel normal so that they can enjoy every day activities. Without the drug involved, each experience becomes worse in their mind and they do not enjoy themselves as much. Life becomes about being high. The real reason that marijuana is addictive has to do with the reason that people use it to self medicate. This can get very tricky at times because people are very good at justifying and rationalizing things to themselves, so if you are trying to determine what is going on with your addiction, then you will have to be extremely honest with yourself. This is hard to do because we are good at fooling ourselves. For example, we might tell ourselves that we are smoking marijuana every day in order to control chronic pain or to help keep our appetite up, but in reality we might be using it to deal with every day stress and manage our feelings. When this is the case then we are actually stunting our emotional growth and development and not really growing as a person any longer because we are using the drug to avoid dealing with our life.
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Also I think you have an addictive personality or you don't. Great article.
I think marijuana is addictive in a pychological sense, but clearly not in a physical sense. People can be addicted to anything. There's no such thing as something that can be proven to be non-addictive because of how many different classifications "addiction" can fall under and how every personality is different. I find it easy for myself to become addicted to things. You can call me either an "addictive personality", or perhaps a "creature of habit". How much of a difference do you think there is between a habit and a psychological addiction?
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