Marijuana Addiction

[Rick]

My point was about the word "addiction" and you proved it lwein with your comment "having a MAJOR negative impact on their lives but continue to do it anyway"
I guess I missed that "negative" word when I looked up addiction in my mind.
Addiction is a negative societal word that is nothing but bullshit to throw us on a guilt trip. In fact the fucking guilt trip makes it harder for some of us to give it up. Look what the christians do. "no more guilt so you can fix yourself"
Yes, there are many people addicted to something that affects them negatively but there is also the issue of all of us needing something daily to survive. What about religion? an addiction?
Society uses words to keep us in line.
Drugs or medication? Addiction or need?
I have a lifelong friend who likes his wine every night. He has always gone cold turkey every February to prove to himself he is not addicted to booze. Finally his wife said "this is stupid". He too is in his mid sixties. WTF? addict=bad Bullshit mostly

 

[OO]

Well, if you dont like what comes from the fridge then try codeine, which comes with acetaminophene...

this is not a thread to evaluate the value of different mind altering substances, because each person has their preference.

there's plenty of alcoholics who look at you the way you look at another type of drug user.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1B55wEB030

please refrain from assigning judgement to those who differ from you.

 

[DevoTheStrange]

My point was about the word "addiction" and you proved it lwein with your comment "having a MAJOR negative impact on their lives but continue to do it anyway"
I guess I missed that "negative" word when I looked up addiction in my mind.
Addiction is a negative societal word that is nothing but bullshit to throw us on a guilt trip. In fact the fucking guilt trip makes it harder for some of us to give it up. Look what the christians do. "no more guilt so you can fix yourself"
Yes, there are many people addicted to something that affects them negatively but there is also the issue of all of us needing something daily to survive. What about religion? an addiction?
Society uses words to keep us in line.
Drugs or medication? Addiction or need?
I have a lifelong friend who likes his wine every night. He has always gone cold turkey every February to prove to himself he is not addicted to booze. Finally his wife said "this is stupid". He too is in his mid sixties. WTF? addict=bad Bullshit mostly

Reading this made me think of something interesting... if you have a prescription for a drug that is considered highly addictive, and your use of it is longer than 30 days, you are considered a "Long Term User." Not an addict, why? Because you are legally allowed to have that specific dependancy. Now if you were hooked on the same drugs and didn't have a prescription for it, you are immediately labeled an "Addict." Even if you are self medicating with something you may need.

 

[lwien]

Reading this made me think of something interesting... if you have a prescription for a drug that is considered highly addictive, and your use of it is longer than 30 days, you are considered a "Long Term User." Not an addict, why? Because you are legally allowed to have that specific dependancy. Now if you were hooked on the same drugs and didn't have a prescription for it, you are immediately labeled an "Addict." Even if you are self medicating with something you may need.

I don't think that that's necessarily true. One can become addicted to prescribed drugs. It happens all too frequently, eh?

Pain management is a prime example of this. When does one begin to ween themselves off of pain medication? How does one know when they've crossed the line from pain management to addiction? It's been proven that there are many who start their pain management routine with opiates, but continue to take those opiates long after the need. It's not uncommon for people to "think" they need to continue their pain meds when in reality, the pain that they are experiencing is nothing more than an addictive symptom to the drug itself and when they ween themselves off of the drugs, the pain goes away. Where that line is, is something that the medical community needs to find, for there is much more of a problem with addiction to prescribed drugs than there are with recreational drugs.

 

[DevoTheStrange]

You missed my point... Legally your not considered an Addict because you are allowed to have and take these meds. I was pointing out how it all comes down to labels, in reference to the use of Words to keep people in line as Rick pointed out.
In either situation each person could be considered an addict, but the one in the situation of having a script is under a different legal Term.

 

[lwien]

You missed my point... Legally your not considered an Addict because you are allowed to have and take these meds. I was pointing out how it all comes down to labels, in reference to the use of Words to keep people in line as Rick pointed out.
In either situation each person could be considered an addict, but the one in the situation of having a script is under a different legal Term.

Is that really true? I had no idea. So just because one has a script for a med, they can't legally be considered an addict to that drug just because they have a script? Guess I've been living under a rock, but that's just..................stooooopid.

 

[DevoTheStrange]

yes it is... but how else are pharmaceutical companies going to make their money? We live in a day and age where it seems like almost every situation has a pill to remedy your problems. The only kicker is most of these meds are addictive in one way or another.

Now how long you stay addicted to pills your have is pretty much depends on your relationship with you and your Dr, and whether or not they have enough ethics to keep you on them when you become addicted.

in essence... a Long Term Use patient and an Addict are pretty much chemically in the same boat. The only difference is one is seen as Positive use.

Some people think just because they are prescribed something it is safe...


I Don't know about other states, but here most of the pharmacies are set up on a network, so if one person gets a script for a potentially addictive drug, it will show at all the other pharmacies that person already has those meds and not to fill their script until a certain date. This is to help avoid addictive behavior and keep people from cheating the system to get their drugs. (only reason i found this out is because of a nasty klonopin addiction i had)

 

[lwien]

I Don't know about other states, but here most of the pharmacies are set up on a network, so if one person gets a script for a potentially addictive drug, it will show at all the other pharmacies that person already has those meds and not to fill their script until a certain date. This is to help avoid addictive behavior and keep people from cheating the system to get their drugs. (only reason i found this out is because of a nasty klonopin addiction i had)

Soooo many ways to scam the system, but that's a helluva good start. That should be instituted nationwide. Addiction to prescribed drugs is a major problem.

Glad to hear that you reigned in that Klonopin. Overcoming any addiction is a war with one's self and is a battle that not all of us win.

 

[pakalolo]

I wasn't aware that there was a legal definition of addiction but there's a lot of things in law I'm not aware of, I guess it makes sense for sentencing purposes if nothing else, since then the Court can order treatment.

Anyway, splitting hairs over definitions isn't advancing the discussion. Carry on.

 

[Egzoset]

OO, refrain from assigning judgement to those who differ?

I'm in the dark here but it won't be the 1st time.

Anyway, there is recreational use which is being condemned while many other types of recreational abuse are thriving. Then there's medicinal use, even that type isn't free of criticism. That's how i see it.

 

[kobetan]

I strongly think that the so called "psychological addiction" to cannabis is just a concept that rose from trying to find the addiction component of this drug because drugs are addictive, right?. Empirical evidence shows that cannabis is not physically addictive for almost everyone (there are always some exceptions, of course) and from a scientific point of view, they are still trying to find some mechanism by which the cannabinoids could cause people to get hooked up by the drug. The internet is full of these studies so I won't post any link.

So, why do I think that the psychological addiction to weed exists but is not weed's fault? because the lack of a chemical compound of cannabis which could explain it, makes it equal to other kinds of addictions like the addiction to money, the addiction to gamble, to horse races, to sex, etc. none of this activities involves the ingestion of any chemical that one could blame for such addictive behavior, but some people still get psychological hooked up to such things.

Even on lack of ingestion of chemicals of any kind, people get addicted to the some pleasure activities, smoking weed being just one of these activities. So, people mentally addicted to weed exist not because of some addictive properties of it, but because some people are just more subject to develop addiction to activities they enjoy the most, and I think no one would say that a characteristic of gambling is that it is addictive, because most people gamble in casinos and don't get hooked.

I think such behavior has more to do with the way our brain works rather than with addictive properties of the activities we perform. Obviously, there are other drugs that are addictive, and the mechanisms for which the addiction develops are known (cocaine, heroin, tobacco, etc.)

I don't know if I explained myself clear. Sorry if not

 

[vorrange]

I know a saying that goes like this: "Too much of something is a mistake"

And i think this is the problem of many non-addictive, small or mild addictive substances. I would classify MJ in the same category of coffee.

People use it, some abuse it, but i don't think there is a death potential like alcohol or other hard drugs.

And although i experienced the sweating, insomnia and nerves on the fringe, i would still classify it that way.

If i go one day without coffee i get severe headaches that only pass after i sip an expresso.

I believe there are people who experience more severe withdrawal symptoms, but that can be true for coffee and we just don't know them since this is Fuckcombustion.com, not fuckcaffeine.com

So, i feel a bit like Iwien in his opinions, and the bottom line is, you have to respect it and realize that if you over indulge and generally don't pay attention to your body, and what it is saying to you, and this includes the ACTIONS you take out of pure habit, there might be consequences.

Before i saw things in black&white, addicting vs non-addicting, now i think there is a lot of grey area that depends entirely on the individual user, his habits, education and general health, mental, emotional and physical.

 

[2clicker]

I would classify MJ in the same category of coffee.

People use it, some abuse it, but i don't think there is a death potential like alcohol or other hard drugs

as far as death is concerned coffee is MUCH worse than cannabis. caffeine can kill a person.

also note that prescription drugs kill more americans than all the other illegal drugs in a year. this chart is from 2009 or 2010 i believe.

 

[vorrange]

Still, that fact alone does not change much in my opinion, also "all legal drugs" and "all illegal drugs" is very non informative..

I think that it just adds to the fact that the potential harm in a substance always comes down to dosage and the user habits concerning the substance.

There are drugs with obvious harmfull efects, whether quickly or after years of abuse, and i think some of those drugs have less restricted laws than MJ or others.

I also think people generally tend to see the substances in the light of the law that defines it and if you study the facts you learn that there are drugs like tobacco and alcohol that despite all the warnings of its dangers, continue to be abused and tolerated by so many. On the other hand, we have criminalized substances that, because of that "label", are frowned upon and feared to the point of violence.

It just does not make sense if you look at it in a pure and unbiased view. All you need is respect and awareness!

 

[djonkoman]

http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/oo80/SPENCERvex/DBV/Screenshot2010-07-29at120025AM.png

... and that's why I never had an aspirin
(altough, little bit more complicated, as a kid I didn't see the point in just fighting symptoms while the desease is still there, so I never wanted aspirin or smilar paikillers, and as I got older I started smoking and discovered that helps against headaches so I still never had to resort to aspirin eventough now I do see the usefullness of fighting symptoms)

 

[Ethnobotanist]

Cannabis does change one's brain chemistry, and your body will accommodate for frequent use. Once you cease use, your body is still in the mode of accommodating for this and cannot react immediately to return to equilibrium; it will take some time as we all know.

Does anyone know how long the body would take to return to equilibrium once cannabis use is ceased? Assuming vaping relatively small amounts (15-50mg) 2-3 times a day for about 5 months. I've read about people stopping for several months and still been experiencing the negative effects (aka withdrawals?) of going without (depression, anxiety, constantly tired etc). However I'm not sure whether this is due to the body not returning back to equilibrium in all that time or whether it's because they were self medicating (perhaps unknowingly) with cannabis and that stopping it's use only brought those problems to the surface.

 

[Carbon]

The time it takes your mind and body to come back to normal depends on your intake volume and frequency but also can vary person to person (all things being equal). For me a nice round estimate to be back to normal after consistent heavy use was a month.

For the other things you brought up, the self-medicating issue can cloud things. If you're normally a certain way when not using cannabis and it relieves or masks this, then of course quitting can bring it back. I'm also of the belief that once you have taken a drug, especially regularly and in great quantity, that your brain and body will never be the same as they once were (however subtle that may be).

 

[Ethnobotanist]

Good post Carbon. One month sounds like a good period, especially since it gives one a solid amount of time to get properly used to a lifestyle without herb featuring regularly. I guess those people who are reporting really bad issues months later (sleeping 10+ hours day due to depression etc) were probably self-medicating. Maybe it is partly due to some kind of permanant change due to taking exo-cannabinoids exessively and regularly however I would have thought it would be more likely to be subtle (esp relative to the first few weeks), as you suggest, rather than quite extreme as those people report.

On the never reaching baseline again, I'm not 100% sure. Doesn't every cell in your body get rebuilt over time? Surely if someone went from abusing it to absitence the brain/body composition would again alter over time? I guess I can see where you're coming from though, especially when you look at how so many ex-X/Y/Z addicts turn instead to some other socially acceptable vices, be it excessive coffee consumption, over eating, too much tv, drinking etc.