7 ms·

> It's like when people claimed that marijuana was not addictive. Marijuana is not physically addictive. That was and is also the reasonable claim made by reas

by gspr 5y ago

> It's like when people claimed that marijuana was not addictive. 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".

Synaesthesia 5y ago
If you smoke daily, and frequently and then quit, you do experience intense cravings and unpleasant physical side effects.
- gspr 5y ago
  The former is psychological. On the latter: citation needed.
  - wswope 5y ago
    “Physical addiction” isn’t really an academic term - but you are misinformed: physical dependence on cannabis is a very well-established phenomenon. Dozens and dozens of citations for you: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&q=physical+dependence+cannabis https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&q=physi...
    - gspr 5y ago
      Ah, there does seem to be some relating to appetite – interesting. The rest is again psychological, or from the 80s. Got anything from this millenium and clearly physical?
      - wswope 5y ago
        Sure, from the same search, filtered by date: > 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.focus.20180038 https://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.foc...
        stronglikedan 5y ago
        > tolerance and withdrawal 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.
        gspr 5y ago
        Physiological! This is a psychiatry journal!
  - toomanydoubts 5y ago
    As a personal anecdote: been smoking for 10 years and everytime I take a break I have huge night sweats for 3 or 4 days until I become normal again. I'm talking like waking up twice in the middle of the night to change bed sheets and t-shirt so I'm not sleeping in a pool of sweat.
  - talentedcoin 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_use_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_use_disorder 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.
  - haswell 5y ago
    For some scholarly exploration, see [0]. 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. - [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5414724/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5414724/
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      I recently quit a pretty heavy constant background dose of THC (which I used to leverage myself off a pretty heavy constant background dose of alcohol). 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
- leesalminen 5y ago
  Anecdotally, I spent ~10 years as a daily pot smoker. I then moved to another country where it's illegal, so I stopped cold turkey in one day. I didn't experience any physical side effects or cravings. YMMV, but at least for me, it was a psychological condition. Once I told myself that I wanted to live in a place where it was illegal, and I wasn't willing to break the law of my new country of residence, that was it.
- chefandy 5y ago
  As does gambling addiction. The chemicals being internally generated by a psychological process doesn’t mean there aren’t severe withdrawal effects. Panic attacks and depression can have severe physical side effects. That doesn’t make any of those things chemically addictive substances.
toomanydoubts 5y ago
Isn't the idea of distinguishing between physical and psychological addiction outdated?
- jklinger410 5y ago
  No.
  - haswell 5y ago
    Focusing too much on the distinction can lead to false conclusions like “I can use cannabis without any concerns about 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.
  - toomanydoubts 5y ago
    Based on what? I believed it was common sense that our mental state was a product of the neurochemical interactions going on our brains. If you get addicted to gaming, are you really addicted to gaming, or are you addicted to the huge amounts of hormones like dopamine and serotonin flooding your brain when you win a match? Is this really "psychological" addiction? If the answer is yes, should I decide to inject serotonin intravenously, is it still psychological addiction?
    - jklinger410 5y ago
      I believe human beings have agency, and therefore I find that self control can contribute to curing a mental or emotional addiction. 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.
      - toomanydoubts 5y ago
        I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I'm specifically talking about addiction, but it seems you're talking about withdrawal, which is related but not the same.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Marijuana is not physically addictive. That was and is also the reasonable claim made by reasonable people. 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.
zepto 5y ago
If people say marijuana is not addictive, this is a false claim. Psychological addition is just as real as physiological addiction.

by gspr 5y ago

Synaesthesia 5y ago

If you smoke daily, and frequently and then quit, you do experience intense cravings and unpleasant physical side effects.

gspr 5y ago
The former is psychological. On the latter: citation needed.
- wswope 5y ago
  “Physical addiction” isn’t really an academic term - but you are misinformed: physical dependence on cannabis is a very well-established phenomenon. Dozens and dozens of citations for you: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&q=physical+dependence+cannabis https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&q=physi...
  - gspr 5y ago
    Ah, there does seem to be some relating to appetite – interesting. The rest is again psychological, or from the 80s. Got anything from this millenium and clearly physical?
    - wswope 5y ago
      Sure, from the same search, filtered by date: > 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.focus.20180038 https://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.foc...
      - stronglikedan 5y ago
        > tolerance and withdrawal 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.
      - gspr 5y ago
        Physiological! This is a psychiatry journal!
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  As a personal anecdote: been smoking for 10 years and everytime I take a break I have huge night sweats for 3 or 4 days until I become normal again. I'm talking like waking up twice in the middle of the night to change bed sheets and t-shirt so I'm not sleeping in a pool of sweat.
- talentedcoin 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_use_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_use_disorder 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.
- haswell 5y ago
  For some scholarly exploration, see [0]. 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. - [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5414724/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5414724/
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    I recently quit a pretty heavy constant background dose of THC (which I used to leverage myself off a pretty heavy constant background dose of alcohol). 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
leesalminen 5y ago
Anecdotally, I spent ~10 years as a daily pot smoker. I then moved to another country where it's illegal, so I stopped cold turkey in one day. I didn't experience any physical side effects or cravings. YMMV, but at least for me, it was a psychological condition. Once I told myself that I wanted to live in a place where it was illegal, and I wasn't willing to break the law of my new country of residence, that was it.
chefandy 5y ago
As does gambling addiction. The chemicals being internally generated by a psychological process doesn’t mean there aren’t severe withdrawal effects. Panic attacks and depression can have severe physical side effects. That doesn’t make any of those things chemically addictive substances.

toomanydoubts 5y ago

Isn't the idea of distinguishing between physical and psychological addiction outdated?

jklinger410 5y ago
No.
- haswell 5y ago
  Focusing too much on the distinction can lead to false conclusions like “I can use cannabis without any concerns about 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.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  Based on what? I believed it was common sense that our mental state was a product of the neurochemical interactions going on our brains. If you get addicted to gaming, are you really addicted to gaming, or are you addicted to the huge amounts of hormones like dopamine and serotonin flooding your brain when you win a match? Is this really "psychological" addiction? If the answer is yes, should I decide to inject serotonin intravenously, is it still psychological addiction?
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    I believe human beings have agency, and therefore I find that self control can contribute to curing a mental or emotional addiction. 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.
    - toomanydoubts 5y ago
      I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I'm specifically talking about addiction, but it seems you're talking about withdrawal, which is related but not the same.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Marijuana is not physically addictive. That was and is also the reasonable claim made by reasonable people. 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.

zepto 5y ago

If people say marijuana is not addictive, this is a false claim. Psychological addition is just as real as physiological addiction.