Yes, You Can Get Addicted to Weed

In a world full of fentanyl, heroin, meth and all of the other super-strong drugs that enchant you with numbing your pain and making your problems go away, one drug, in particular, seems to fall by the wayside. For a long, long time marijuana has been thought of to be basically harmless and non-addictive. I’m not quite sure who first said that and made it believed by nearly everyone on the planet, but it’s an opinion that tons of people share. In our current day and age when we are completely normalizing marijuana on a societal level, the persistent idea that weed is harmless and not addictive continues, even though it’s becoming apparent that the old ideas about marijuana are completely false.

I’ve been working in substance abuse for many, many years and lately, I’ve gotten more phone calls than ever before from people confused about why they feel the way they feel when they stop smoking weed and why they seem to not being able to stop smoking no matter how badly they want to. Since the mass legalization of marijuana began, weed plants have been hybridized and potent edibles and dabs all promise to infuse your body with more THC than ever thought possible and the strangest thing has started happening.

Users who attempt to quit have been experiencing pretty typical drug withdrawal symptoms. Irritability, nausea, insomnia, and anxiety are just some of the ill effects regular marijuana users have been experiencing. In addition to the physical symptoms, daily weed users are experiencing classic indicators of addiction classified by the inability to stop using despite receiving adverse consequences for their continued use of the drug. People want to quit and can’t. The same with any other drug.

So, can you get addicted to weed? In my opinion, yes, absolutely. Today’s marijuana is not the same as it was 15-20 years ago. Back then, users got low to moderate doses of THC and, in those amounts, it probably wasn’t that addictive and may have even been relatively harmless in comparison to other drugs. But today’s marijuana and other marijuana products have the end user consuming THC is such high doses that we’re dealing with a whole different animal.

I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t the person answering these phone calls that come into my treatment center every week. Each week I speak to at least one person who calls looking for help, not knowing why they’re feeling the way they feel when trying to stop smoking weed and embarrassed say “I’m addicted to weed.” So the idea that marijuana isn’t addictive needs to get tossed out, thrown away, and forgotten about. Because clearly, you can now get addicted to weed.