Why Is Smoking Weed So Addictive

Preferring Activities That Will Get You High

When you start to evaluate your relationships with other people and your activities with them based on your chances of getting high, then you are choosing your bad habit over real and lasting relationships with your loved ones.

Also, ask yourself if youve been able to take on your daily responsibilities. Look around your house and see if youve cleaned it lately or if the dishes have been washed. If the place is dirty and disorganized, then you havent been paying attention to these details because your mind is too focused on getting high.

What Is Medical Marijuana

While marijuana is a commonly-abused illicit drug, there has also been a significant debate in the United States about marijuanas medical value in recent years. Between 1996 and 2020, 33 states and four territories passed comprehensive medical marijuana and cannabis programs. In those areas, doctors may prescribe marijuana for patients who many benefit from its use.

• What is medical marjiuana used for?
• HIV and AIDS

In addition to allowing the sale and use of medical marijuana, a few of these states also allow recreational use of the drug. These states are Alaska, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve medical marijuana as an official medicine, there are a few pill cannabinoids the agency has approved. Marijuana contains about 100 cannabinoids that create powerful effects. According to a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, THC and cannabinoid drugs potential therapeutic benefits include:

• Pain relief
• Control of nausea
• Improving muscle spasms, stiffness, and fatigue in multiple sclerosis patients

Reasons Why Marijuana Is Good For You

Youve probably heard of the recent studies showing that marijuana is good for you but how many of them are true?

It often sounds too good to be true that a recreational intoxicant can be beneficial. Sure, science tells us that red wine is healthy, but only in the smallest of doses. Can regular marijuana consumption be just as good? The answer is that its even better.

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Might Help Treat Glaucoma

Many of the possible pros of marijuana are still being discovered. Although more research is needed to be certain, it actually looks like marijuana shows some promise in treating glaucoma.

In fact, glaucoma treatment is one of the major reasons why medical marijuana has been legalized in so many states. Glaucoma can be seriously debilitating if untreated: the disease causes the pressure in the eye to grow, which can damage the vision by affecting the optic nerve.

Endocannabinoids And What They Do

To understand what marijuana does to a user in the long run, its necessary to look at how the drug works in the brain. Marijuana is as effective as it is because its active chemical compound mimics substances called endocannabinoids that the human body produces on its own. In the brain, endocannabinoids work by controlling the production of neurotransmitters . In the rest of the body, endocannabinoids relax muscles, reduce inflammation, protect damaged tissue, and regulate appetite and metabolism, among many other functions.

Because endocannabinoids are so important, the brain has readymade receptors for them. Since the THC in cannabis mimics natural endocannabinoids, is unique among other drugs in that regard. The same physiological effects that arise from the normal application of endocannabinoids are triggered with the use of marijuana, especially in the brain. This is why smokers experience memory issues, augmented levels of pain, and alterations to emotion, pleasure, and movement control.

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How Weed Is Commonly Used

The way that marijuana is used is by drying its leaves. Usually, it is mixed with tobacco to form joints. The user then smokes it. There are also other ways to consume marijuana. Some users mix it with their food. They also brew it like tea. It is possible for your child to consume foods or beverages without knowing that it has marijuana in it.;

Whats more dangerous is when weed and crack cocaine or other drugs are mixed. The effects of the combination of these drugs are more powerful. It may lead to overdose and other health hazards. It is crucial to remind your child about suspicious edibles because those may contain drugs in them.;

Influence Of Adult Family Members

The influence of family members plays a big role in what our children think of drug use. For example, if you have members of the family who smoke or consume marijuana and approve of its use, then the kids will think its okay to try it.;

You, as a parent, should be able to talk to the family member about how you dont want your children to get the wrong idea that drugs are okay. Ask them not to do drugs when children are around or talk about drug use to the kids.

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Overdose From Marijuana Use

A person can experience an overdose when he or she uses too much of the drug and the effects of it can be life-threatening. While there are no reports of adults or teens who had fatal consequences because of marijuana use alone, too much consumption of marijuana is known to cause uncomfortable and intense side effects.

People who used marijuana that have high THC have reported that they experienced paranoia and anxiety. Others had hallucinations, delusions, and other psychotic reactions.

Psychotic reactions can happen whether marijuana is smoked or eaten. But emergency medical staff have been seeing more and more cases of patients being admitted because of eating too much food containing marijuana.

Usually, young people dont know much about the marijuana edibles and how long it takes before the effects kick in. In doing so, they eat more to get that high. Consequently, they experience intense reactions because theyve taken too much of the drug.

Signs And Symptoms Of Cannabis Addiction

If you or your loved one are experiencing any of the following symptoms contact us today for a free private assessment:

• Your tolerance to cannabis increases, so you need more to get high
• Cannabis is affecting your relationships with family and friends
• You are suffering from anxiety, depression or paranoia
• You are unable to function on a daily basis without cannabis
• Smoking the drug daily, frequently and over a prolonged period
• Experiencing paranoia and hallucinations
• Loss of interest in socialising; and activities
• Financial debt or hardship to fund your addiction
• Unable to stop your usage despite repeated attempts
• Becoming anxious or irritable when unable to smoke weed

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Why Is Nicotine So Addictive

©Shutterstock/Jurgis Mankauskas

Tobacco use is the top preventable cause of disease and death in the United States. Cigarettes cause more than 480,000 premature deaths in the United States each year. Thats about 1,300 deaths every day.

Once they start smoking, people usually have a hard time quitting. This is because of the addictive chemical nicotine, a main ingredient in tobacco. But what makes nicotine so addictive?

Brain training

Consuming nicotinethrough regular cigarettes or vapingleads to the release of the chemical dopamine in the human brain. As with many drugs, dopamine prompts or teaches the brain to repeat the same behavior over and over. This is also known as reinforcement.

But heres the catch: The brain gets a dopamine hit from nicotine every time a person takes a puff on a cigarette or inhales vapor from an e-cigarette that contains nicotine.

Vicious cycle

A typical smoker takes 10 or more puffs on each cigarette, so a person who smokes about one pack daily gets at least 250 “hits” every day. Thats a lot of teaching the brain to keep using nicotine. And repeated use increases the risk of addiction. ;

Whether a person consumes nicotine through tobacco or vaping, its reinforcing effects might;be much more harmful than the user imagines.

This might also be why teens who try vaping often switch to regular cigarettesto get more and more of the nicotine that the brain now craves.

Signs Someone Is Addicted To Weed: Is It Addictive

Short answer: It can be for some people. According to the NIDA , Marijuana use can lead to the development of problem use, known as a marijuana use disorder, which takes the form of addiction in severe cases. Recent data suggest that 30 percent of those who use marijuana may have some degree of marijuana use disorder. People who begin using marijuana before the age of 18 are four to seven times more likely to develop a marijuana use disorder than adults. To put a finer point on those numbers, the Centers for Disease Control puts it this way : Yes, about 1 in 10 marijuana users will become addicted. For people who begin using younger than 18, that number rises to 1 in 6.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, that doesnt mean everyone who blazes up is going to be curled up in a fetal position a few weeks later, trying to inject the marijuanas into their arm. Its amusing to poke fun as marijuana addiction as seemingly impossible, but that undercuts the very nature of addiction itself: Its not about the specific substance. As the NIDA points out , No one factor can predict if a person will become addicted to drugs. A combination of factors influences risk for addiction. The more risk factors a person has, the greater the chance that taking drugs can lead to addiction.

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Getting High Despite Known Consequences

Have you suffered consequences as a result of getting high? If you have already suffered consequences and you know very well that smoking pot will continue to cause problems in your life, yet you still smoke weed anyway, you might be addicted.; can lead you to do things that you otherwise may not do, such as getting high despite the fact that you know it is causing problems in your life.

Yes You Can Become Addicted To Marijuana And The Problem Is Growing

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. For as long as most residents can remember, smoking marijuana has been a part of life here. The fact that California legalized the practice in January went practically unnoticed in this quiet town a half-hours drive north of San Francisco, where some claim the normalization of Americas marijuana culture got its start.

For Quintin Pohl and countless teenagers before him, smoking pot was a rite of passage. It was a diversion from the loneliness he felt at home when his parents were splitting up and a salve for middle-school angst. It was his entire social life in seventh and eighth grades, when social life is everything.

Even though nearly all his friends were using marijuana and seeming to enjoy it, Pohl said, at some point his marijuana use took a turn he never saw coming: He became addicted.

Many people are unaware of marijuana addiction. But in the public health and medical communities, it is a well-defined disorder that includes physical withdrawal symptoms, cravings and psychological dependence. Many say it is on the rise, perhaps because of the increasing potency of genetically engineered plants and the use of concentrated products, or because more marijuana users are partaking multiple times a day.

The percentage of people who become addicted to marijuana about 9 percent of all users, and about 17 percent of those who start in adolescence also has been stable.

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Why Weed Is Dangerous For Teenagers

Teenagers bodies are still growing. That is why marijuana use can have negative effects on their growth and development. There are many other reasons why we should educate our children about the dangers of smoking or consuming marijuana. Even if it is already legal in some places, it does not take away the fact that it still has negative effects on the body, especially for growing kids.;

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Risks Of Teen Marijuana Use

Trying marijuana one time is unlikely to cause long-lasting health problems. But marijuana can complicate anxiety problems. Children with anxiety disorders may experience panic attacks when they smoke the drug or as . Others may get hurt acting recklessly. But in general, the risks of one-time use are low.

Particularly worrisome is regular patterns of use, Volkow said. In seniors, 5.9 percent of them report regular marijuana use, which is basically daily use.

Why is this of concern? Because they are in school, and they are supposed to be learning and memorizing. This pattern of use has been shown to be associated with impairment in educational achievement and with very significant levels of dropout.

In addition to the drugs effects on academics, risks of teen marijuana use include:

• Heart problems
• Trouble breathing
• Mental health issues

Regular marijuana use is also associated with lower life satisfaction. That may be caused by the drugs effects on the pleasure system in the brain or life problems associated with marijuana use. For example, 12th-graders who smoke marijuana are twice as likely to get a traffic ticket, according to NIDA.

Marijuana also affects how likely a person is to use other drugs. Some research indicates that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to other drug use. But other studies suggest that people who use marijuana already face a high risk for drug abuse.

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A Doctors Opinion About Marijuana Addiction

A Doctors Opinion about Marijuana Addiction Marvin D. Seppala, MD Chief Medical Officer, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

I hope that this brief writing may provide those who are seeking help a general understanding of the disease of addiction, and some specific aspects of marijuana addiction.

Many people say that marijuana is not addicting, but this is simply not accurate. People do become addicted to marijuana, just as they do to alcohol, opioids and stimulants. Marijuana addiction differs from these other types of addictions primarily by the outward or social manifestations, but internally, the same pain and anguish exist.

Studies show that about 9% of those who use marijuana become addicted to it. The unfortunate truth is that the lack of serious, early consequences to marijuana addiction allow for a long, slow decline, often without recognition, resulting in later-stage addiction before the problem is confronted. An individual may wake up years into this chronic illness, without a reasonable understanding of how their life got so far off track. Often one has no major medical or legal problems, no sudden tragedy that drives the search for an answer. However, isolation from friends and family, loss of interest and lack of participation in those activities that used to bring joy, and the crushing weight of missed opportunities add up. If this is where you find yourself, you are reading the right book .

Signs Of Marijuana Abuse & Addiction

In the earliest stages of marijuana use disorder, neither the drug user nor loved ones may recognize that there is a problem. But over time,;the person who abuses marijuana may begin to show signs of physical dependence and addiction.

Some signs and symptoms used to make a diagnosis of a marijuana use disorder, or addiction, include:2

• Using marijuana in greater amounts or over a longer period of time than intended.
• An inability to control or reduce marijuana use.
• Spending a large amount of time acquiring marijuana, using it, and recovering from its effects.
• Cravings to use marijuana.
• Difficulties meeting responsibilities at work, school, or home due to marijuana use.
• Continuing to use marijuana even though it is causing social or interpersonal problems.
• Neglecting social, occupational, or recreational activities in favor of marijuana use.
• Using marijuana in situations where it is dangerous to do so, such as while driving a car or operating machinery.
• Continuing to use marijuana even though it is causing physical or psychological problems.
• Developing tolerance.
• Developing withdrawal symptoms when use slows or stops.

To meet the criteria for a cannabis use disorder in the DSM, a person must exhibit at least 2 of the above symptoms in a 12-month period.2

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What Makes Marijuana Addictive

To understand why marijuana is addictive, we have to know the most common reasons why people use cannabis in the first place.

• It makes them feel good.;Being high makes one feel happy, relaxed, contented, and optimistic. It can even trigger bursts of laughter out of nowhere. In simple words, it is pure bliss.
• It helps relieve unwanted feelings.;Weed can help alleviate stress, anxiety, depression, and other unpleasant emotions. It is a quick and easy escape hatch.
• It aids in better performance.;Some people consume cannabis to improve their focus, creativity, and energy levels.
• Curiosity and peer pressure.;Some teenagers consume cannabis to fit in and impress their friends. That, or they could just be naturally curious as to what being high feels like.

Whichever the reason may be, the result is the same: taking marijuana satisfies the desire to feel good and rewarded.

Our brains are hardwired to seek things that give us pleasure. Smoking marijuana floods your system with THC. This psychoactive compound then binds with CB1 receptors in the brain. As a result, the release of feel-good neurotransmitters such as dopamine is triggered, rewarding you with euphoric sensations.

Aside from satisfaction and a general sense of wellbeing, it also activates the brains reward pathways so that you will remember that consuming marijuana makes you feel good. And so, you are motivated to repeat the same behavior to get the same pleasurable reward .