Is weed addiction a real thing?

I would argue that it most definitely is. My first experience with drugs or alcohol was actually with smoking weed. I was instantly hooked and fell in love with the high it produced. Little did I know how many problems this would create down the road.

Sometimes people get confused because there is no physical detox when you stop smoking weed. Because there are no serious withdrawal symptoms, people assume that the drug is not really addictive at all and some go so far as to say that this makes the substance completely harmless. This is a distortion of the truth. Let me explain why.

People who are addicted to weed tend to smoke it every single day. They smoke it when they are happy, they smoke it when they are feeling low, they smoke it to celebrate, and they smoke it when they have anxiety. In short, weed addicts are using the drug in order to medicate themselves. Not only that, but the typical weed addict will use marijuana to medicate their feelings on a daily basis. This is perhaps the most significant part of the addiction.

It is actually a question of maturity when you consider the idea of medicating your feelings with marijuana. If you get upset and "just have to smoke a joint," then you have a serious problem. This is absolutely no different at all from someone who gets angry and says that they "have to have a drink." Just because alcohol intoxication is a bit more acute and a bit more deadly does not make the weed addiction OK. In fact it is still a major problem because the person is using the drug in order to escape reality, just like the alcoholic is doing. It is not to escape their situation or even to escape their mental obsessions, but more to escape their emotions and their feelings about things.

When you look at it this way you can see that most weed addicts are actually in denial about their consumption of marijuana. They will argue that they "just like to get high," when in fact they have come to rely on weed as an emotional crutch; a way to deal with their life and escape from reality. They are using it like a drug addict would use any other drug of abuse, be it cocaine, heroin, alcohol, or whatever. Just because it is a "soft" drug without extreme withdrawal symptoms does not make it harmless.