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Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

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Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#151

Post by boomboomsubban »

trentlott wrote: post #134
opportune wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called REM rebound. The reason is that in this case the psychoactive drugs in cannabis act as sedatives. Similar to alcohol and other depressants, this makes it easier to fall asleep, but harder to enter the "deeper" stages of sleep like REM. So when you quit ingesting cannabis, your body tries to make up for your ongoing REM sleep deficit, and you have more/stronger dreams as a result This what is happening…

Is there research for that? I would imagine that people report fewer dreams due to cannabinoids' memory effects, rather than an impact on REM sleep. Failing to remember dreams does not mean an absence of them. An increase in nightmares could easily be due to increased stress/amygdala function depressed by cannabinoids.

There is research[1] and I have already established that the nightmares come from an unrelated source such as PTSD.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18313952

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#152

Post by boomboomsubban »

DanBC wrote: post #144
boomboomsubban wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this makes it physically addictive, which is the only issue I'm making. Mental addiction can also be terrible, and can cause the issues described.

WHy are you pushing the physical addiction point? Cocaine isn't physically addictive. Cocaine can be terribly harmful.

I was replying to this post

>That you experience significant physical withdrawal symptoms from marijuana certainty calls into question the street wisdom that pot isn’t (physically) addicting.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#153

Post by iamnothere »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #71
chimeracoder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> certainty calls into question the street wisdom that pot isn’t (physically) addicting. This isn't "street wisdom"; there's a massive body of clinical research that's gone into marijuana and investigating its effects on the body and brain. Marijuana is one of the most-studied drugs in existence, far more so than most prescription medication on the market.

Such research is probably improperly generalized or otherwise misinterpreted. I’ve known lots of people who smoked too much weed, and “withdrawal” symptoms were pretty consistent among people who really smoked to excess (multiple grams per day). Judging from this and similar threads, many people will attest to the same. It’s not plausible to me that this is an illusion.

> Such research is probably improperly generalized or otherwise misinterpreted.

A great deal of it is, and some of it has more fundamental problems. I forget his name -- this was quite a while ago -- but there was one scientist in particular who had published a wealth of anti-cannabis studies, most of which were obviously flawed or biased in some way. Furthermore, at the time he was one of the only people allowed to do the research, since access to "official" MJ was heavily restricted, and the supply he used was a small batch of plants grown specifically for research, hardly representative of real-world crops. Most of his work was federally funded, and this was during the Bush II era, so you can imagine the pressure to back up the government's anti-MJ stance. Wish I could remember more details, this was a while ago!

When I first learned about this, it was really an eye-opener on how the funding -> research -> policy treadmill works when it is successfully subverted by powerful interests. Fortunately it's hard to keep the process going forever. Science works in the long run, but sometimes it moves too slowly for people facing real injustice.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#154

Post by jasonkostempski »

dev_420 wrote: post #6

Throwaway because obviously the stigma. But yes, it's very real. I am addicted to marijuana. I smoke nearly 3 grams a day; what has become a $1000+/month habit. I've always loved weed but the high salary has allowed me to lose control. I can't sleep or eat without it. Within 24 hours without weed I become an intolerable asshole who cannot eat or sleep. When I do sleep without it, it's full of nightmares and I wake up…

Have you tried weaning off?

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#155

Post by wmccullough »

naner wrote: post #126
zolthrowaway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was able to quit after like a 5+ year pretty excessive habit. There were three steps that really helped me. 1) I removed all accessories from my home. I sold/gave away all of my pipes, vapes, e-nails, etc. 2) I started taking nootropics. For me personally, l-theanine, caffeine, and a multivitamin did wonders. Even if it's placebo (which I don't think it is) it really helped mitigate the appetite and fogginess issue…

L-theanine and caffeine are considered nootroopics? That's just a cup of tea...

A lot of people who take L-Theanine with Caffeine are taking it at a higher dosage than what you can from even a few cups of tea.

I’ve read about this combination quite a bit and from my personal experience, you have to get the mixture just right. Even at high doses of caffeine, the right amount of L-Theanine can stop the jitters and give a calm focus. That all said, these dosages are so individualistic that it’s chasing a dragon.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#156

Post by namlem »

I've been addicted to weed. Back in May I quit for a while and I had 2-3 days of withdrawal. It wasn't that bad overall, but I was grumpy and had no appetite for those few days. It's not accurate to say that cannabis is not physically addictive, even if it's much less so than opiates or alcohol.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#157

Post by HiroshiSan »

naner wrote: post #126
zolthrowaway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was able to quit after like a 5+ year pretty excessive habit. There were three steps that really helped me. 1) I removed all accessories from my home. I sold/gave away all of my pipes, vapes, e-nails, etc. 2) I started taking nootropics. For me personally, l-theanine, caffeine, and a multivitamin did wonders. Even if it's placebo (which I don't think it is) it really helped mitigate the appetite and fogginess issue…

L-theanine and caffeine are considered nootroopics? That's just a cup of tea...

LOL love this comment. It's the 'starter-kit' if you will, recommended on /r/nootropics.

I've been doing it for a while though I'm not sure I really notice anything :/.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#159

Post by goldfeld »

It's interesting to hear that the skyrocketing quality of weed is making things worse, or more difficult for hardcore users, I agree. Meanwhile in Rio where I've smoked for years, quality is plummeting and/or price of quality weed, a rare thing to come by, is skyrocketing as combined effects of ever-present prohibition and financial crisis rage on.

It comes as a blessing in disguise for many people I know who have smoked daily for years, myself included. Hearing about close friends toning down or quitting as well is encouraging in a reverse peer pressure kind of way. After 6 years I finally decided there's too much crap going into my lungs (where plant material is the pristine part of that) to keep a habit without excessive spending. I quit buying and so quit my daily smoking cold turkey without bigger issues. A good wave of life events helped a lot to focus elsewhere.

I wouldn't think about never smoking again and it still happens some times a week when friends have it. I'm starting to feel more confident again in buying just a few grams of greener stuff once or twice a month and try to make it last, using after heavy exercise for pain/recovery management and trying to share what little I've got with friends too. It's a different mindset now, away from the loner self-absorbed retreats from life I had been used to, I feel much better for it. Not any point in this post I guess, just an anecdote.

Re: Marijuana addiction is real, and rising

#160

Post by mimimihaha »

Baeocystin wrote: post #108
bonesss wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A potent argument for legalization of opiates, IMO. Something as simple as concentration percentages on packaging, as we have with booze, and smart usage pamphlets could save a lot of lives.

I don't disagree. I think Portugal's experiment has proven that decriminalization is the best path forward pretty conclusively.

This is a genuine question but legalization but still making kind of difficult to get or just all out legalization and selling it wherever?
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