New Addition To Frequently
Asked Questions:
Is Marijuana Addictive?
Perhaps Less So Than The Internet.
Analysis By Richard Cowan
Analysis By Richard Cowan August 26, 1999
Since I began doing Marijuananews I have commented repeatedly on various reports on
"marijuana addiction." (See the various links below.) Now seems like a good time
to try to summarize my views.
One of the problems in dealing with this subject is that the word "addiction"
– like the word "drug" -- has become almost meaningless through misuse.
See
"Mom, Dad, What are Drugs?"
In a more innocent time, or at least a time less "addicted" to psychobabble,
Alexander Woolcott famously quipped, "Everything I like is illegal, immoral or
fattening." Today he would surely have added "addictive" to the list.
NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds roughly 85% of all research on
"drug abuse" knows exactly what it is looking and paying for. Alan Leshner, the
highly politicized head of NIDA, seems to be developing an ideology around
"addiction" to justify the therapeutic state, i.e. a reason to arrest everyone
for their own good. In fact, NIDA is so desperate to prove that marijuana is addictive
that they have publicized studies in which rodents were injected with a synthetic
cannabinoid receptor blocker in order to induce "withdrawal."
See
NIDA’s
Traveling Road Show "Understanding Drug Abuse" By Michael D. Cutler, Esq.
and
Czar Joined By NIDA
Head Leshner In Lying About Marijuana At Hearings;
An Appetizer Before The Buffet
Leshner likes to claim that there are over 100,000 people in treatment for marijuana
addiction. Unfortunately, in the highly politicized world of "substance abuse
treatment" industry – a.k.a. the rehab racket – there is no way of finding
out the real number of people who may actually need treatment for marijuana dependence,
addiction, compulsive use, or whatever.
See
Claim Two: "More Than 120 000 People In The US
Seek Treatment Each Year For Their Marijuana Addiction"
and
The Real Data On Teen
Marijuana "Abuse Treatment" – What The Media Don’t Tell Us:
"Half of marijuana treatment admissions were referred through the criminal justice
system."
-- Analysis By Richard Cowan
and
A Gem Of
Prohibitionist Propaganda About Marijuana And Some Facts About Alcohol
– Both Courtesy The Internet
The courts, employers, and even families, send people for "treatment" who do not
have problems with marijuana, or whose problems are incorrectly identified as marijuana
related for a variety of reasons.
See
A Parent Asks,
"Why do institutions that are supposed to be helping kids in trouble feel it
necessary to lie to them?"
Ironically, people who really do have problems with marijuana may not be able to get
help because too many slots have been taken by people who shouldn’t be there in the
first place. Frankly, I have so little confidence in the treatment industry – as my
calling it the "rehab racket" would indicate – that I would have a hard
time knowing where to direct someone who really was having a problem with marijuana.
Also, there is the fact that "addictiveness" -- like "safe" and
"dangerous"—is a relative term. One of the games that the prohibitionists
like to play is to say that marijuana withdrawal is "similar" to that of heroin,
alcohol, or other drugs which are widely recognized as being highly
"addictive."
See
Is Marijuana A
Hard Drug? Do Rats Shoot It Up On The Mfiles?
Of course, a firecracker is "similar to" a bomb, but there really is a point at
which a difference of degree becomes a difference in kind. There are a number of
components of "addiction" that determine the severity of the addiction. For a
listing of these components see
The Relative Addictiveness of Drugs According to NIDA's Own Researcher
Also consider the following statement from the IOM report: "A distinctive
marijuana withdrawal syndrome has been identified, but it is mild and short-lived. The
syndrome includes restlessness, irritability, mild agitation, insomnia, sleep EEG
disturbance, nausea, and cramping."
Now, to put it mildly, I am not a fan of the IOM report.
See
Column By Authors of
the IOM Report On Medical Marijuana
Shows Why The Public Does Not Trust The Medical Establishment –
And Why They Should Not! With Analysis by Richard Cowan
Nonetheless, this is as close to an "official" definition of "marijuana
addiction" as we have, and it is a rather devastating blow to the prohibitionist
party line.
See
Will The Titanic Of
Marijuana Prohibition Be Sunk By The Ice Cube Of The IOM Report?
-- Analysis.
Of course, in the hands of the appalling people who govern us,
"addictiveness" is simply a term used to justify arresting people, especially
the sick and dying who use medical marijuana. Even though many widely used pharmaceuticals
– not to mention alcohol and tobacco -- are commonly regarded as both "dangerous
and addictive," a majority of the House of Representatives voted for a measure
condemning the medical use of marijuana, saying that it is a "dangerous and
addictive" drug. As is so often the case, they did not seem to realize that their
conclusions would not follow from their premises, even if they were valid.
See
As House
Prepares To Impeach Clinton For Lying, It Passes Resolution Saying
That Marijuana Is "Dangerous And Addictive Drug" And Should Not Be Legalized For
Medical Use.
Finally, there is the question of how many users of a given substance may become
"addicted" to it. Not everyone who uses a highly addictive substance will become
addicted to it. Some people are able "chip" – as they say in the world of
heroin – and just use a substance when they want to. In that regard, tobacco has a
very high "addiction" rate among its users, while the hallucinogens appear to
have a very low rate.
Of course, even in the current anti-tobacco wave, no one has yet suggested locking up
tobacco addicts. Thus, addiction and addictiveness per se – or the lack
thereof -are not considered sufficient for determining what will and will not be
criminalized.
Since we cannot know how many marijuana users there are, we cannot know how many have
problems with it. Perhaps the best guesses can be based on the Dutch experience, but this
data can never be acknowledged by the prohibitionist establishment in DEAland.
See
"Tremendous
Increase In The Number Of Dutch Cannabis Users Asking For Help"
Swedish Prohibitionists Claim
None of this will be of any comfort to the families of people who really are having
problems with marijuana, but if they want to get effective treatment for their loved ones,
they will have to find someone who isn’t addicted to reefer madness. That is an
addiction that seems to be very hard to shake.
See
Australian Article On
"Marijuana Addicts" Illustrates How Prohibitionism
Can Interfere With Treatment of People Who Are Truly Cannabis Dependent
If there is any doubt about the irrelevance of addiction and addictiveness in
determining public policy think about the following:
STUDY OF WEB USERS FINDS ABOUT 6 PERCENT SUFFER FROM ADDICTION TO IT
From The Wall Street Journal
www.wsj.com
August 23, 1999
See
Marijuana Is
Addictive; The Internet Is Addictive; Therefore This Site Is A Hard Drug
-- New Study
"Nearly 6 percent of Internet users have some sort of
addiction to the medium, according to a joint study conducted by psychologist David
Greenfield and ABC, and released to the American Psychological Association. Greenfield surveyed an unprecedented number of Internet users--17,251--finding that
Internet addiction is causing disrupted marriages, childhood delinquency, crime, and
overspending.
The findings give credence to assertions that addiction to the Internet is a true
psychological disorder; indeed, similar studies have shown that the addiction rate may
run upwards of 10 percent. The study finds that 30 percent of those addicted to the
Internet use the medium as a form of escape."
Supported