To all the goys and gentils and guys and girls,


My weed-capades began two eternities of years ago. Having just freshly read Jack Herer's The Emporer Wears no Clothes, i was more than eager to try cannabis hemp. The first time smoking did nothing, and so did the next few times. Finally, cannabis worked for me.I loved it. It was great for sleeping and it felt... well... WEEDGASMIC. Everything, and i mean EVERYTHING is better on pot. Those two years flew by very fast, with me smoking only when i could afford it and via a pipe/bong which went through weed very fast. No matter how much weed i got, i always ran out before i could afford more, and ended up having to wait until the next bag. It wasnt that bad and i was cool with going weeks, if not months, in between tokes. With my trusty pipe, Carl, by my side, i blazed through eigths in a week, if not less. Eventually, he too, like so many of my failed relationships, crashed into my floor and splattered into a million million shards of what could have been and once was. Out of a pipe, i scurried into my garage, where i jerry-rigged a socket, a poweraid bottle, and a bucket into what may be one of the most efficient smoking devices known to man-the gravity bong.


Armed with the gravity bong (AKA GB) my weed use became far more affordable. Instead of having to burn-through .1-.2 grams of cannabis per bowl, i could easily get rip-roaringly blazed with only 40-100mg of bud. An eigth could now last me up to three weeks if i smoked on it every day! I could now afford more bud by the time i ran out and i could afford the snoop dogg philosophy of smoking weed erryday! Well, needless to say, i did start smoking everyday, and boy... what a trip it has been......


As of late, or if you consider late to be the past 6-7 months, i have been smoking weed everyday. Everyday. Well, by every day i wouldnt exactly say all day every day. At first, my weed smoking with my GB routing involved a gravity bongload before bed and an all-day erryday routine on the weekends. Eventually, it got (and still is at) to the point where the first thing i would do upon getting home would be to smoke my GB, get on the nexus chat, and think of something quasi-productive to do as i asked Kikker to make all my important life choices for me... wait im getting distracted... oh yeah... weed! Well yah, i smoked and still am smoking everyday... at least i was until this weekend.


THis previous friday i went on vacation, and still am on vacation, with my family. I haven't smoked any weed since friday and i am now beginning to question the safety and addictive nature of cannabis. I havent noticed any physical cravings to smoke cannabis, but i have a strong mental urge to use the plant. There is a part of me which cannot bear to be without my precious Mary Jane. I can tell this part of me to shut the hell up, and the part listens. Once i get home, i will start hitting the GB all the time and things will go back to the way they have been for the past 6-7 months. However, my recent abstaining has made me think about the addictive nature of cannabis. It is not chronically addictive in the terms of physical withdrawal, but rather emanates a mental pull which can be just as strong as heroin-induced dope-sickness. I feel as if i can live without cannabis but still feel a powerful urge to reunite with mary.


What i would like to know from you, the denizens of this nexus, are your thoughts and musings about cannabis' addictive nature and your experiences with abstaining from cannabis after periods of chronic use. I will soon be moving to a location where i will have to abandon my use of cannabis for many months and would like to know of your experience with abstaining from cannabis after a long period(s) of chronic use. I have found that, in my case, cannabis habituation is largely a mental mirage which can only be subdued with positive thinking and a busy brain. Sometimes i wonder if i have seriously screwed something up by getting involved with mary... She is a very strange and demanding lady who has never left me alone ever since i met her those two years ago.

I have never found pot to be addictive, and drug addiction is not something i ever want to deal with, so i use my stuff very cautiously. to much of anything can be bad and staying high all day everyday is not good for you sanity.

use it just don't abuse it.

I use cannabis pretty much all day everyday. I think the thing you have to ask yourself is whether or not it negatively impacts your life as a whole. Like you, I find that it makes everything better, but without any serious negative side effects (especially if vaping). I am able to function as well if not better while stoned than I am while sober. Sober me (pre-cannabis) was constantly anxious, couldn't sleep, depressed, and suffered from convergent thinking. In this past, self-medicating this led to a stint with alcoholism. Cannabis mostly fixes all of these aspects of my personality with none of the negative effects of alcohol, and I haven't had a drink since.

Occasionally I go a week or two without cannabis when it is unavailable. There is not much in the way of withdrawal, but sometimes I may have a weak appetite for up to a week after stopping. I become a little more tense and can also have trouble sleeping, but this is the way I was before I ever smoked weed, so it might just be normal me... After two weeks, I'm totally back to 'normal', however by this point all of the negative aspects of sobriety start to rear up.

Weed is just awesome and I don't see myself ever stopping. It feels healthy.

I have known people who have been every day smokers, who had a change in life and had to quit. Apart from a little sleeping issues at first, it was absolutely no big deal. But, that is them. Some folks have no issues quitting, and others do. Some can control their appetite, and others cannot.

Personally, I know I could be an every day smoker. I really like the stuff, and maybe one day in my life I will be an every day smoker. I also appreciate it to the extent that I keep my distance. For me, a few quality times a month are better than the same ol' same 'ol of every day use. I can notice a difference in effects if I use it only two days in a row. So, by limiting myself, I get what I really want from it.

But that's me. I suggest maybe a trial separation. Try going a month or so, and see if your outlook on life changes much. See if there were any negatives you didn't notice before while on it, or if there are negatives while being off of it.

I think weed can help people through crappy parts of life, making them easier to bear, but it can also make one complacent and less prone to getting out of a crappy part of life. So, if nothing else, occasional stretches without it are probably a good thing, to kind of take stock of life in general.

I apologize in advance for the long post, but addiction is something which I have a pretty substantial amount of both first and second-hand experience with, and it is also something which I continue to spend quite a bit of my free time researching and learning more about. This topic really hits close to home for me.

First of all, please do not equate the slightly uncomfortable desire to smoke cannabis to the agony of heroin withdrawal, unless you have experienced both and found them to be comparable. As someone who has experienced both states countless times in past years, I can say with confidence that I would rather spend the rest of my life constantly thinking "man I wish I could smoke a bowl right now", than spend one more single day in the clutches of heroin withdrawal. Even if I don't take the physical aspects of dopesickness into consideration, I still stand by my previous statement. I spent many years in the past addicted to an absurd number of different substances, and I personally would put frequent cannabis use in an entirely separate category.

Background on me:
For about 7 years, it was extremely rare for me to make 1/8th oz of cannabis last more than 24 hours. I rarely shared with anyone but my roommate (not out of greed, I simply did not have many friends who smoked), so 99% of that was going straight to my dome. I smoked about as often as most nicotine addicts smoke tobacco. I have smoked cannabis on maybe three or four separate occasions since I stopped smoking regularly several years ago, with the most recent occasion being in December of 2012.

Putting a stop to my constant use of cannabis was fairly simple. I basically decided that it wasn't something that was serving me any more, I gave the rest of the bag I had to my room mate, and went about my life without looking back for a second. For the first week or so, I would periodically find myself thinking "hm, maybe I'll smoke a little bit of cannabis this afternoon", but the thoughts would dissipate as quickly as they had manifested. These thoughts did not even develop to the point that I would consider them "cravings". I am not saying that every single person will have the same experience as I did, I am only sharing my experience. It is worth mentioning that I consider myself to be a person who is incredibly prone to addictive/habitual behavior.

One of the biggest differences I have seen between cannabis and other potentially habit-forming psychoactive drugs is that once a person has become dependent on xanax/heroin/cocaine/oxycodone/meth/etc, if they are abstinent and then return to their substance-of-choice they will generally be unable to maintain an occasional or moderate use pattern for any extended period of time. In my experience, a much higher percentage of former habitual cannabis users are able to do exactly that: quit for a while and then use it occasionally without their use rapidly spiraling out of control. I will admit, the only evidence I have to support this theory is anecdotal, but it is evidence nonetheless. I am really hoping to see more research in this area very soon, so there will be some empirical evidence to either support or disprove my theory.

I am fairly confident that if for the last 6-7 months you had been drinking a cup of the same (non-psychoactive) tea every single night before going to bed rather than smoking cannabis, and you went on vacation to a place where for some reason you couldn't drink your tea every night, you would be having a similar experience. You would likely experience passing thoughts from time to time somewhere along the lines of "I wish I hadn't had to leave my favorite tea behind" or "I can't wait until I can get back to my nightly tea routine". People are creatures of habit. We tend to develop routines which best suits our needs and desires, and we may experience some discomfort when those routines are interrupted.

I am not going to tell you that you should or shouldn't continue smoking cannabis, that is your decision to make. I just think it is important for a person to put effort into being mindful about their habits and routines, and to do their best to periodically evaluate whether those habits and routines are helping or hindering them in other aspects of their life.

Is cannabis "addictive"? Well that depends on your definition of the word "addictive". It is definitely "addictive" in the same sense that gambling, bowling, shopping, pornography, exercise, money, television, power, sex, and everything else that can create euphoria is "addictive". But should it be classified as "addictive" in the same realm as nicotine, heroin, cocaine, caffeine, and other drugs which create a physiological dependency? I certainly don't think so, but I have been wrong before. Just continue to do your own research and draw your own conclusions, and perhaps it will aid you in determining what is and isn't helping you accomplish your goals and desires.

Best wishes, Godsmacker

I'm comfortably say to most people subjectively of course they have strong to moderate mental addiction tendencies, and very mild physical addictive tendencies.

Cannabis is just as psychologically addictive as anything else IMO.
I can go for months without smoking, even though I normally smoke weekly to relax.

I saw more people getting addicted to being "altered" than to the plant itself.
This is just a houdini act for reality tho...

I'm not addicted to anything.

The reason pot doesn't seem as physically addictive is because unlike other substances that we become addicted to, thc leaves the body at a MUCH slower rate than other substances, making the withdraws more "sustainable".

They did an experiment that started with lab rats. They got rats addicted to thc. Then...they spilt them up. Half...they let withdraw naturally. The other half...they gave them some kind of substance that "attacked" the thc and forced the body to rid itself of thc in a short time frame. The rats that were given the thc ridding substance, more or less almost went nuts. They were fighting, I believe there were even accounts of seizures?

Then...they tried it with humans. The humans who took the thc ridding substance had extreme mood swings, insomnia, couldn't eat or focus for days.

Ime...pot is very addictive. I'm a hash oil head now and have been for years. I quit vaporizing weed 3+ years ago and began with only extracts. Obviously...I'm hooked to the concentrates. But when I vaped pot...I had to smoke every 3-4 hours or I would get the shakes. Soon as I started to vape a bowl, the shakes would stop. Granted...I was vaping a half gram or more per bowl of the best weed money can buy.

So, from my personal experience and the science I've seen...pot IS addictive.

I've been smoking Cannabis daily for 13 years, multiple times per hour [unless I can't due to being in public]. I'm no expert, but I think the word "addictive" isn't how I would categorize Cannabis; the words "habit-forming" and "physical dependance" may fit better for those of us who use Cannabis almost constantly. (no DT, or other possibly serious consequence from stoppage).

When I've abstained from Cannabis after chronic use, the main change I experienced is that I felt slightly more irritable; easier to agitate, and felt fidgety. I also had decreased happiness and increased back pain.

Marijuana Addiction Advice

I don't have a problem with marijuana as much anymore if I have established a fair degree of balance in my life and consequently have the free attention/energy to moderate my use.




Been there and I agree 100%.

If it was just the physical symptoms it would be tolerable with some OTC meds, epsom salt bath soaks, and vitamin supplements, but it's that psychological aspect- that constant feeling of panic, depression, and despair, that really used to floor me. Combine that with cravings so bad that when I was out of dope I would be re-using used cottons to shoot up with to try to get something in my vein (if only just to not hurt so bad)

"THis previous friday i went on vacation, and still am on vacation, with my family. I haven't smoked any weed since friday and i am now beginning to question the safety and addictive nature of cannabis. I havent noticed any physical cravings to smoke cannabis, but i have a strong mental urge to use the plant. There is a part of me which cannot bear to be without my precious Mary Jane. I can tell this part of me to shut the hell up, and the part listens. Once I get home, i will start hitting the GB all the time and things will go back to the way they have been for the past 6-7 months. However, my recent abstaining has made me think about the addictive nature of cannabis. It is not chronically addictive in the terms of physical withdrawal, but rather emanates a mental pull which can be just as strong as heroin-induced dope-sickness. I feel as if i can live without cannabis but still feel a powerful urge to reunite with mary. "

I would say dont go back to smoking when you get home. Take a week or a month off. It can be good and open your eyes to certain things IME. For me cannabis actually does have mild physical withdrawl symptoms after heavy prolonged use. I smoked up to an ounce a week for a number of years and finally had to quit completely for up to a year after realzing it was more a problem in my life by that point. I have never gone back to smoking that frequently.

It was never addicting for me, and in some ways it was the opposite ( like psychedelics can be). Even when I smoked daily throughout much of high school I could stop for as long as I wanted without any problems. Cannabis can be so different person to person