Is the following statement FACT or CRAP?
- You can get addicted to marijuana.
Answer: FACT
17% of adolescents who use marijuana become addicted, and 50% of daily users become addicted. Adverse Health Effects of Marijuana Use https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4827335/pdf/nihms762992.pdf
Recently, I came across an ad for a cannabis-only investment company that pointed out that legal marijuana might soon grow to a $100 billion industry. It also claimed that Shakespeare might have been a user, so you can see how much weight their claims hold.
Of course, not a word was mentioned about how addictive marijuana is. The burgeoning pot-investment field, like everyone else associated with Big Marijuana, wants to pretend that marijuana’s good for what ails you, and claims it’s certainly not addictive (hmmm does this sound like Big Tobacco’s playbook?).
This is nothing less than a bald-faced lie. By now, Big Marijuana is well aware that modern potent marijuana in all its forms is very addictive. The medical and mental-health fields have known it for decades. Psychiatrists define cannabis in the DSM-5 as one of nine categories of substances that can result in a Substance Use Disorder (SUD), which can permanently plant its hooks into frequent users. If cannabis weren’t addictive, it wouldn’t have medically defined withdrawal effects—and it does.
Here’s the reality. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, around 9% of those who experiment with marijuana will develop a Cannabis Use Disorder (addiction). Worse, a minimum of 1 in 6 users who start using as adolescents—about 17%—become hooked. For those who use marijuana daily, the percentage rises to 50%.
Marijuana addiction is real, and it hurts everyone.