The National Institute on Drug Abuse recently issued a major new report on the effects of marijuana which is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The author of the report is the head of NIDA, Dr. Nora Volkow. Dr. Volkow has been very clear that marijuana presents great risks for those who use it, most particularly when they start at a young age.
Just to clarify matters up front, marijuana IS addictive. There are those who imply it is not. They can’t say this openly because there is ample evidence that it is. According to Dr. Volkow and NIDA, about 9% of all users will eventually become addicted. When a person starts using this drug in their teens, the number who will become addicted is higher, about one person in six.
Dr. Volkow actually says, “approximately 9% of those who experiment with marijuana will become addicted.” You’ll note that this statement does not say “a person who uses it” or “who uses it every day.” But “experiment.”
Some people reject the idea of marijuana addiction because the formal, accepted medical definition of addiction includes the fact of withdrawal symptoms. Some people have claimed that there are no withdrawal symptoms associated with cessation of marijuana use. Dr. Volkow disagrees. In this article, she lists the symptoms, including sleeping difficulties, irritability, cravings for the drug, anxiety and a condition called dysphoria, defined as a state of unease or dissatisfaction with life. I could see how this last symptom could drive a person back to using the drug. If they are stoned, they are more likely to not care if they are satisfied with life or not.
It’s interesting to note that one of the things marijuana users like about using this drug is that they can forget about their problems. But then, life is about overcoming barriers and problems toward one’s goals so if you just don’t care, you don’t accomplish much either.
Here’s how one person described the way her life began to derail as a result of smoking marijuana when she was in college: “The very first time I started using marijuana, if I was stressed, if I had a bad day or just wanted to relax, I could smoke some marijuana, then I could chill out, things didn’t really bother me. Then it seemed like in life as you get more responsibilities, classes get harder, more work, you might have problems with relationships, and things get more difficult, it was almost like I was looking for something to make it so like I could forget about this and relax for a minute. Tune out of life for a minute if I wanted to. And marijuana after awhile just wasn’t cutting it. I would choose to surround myself with people that I knew were doing other drugs, were going out and partying and not worrying about classes and not worrying about how things were going with their boyfriends. They were just having fun. I would surround myself with those people so I could do whatever drugs they were doing. And it progressed from there to an addiction.”
Yes, she forgot about her problems. But her whole life redirected itself toward drug use and she almost lost everything. Fortunately, she came to one of our Narconon rehab centers for recovery.
As we accumulate more science, the medical uses of this drug may become clearer and with that there will be properly prepared and dosed forms of cannabis for medical treatments. But it looks like we will also get more information to clarify the dangers associated with it’s use, especially for our young people on whom it seems to have a more pronounced effect.
