Quitting weed is easy, isn't it?
Is weed addictive?
People often comment on our blogs or Facebook that cannabis isn t addictive and they ve quit plenty of times without a problem, they just choose to use it. Tellingly however, our recently launched Joint Effort: Quit weed with a buddy program has encouraged a surprisingly large amount of users to nominate their friends to quit weed. Friends are sometimes better at recognising things that hold us back than we are.
But I m not a drug addict!
When people think about addiction, they often imagine a person driven crazy by their need for drugs, out on the street and a danger to themselves and others. In reality, addiction is a creature with many faces, some which might surprise you. Do you need to smoke more and more weed to get the same hit? Have you ever felt down, cranky or not slept well if you couldn t smoke weed for some reason? Have you wanted to cut down or quit but you’ve not been able to? Is weed causing work or relationship issues? If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you are addicted to weed.
At least 200,000 Australians are addicted to weed. Around one in ten people who have tried weed at least once will become addicted. It s important to know that young people become addicted to weed faster than adults.
Being addicted to weed can be blinding
In talking to one ex heavy user this month, he told us, “If you think weed doesn’t affect your life, you’ve probably been doing it too long. You don’t realise (or even think about your potential) until you’re off it!” A lot of our Facebook comments have been reinforcing this idea, with those tagged by mates responding with jokes and dismissal, but here’s the bottom line ‘Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt’. While we do regularly communicate with people who enjoy their weed use and apparently have not experienced any problems or setbacks with the drug, every year our helpline takes calls from thousands of people who are desperate to give quitting weed a go but need some help. Despite lots of people being tagged to our Joint Effort posts by the people who know them the best their mates there will always be those who deny they are addicted and throw up diversions such as hey but you drink alcohol and no-one ever died from gunja in order not to have to undertake the challenging journey of behaviour change
Fan mail
Some comments we ve recently received from users show the wide range of attitudes around addiction. Wanted to say that your Professor Hall can keep is (sic) propaganda for something life threatening, like booze or fags if he wants to make himself useful, no need to rant in the Daily Mail with some drug gateway theory, addiction lies, and the rest of the reefer madness rubbish you guys keep going on about! On the other hand, Malcolm, an ex-heavy user says People say you can t get addicted, but tell that to someone who thinks about nothing else but weed 24/7.
What do you think? Is weed addictive? Or is quitting weed a piece of cake?