Addiction: How Its Meaning Is Shifting as We Speak. Why smoking was not addictive -- that it was merely habit-forming.

JamesLiptonIcedTea · 1 year

I'm addicted to Totino's Pizza Rolls.

shoziku · 1 year

the whole article is a lot of bullshit. trying to define addiction. what a waste of time just to say "people want to do this a lot". Is it important to classify these things into "people want to do it a lot"? By any definition, eating is addictive, so is breathing. but, so what? did we learn anything from labeling an activity? lol no.

WowWeed · 1 year

I drank nearly a pot of coffee and a fuckload of diet coke every day for 15 years and no one said boo about it.... it wasn't until I started smoking weed that I realized how bad I was hooked on caffeine.

TexDen · 1 year

That's why marijuana addiction is bullshit, it's a habit like tying your left shoe before you tie your right shoe. Big deal.

PavementBlues · 1 year

Well, if we are talking about physical addiction, there is a strong link to activation of the mesolimbic dopamine subsystem. Just about every physically addicting substance or activity works on this same set of neurons, from cocaine to heroin to gambling.

And I hate to say it, but marijuana does act to some extent on the mesolimbic pathway as well. That doesn't mean that people who smoke pot are going to become drug-crazed maniacs, in fact the neurophysiology literature states that "the withdrawal symptoms, however, are generally thought not to be so severe as to call marijuana (or THC) capable of causing 'addiction', or a state of strong physical dependence" (Julien, "A Primer of Drug Action") . However, the withdrawal symptoms are estimated to affect about 50 percent of smokers and include mild restlessness, craving, agitation, insomnia, and anxiety that usually last less than a week. Once again, nothing severe, just a little unpleasantness.

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