this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
27 points (93.5% liked)
Asklemmy
43992 readers
998 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just to clarify - there is no direct chemical addiction mechanism with mj. You can become emotionally or psychologically dependent on it but there's no physical addiction mechanism involved.
Without litigating terminology it is true that there are not like single receptor effects, or that there is a potentially fatal rebound. However it does mess with homeostasis in ways that can make it difficult to stop. Sudden cessation can cause difficult sleeping, anxiety, nightmares, appetite suppression, restlessness, and low mood. It's relatively easy to deal with compared to stuff that messes with gaba, opiod receptors, or dopamine but it's still much harder than changing what you eat or whatever.
Ye, it should always be clarified that while there is no physical / chemical addition, physiological addictions can also be detrimental and hard to break and WILL have negative side affects.
A litmus test I ask, is if someone consumes a lot of something that provides an easy dopamine hit (games, processed sugars, alcohol, etc) and if so warn them them to track their intake and take regular breaks (currently on one myself).