I guess I get frustrated as someone that has felt many of the physical withdrawal symptoms, especially as the science backs me up; yet the myth is still very persistant across general society.

I asked for citations not as a flippant dismissal but because, as a frequent cannabis user for theraputic reasons, claims that go counter to received wisdom are worth investigating. As you were the one making the claim, the onus of proof does, to a certain degree, fall upon you. (On the other hand, as you state, we can both use Google, so don’t feel obligated to continue finding more links. It was enough to get started.) I think it’s reasonable to provide citations when challenged for taking a contrary position over widely-held beliefs if you believe in it, and I respect that you’ve taken the time to follow through. Simply the act of doing that has gotten me to look into this a bit more and challenge my assumptions. At the very least, I won’t be so quick to state “marijuana has no physically-addictive properties” without hesitating and qualifying it as a complicated situation.

On the other hand, I think we’ve all seen all sorts of things said on the Internet, and no followup ever again once challenged to put some gold on top of all the shit they’ve been talking to prove it’s worth something.

Isn’t this the Kennedy who crashed his car into the barriers at the foot of the Capitol while taking a 3 am drive on Ambien? Despite reports that he’d been drinking at a bar as recently as 4 hours prior to his little smash-up, he got out of that DUI-for-the-hoi-polloi conviction by claiming he was simply confused from mixing Ambien with some other prescription drugs he was concurrently ingesting. 

Telling the judge I was blitzed on Drugs X, Y, and Z instead of just alcohol never seems to work for me. Maybe it’s what I’m wearing? I kid. I don’t take driving and intoxication lightly and I’ve dropped $60 on a cab to drive me across the Bay Bridge when too impaired to get home. This guy has a history of endangering others by combing driving and intoxication. With his position and connections, I can only imagine what his record would look like if he were one of the unwashed like me.

He’s got a lot of personal reasons to be pointing fingers at one drug population he can’t count himself a member of. Addiction’s a bitch. He would have my sympathy if he weren’t a greedy hypocrite whose venal pandering to BigPharma will damage others in the interest of saving his own political skin and enriching his bank accounts. 

I know quite a few weed users in the 20-35 yo range who scorn smoking (of anything) and carry portable vaporizers with them when they intend to vape away from home.

While eating cannabis is a viable alternative to making it, those of us with experience know that titrating one’s dose can be difficult if guessing at the effects of the concentration of THC in an edible. As an infrequent user of cannabis, should I choose to ingest orally, I would have to go through a trial period of several days to determine a proper dose even if I were consuming an edible from a dispensary which labels its products with THC contents.

For the uninitiated, such a process would not spring handily to mind. Smoking allows the user to titrate easily. Vaporizing allows for the same ease of dose control, minus the negative effects of smoking, but the barrier to entry is higher because of price.

Still, the fact that the public automatically associates cannabis with smoking works against the interests of MMJ advocates and legalization supporters. I imagine that MMJ advocates have had their hands full simply elevating the debate to a larger platform, but I think that educating and proselytizing about vaporizing as a practical, relatively safe means of ingestion would have a positive impact on the legalization debate at large.

http://wh.gov/PHy5

Any liquor store that stops selling alcohol gets an automatic license to sell marijuana.

So you want a re-education camp that can hold 35 million recreational marijuana users?

I’d rather go with Max Flatow’s plan for mandatory LSD-based re-education camps for everyone over 35.

Out of curiosity, does anybody know if the FDA or its predecessors ever approved any cannabis medicines between the time it was created and the beginning of marijuana prohibition?

And re-education camp is what it would take, because unlike the addictive drugs that Kennedy used, where medical help to get you past withdrawal symptoms is helpful and sometimes critically necessary, or like marijuana self-medication for mental issues that could be treated better with pharmaceuticals, for occasional recreational users, medical rehab isn’t useful, we just like the stuff, which is a politically incorrect set of values that can only be cured by re-education.

(*Ok, officially I’m not a recreational user, I’ve got a doctor’s recommendation to use it for RSI.  It does actually help a bit, though NSAIDs do a better job.)

- Robert A. Heinlein

People who have struggled with and ultimately overcome substance abuse problems are THE EXACT people who should be advising on drug policy reform.

By your logic, astronauts should not talk about space, lawyers should not teach law.

* Patrick assaulting a security guard at an airport checkpoint in 2000. He paid an undisclosed civil settlement to the alleged victim almost two years later. 

 * Also in 2000, Atlantic Navigation Company of Mystic, Connecticut, claimed that a boat they rented to Patrick Kennedy was found abandoned off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, with US$28,000 worth of damage.

* In 2003, Kennedy was criticized for saying “I have never worked a f***ing day in my life”

* On May 4, 2006, Patrick crashed his automobile into a barricade on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. A Capitol Police official said the congressman had appeared intoxicated, but Kennedy claimed that he was merely disoriented from prescription medications Ambien and Phenergan. Anonymous sources are alleged to have seen Kennedy drinking at the nearby Hawk & Dove bar prior to the accident.

* On May 5, 2006, Kennedy admitted that he had an addiction to prescription medication and announced he would be re-admitting himself to a drug-rehabilitation facility at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where he has sought treatment for prior addictions. He has stated that he has no recollection of the car crash. 

* On Friday, June 12, 2009, Kennedy again announced that he “has checked into a medical facility for treatment”.  

I only pointed out that about 9% of (regular) users experience withdrawal symptoms because inevitably someone will chime in with “I smoked x amount for x years and when I stopped I didn’t get these symptoms, therefore marijuana isn’t addictive”.

I will state clearly again: I fully support legalisation of marijuana for recreational and medicinal use. I only contradict the argument that marijuana isn’t physically addictive because myths and falsehoods make poor arguments in the legalisation debate.

The truth is a smaller fraction of people get addicted to marijuana than most drugs including many legal drugs, the symptoms they feel are usually less severe than most drugs including many legal ones. That a small percentage of regular users become dependent on marijuana and may suffer mild withdrawal symptoms is not a good reason for continued prohibition; it does however need to be acknowledged.

But, no, I didn’t miss your point.  You seem to think that the rate of withdrawal symptoms is somehow RELEVANT.  It’s really not.  It doesn’t change the discussion in any way.

Secondly, thank you for missing my point entirely. I pointed out that only a small number of users get symptoms, I also pointed out that they’re mild and I concluded by saying that I support legalisation. 

As far as symptoms go they vary, as do any withdrawal symptoms. Personally I’ve experienced irritability, a lot of difficulty sleeping and general nausea as well difficulty keeping food down over the first few days.

I know Rolling Stone isn’t going to appease anyone as a credible source on the matter, but this short article is concise and accurate:

Number 5 covers addiction and cites the National Institute of Health.

This article goes into a little more detail, and sums up the state of evidence pretty well; but once again isn’t a journal article.

As for scientific studies, well you can google as well as I can so take your pick.