Marijuana withdrawal as bad as withdrawal from cigarettes

I am shpongled said:
"based on self reporting in a recent study of 12 heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes."

I have more than twelve friends who have tried quitting weed. Why the hell don't I get research funding?

What a load of shit.

because you don't have a phd and a protocol?
 
Did anyone else also notice that its "SELF REPORTING" ....? To me, 12 pot smokers reporting what they feel with no interference or editing aint exactly a scientific study. Thats pretty much saying "yo, we like, totally asked 12 people, and they all said it suxks0rz!"
 
Wow, I'm surprised how many people actually replied and agreed with this study in this thread.

I've seen both first-hand and especially since I just quit smoking weed a little while ago after smoking daily for years I can say the side effects of nicotine withdrawal are on a whole nother level then marijuana. The reason why most of you say quitting marijuana is so hard basically comes down to this, YOU DONT WANT TO QUIT. Most people want to stop smoking cigarettes and they cant.

I did get a little insomnia the first few days but thats about it. No mood swings or anything like that that I see my dad go through when he tries to stop smoking cigarettes which he still hasn't managed to do.

Someone said the vivid dreams are a withdrawal symptom?! lmao.
I wouldn't call being able to remember your dreams a withdrawal symptom.
I'd call that a recovery symptom. It's an improvement in your short-term memory(one of the many cognitive improvements you notice when you quit smoking weed).

Also, I was actually experiencing anxiety, boredom, depression, etc. while I was smoking and after I quit I actually noticed a dramatic reduction in anxiety, boredom, depression, etc.
 
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and to the people saying the withdrawal is just psychological and not chemical, well first of all read the studies i posted and you'll see that you're wrong. if the withdrawal was just psychological, then it would make sense for quitters to experience anxiety, boredom, depression, etc. but marijuana has specific physiological withdrawal symptoms caused by chemical dependence on thc. the best example is the loss of apatite and vivid dreams so many people experience. if the withdrawal was purely psychological, then some people might experience loss of apatite but other people might eat more to compensate. the fact the the withdrawal symptoms are specific to marijuana indicates that they are produced chemically.

I agree, I get a very bad withdrawl syndrome quitting weed....however, I don't mind the rebounding chemical changes, ie. dreams, sweating etc. Its the psychological part that has me deeply stressed and feeling just as ill as if my body actually was.
 
I Have Just Got To Say This:

Neither cannabis, NOR tobacco cause withdrawls, except for maybe psychological wds in certain people who have psychological problems.

Neither Cannabis smoking, NOR tobacco smoking is and ADDICTION. THIS is my BIGGEST POINT. Do you see people getting violently sick for weeks, months, shitting thier pants, vomitting, laying in their bed screaming/crying, grown men drop to the ground bawling-when they have just quit smoking pot or cigs?

NO NO NO NO NO.

They are HABITS. there is a distinct difference between addictions, and habits. smoking is a habit.

any wd you think you feel, is just you wishing that you had something to smoke becasue smoking either Feels REALLY fuckign good, and its probably been your best friend for years. for most of your lives. its no wonder you feel bad when its gone.

its not WITHDRAWAL.

go to a rehab center or a detox center in a hospital, or just go to a junk addicts house when all their sources have run dry. then youll know what wd looks like.

opiates. Benzodiazepines. alcohol. barbiturates. Anti-deppressants.
these types of drugs are addictive. not smoking.
 
Someone said the vivid dreams are a withdrawal symptom?! lmao.
I wouldn't call being able to remember your dreams a withdrawal symptom.
I'd call that a recovery symptom. It's an improvement in your short-term memory(one of the many cognitive improvements you notice when you quit smoking weed).

actually it's not. marijuana disrupts REM sleep which causes a REM rebound when you stop. here is a thread on it:

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=301207&highlight=sleep+dreams+rem
 
lacey k said:
Did anyone else also notice that its "SELF REPORTING" ....? To me, 12 pot smokers reporting what they feel with no interference or editing aint exactly a scientific study. Thats pretty much saying "yo, we like, totally asked 12 people, and they all said it suxks0rz!"

lol yeah it's absurd what sort of studies you can get funding for if you have a PhD and can argue for it.
 
phrozen said:
I agree. But it's nothing unmanageable.

I second that.

However...

I think someone who has been smoking a pack a day compared to someone who, lets say smokes a few grams of cannabis a day... firstly, we can all agree that cannabis has effects that are sought after, much more so than tobacco (I mean, not counting satisfying your urge for cig... effects that whether you are hooked or not, may be interesting. For example, pot actually gets you high, and especially if you're not a regular toker, can have some fairly strong psychedelic efffects, while nicotine is like crack without the high)

Why do you smoke cigarettes? I find the only remotely close to satisfying effect of nicotine to be the first cigarette of the day, then again i dont get those head rushes i used to when i smoked my first few cigarettes.

I also think that in contrast to the article, nicotine is more addictive. I never compulsively NEED to have a bowl just because, lets say I've been doing ketamine for the last few days, and dont really need any bud. However, with cigarettes, different story.

I've personally never experienced anything even close to "withdrawal" from cannabis, at least from 6 or so years of more or less daily use (with just a few month-long or so breaks). Sure, if I stay completely sober for a week, ill be bored out of my mind, but on the flipside I actually feel a bit rejuvenated and sharper after not smoking for a few days.

What im really saying is that I find nicotine withdrawal to be significantly worse (still, not the worst thing in the world, even though i've met many people who have kicked fentanyl and oxymorphone habits but still smoke cigs) but cannabis does have some addictive qualities, still these are so mild IME that I cant tell whether they are psychosomatic or not.

I guess not? (still, like phrozen said, nothing serious) On the other hand, this truly is a faulty study, so it may well be psychosomatic.

lol yeah it's absurd what sort of studies you can get funding for if you have a PhD and can argue for it.

Yeah... what a real expert at speechcraft and verbal expression.
 
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while i agree that cannabis withdrawal symptoms are "nothing unmanageable" they are clearly not all psychosomatic, regardless of whether this study is faulty. read the other studies i posted.
 
enoughorangejuice? said:
Bull. Fucking. Shit.

I've quit pot after smoking multiple times for years on end with only insomnia as a w/d symptom and taking a little diphenhydramine solved that. Nicotine, benzo, opiate, alcohol, these are chemicals that can lead to serious withdrawal , not marijuana.


After going through xanax withdrawl and various opiates. I can safely say that stopping smoking weed makes it hard to sleep and definently makes me agitated. So no it doesn't make your bones and stomach hurt. But it does make you pissed off and bored.
 
it's not insignificant mentally, probably to the same degree as cigarettes. But the withdrawal from cigarettes is like "I need this thing that doesn't even make me feel good" and marijuana withdrawal is like " I can suddenly think about so many things!"
 
burn out said:
i tried both heroin, weed and cocaine the same summer and i found weed BY FAR the most addictive and hardest to quit. because my own subjective experience and my grand total sample size of one person represents the be all end all fact of the matter, i can then conclude that marijuana is more addictive than cocaine and heroin, right? 8)

when will people understand that drugs affect everyone differently and their own experience may differ substantially from the experiences of others? why is this simple concept so difficult to grasp? why do you think we need to do scientific studies if we could simply ask one person which drug was hardest to quit and then base all of our understanding on what that single person has to say? that is essentially what you're asking us to do.

i say,

science: one.
you: zero.

weed was the hardest to quit? LMFAO

this study is utter crap. instead of doing this study, they should of fed some hungry people or something. cigarette smoking is atleast 100x worse to quit IMO after 3 days of not smoking pot i lost the "Need" or the "want" quite easily , just as soon as i got motivated to do something else.
 
you mean it's 100x worse to quit in your experience. for some people weed is more difficult to quit. what is so hard to understand about that?
 
I've been smoking more or less daily for the past year, never really having to stop but occasionally going up to a week without having any. On those days, I remember being really bored...and that's about it. I find quitting cigarettes to be far more difficult. I can go days without toking up but I almost always *need* to have at least a couple of cigarettes a day.
 
Ive quit smoking weed and i once quit smoking cigarettes for 2 years. I smoked weed daily for about 8 years and then main reason i quit because i basically got bored of it. Plus the quality became pretty erratic for awile and theres nothing worse then getting shitty weed. Id just as soon not smoke any weed at all then smoke shitty weed.

I didnt so much as have trouble sleeping when i gave it up. I had absolutely no withdrawal symptoms at all.

I started smoking cigarettes regularly everyday around the same time when i started smoking weed/hash (well mostly hash back then) everyday. I was 14 or so but i had smoked my first cigarette when i was about 10 and i smoked hash for the first time when i was 11 or 12.

When i quit smoking cigarettes all i had on my mind was cigarettes. I had bad insomnia and had to take zopiclone every night to get to sleep for a few weeks, i was irritable as hell, my mood swings got worse then they already where, my anxiety went through the roof, my memory got really bad for awile and i had physical withdrawal symptoms such as stomach cramps and nausea.

Eventually i gave in and bought a pack of smokes one day when i was really pissed off at something. Ive been quitting on and off since and the only thing ive tried that really helps is bupropion and lot's of exercise. Bupropion helps alot with the cravings and overall withdrawals. Ive been thinking about going on it again and quitting and hopefully staying quit.

Weed rarely crosses my mind at all. Sometimes id like to get stoned but this is only when im really bored.
 
i've never had withdrawals for pot.....on the other hand, i started smoking cigarettes a week ago and i'm already getting minor withdrawals
 
burn out said:
marijuana played a significant roll in my developing a very hard to describe condition of "head pressure". i don't blame every problem i have on it but i do blame my head pressure on it (or rather my own abuse of it) and that is very big problem for me. it's very silly of you to call me a "stupid twat" because i suffered serious negative affects from abusing marijuana.

It's still bizarre (I posted on the original thread about "head pressure" I'm pretty sure) that you refuse to accept anything but the meaningless diagnosis you've given yourself. It seems like that you have sinus issues from smoking weed. Many people undergo endoscopic sinus surgery to clear out old, petrified mucous, "debris" as well as polyps. Maybe you're schizophrenic and delusional. The schizophrenics I know react strongly to weed especially when drunk. I've heard/seen crazy things when spending time with my schizo-friends. But I know a more accurate diagnosis is that you've only spent serious time on your weed habit and have nothing to compare it to, have developed this story in your head, truly believe this story, and now aggressively push your "singular" quality on the rest of us. Many of whom don't believe, don't care, and know you're full of shit... ahem. I personally feel far shittier than most people describe when coming off weed, but I figured I'm on the far end of the spectrum. I also smoke a Volcano which I know raises my tolerance higher than it get while smoking so therefore leads me to conclude I'm getting more drug overall. So given my history I can conclude that I'm not one in million (my mommy says I am!) and my symptoms fall within the realm of biochemical possibility. Seriously... things do not happen without something happening before them. What magical weed have you been smoking that makes it worse than heroin withdrawal. Even thinking about dope withdrawal makes me feel like taking a shit. As well as a little angry. Drop your ego-based bullshit son.

Peace,
PL

PS- Goddammit... coke too? After two days of coke, not even straight through the night like most of you fiends ;), I fiend like a motherfucker and I don't feel normal for a long time. I'm don't give a fuck for at least a couple days, apathetic for a month, and any time I see coke I get excited and I hate that shit. I still hate it, but would do it in a second.
 
what are you talking about? head pressure is a totally separate thing from withdrawal. in this thread all i am saying is that weed can produce a mild physical withdrawal and many posters have confirmed that, so how am i pushing my singular experience on the rest of us? it's the people who are saying "i quit weed and didn't have any withdrawal, therefore withdrawal does not exist" who are pushing their singular experience on the rest of us. i am saying it varies from person to person. that's not pushing my experience on anyone.
 
Ok, someone smoke 20 joints a day for three months and then tell me that there's no WD when they suddenly stop cold turkey. The problem here is that so many people here are overly zealous drug-lovers who can't realize that there are risks. This is a harm-prevention forum. Any chemical that is psychoactive will likely be addictive. Get over it. Even erowid talks about marijuana WD.
 
FractalStructure said:
Sure, if I stay completely sober for a week, ill be bored out of my mind, but on the flipside I actually feel a bit rejuvenated and sharper after not smoking for a few days.

BANG!
 
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