At the same time, marijuana is an attractive activity for
dependency inclined people, as are television, movies, sports, and friends. Not all dependent smokers are willing to acknowledge the nature of their relationship with marijuana to others, or even to themselves. Still, many are candid about the severity of their problem, as this young woman from Florida writes:There is only one bad effect I get from pot. If I don't get high for a couple of days, I become a miserable person. When this happens, I try to find a joint. If that doesn't work, I isolate myself from other people by drawing or reading, and just wait for the opportunity to buy more grass.
A New Jersey man is in even more serious trouble with
marijuana:
I guess you could say that I'm addicted to pot, but life's a bitch. That's the good news. Even though I'm a lover of the weed, and will be until I die, I also sometimes wish that it had never been discovered. When I start to get serious about life, I see that pot has really messed me up. I have lost one job because of getting high, and I think that one of these days the whole country will go to pot.
A particularly severe case is reported by a high school senior[4] in Georgia, who has noticed:
... an addiction, rapidly growing, which brings about insomnia, loss of appetite, cold sweats, headaches, and occasionally a harsh temper when pot is taken away from me. I first noticed the addiction when I was fifteen, but never paid much attention to it. I smoke when I wake up, before I go to school, when I get home, several times during the evening, and once more before going to sleep.