With words like stoner and pothead in the lexicon, our culture has a firm grasp of the weed dependent stereotype. When we think of marijuana addiction, an image comes to mind. He (usually a he), smokes pot and eats all day, is smelly and unshaven, watches too much TV and/or plays too many video games, and has a crappy job if he has a job at all. A lot of people actually do know someone like that, but the research shows that someone is probably choosing their lifestyle rather than trapped in it by an actual addiction. Regardless of how the addiction myth has stuck around, it is just that, a myth. The most commonly cited study on cannabis dependence declared that 4% of Americans 15 - 54 are dependent on cannabis. Thatamp;rsquo;s compared to 24% who are dependent on tobacco and 14% on alcohol. Among users, they found that 9% of cannabis users who try it get hooked, as compared to 32% for tobacco and 15% for alcohol. Furthermore, even the 9% figure is likely inflated, so cannabis seems to show some propensity for dependence, but for every dependent user, there are 10 who donamp;rsquo;t develop that sort of issue, and this rate is better than that of popular legal drugs. We can be sure that cannabis is significantly less habit forming than alcohol, and especially tobacco, and the degree to which people become dependent is probably overstated.
