Brother of Karl wrote:That's not really how alcohol dependence works. Some drugs have a very specific effect on certain parts of the brain and leave the rest of your body alone. Alcohol has complex effects all over your body and on many different parts of the brain. Some people get a really powerful euphoria from being drunk, and some people less so. But that's not something that really changes as you start to drink more habitually, it's something you're pretty much born with. Also, the mechanism where alcohol causes euphoria isn't the same mechanism that causes physical dependence. That mechanism is where alcohol acts as a GABA receptor agonist. If you are constantly drunk, then your body's production and sensitivity to the neurotransmitter GABA changes (I'm not sure whether it becomes hypersensitive or unsensitive) in order to keep you at equilibrium. This is how people who drink a lot develop a tolerance and can handle more alcohol than non-drinkers. If you quit drinking cold turkey, then your GABA production will be all out of whack and this can lead to symptoms like the shakes or seizures.
The effects on the GABA receptor is specifically what makes alcohol a physical dependence. It's also the same way that sedative dependence works, like xanax or valium. For people who are so dependent on alcohol that going cold turkey is dangerous, they are given sedatives which prevents withdrawal symptoms, and then their dose is tapered down until they can get off it.
I'm not sure what sources you've looked at, but the physical withdrawal symptoms associated with cannabis are child's play compared to hard drugs like alcohol (which can be deadly) or opiates (which put you through a week or more of physical hell) or even cigarettes. Most cannabis users who quit experience no symptoms, and of the ones that do, it's pretty much just a week of difficulty sleeping, and lack of appetite.
You also can't overdose from it. The lethal dose of THC is so high that no one has ever hit it. It's not deadly unless you get high and then get behind the wheel. And even then, cannabis is far less likely to cause deadly crashes than alcohol.
Cannabis is far less addictive than those other drugs, but it can be addictive. I've met people who claimed to be unable to function without it. That's because when you're high all the time, you re-learn how to do all your daily activities under the influence, and so the prospect of having to do all your daily activities without it can seem scary.
<<< I'm not sure what sources you've looked at >>>
Every major medical website that has studied marijuana.
Frankly, anyone who has used both alcohol and marijuana, knows that it takes a lot more alcohol to get the same type of high as just a few quick tokes of high potency marijuana. Even without any major medical website info, of which that is numerous, nobody is going to convince me that a drug that has such an effect on one's brain, is a safe drug.
THC, it's not like it's a substance naturally found in our bodies. The internal organs must work hard to try to get rid of it, and without a doubt prolific marijuana use will prematurely rot out and cause disease to our internal organs. Steve Jobs from Apple, one of the richest people in the world with access to the finest doctors, was a prolific marijuana user who died at age 56 from pancreatic cancer. In my opinion, that cancer was brought on by prolific marijuana use. Of course the cause of death wouldn't be "marijuana" on the autopsy report, but marijuana is a dangerous and deadly drug as stated on the medical websites, and if someone wishes to foolishly risk their life, just to get some sort of THC "high", then in my view that is a very bad idea.
If the choice, depending on one's viewpoint, is between alcohol and marijuana because one or the other is considered safer...I say choose neither.
All that being said, I am not against medical marijuana with the THC removed, when that can be used as a doctor prescribed, pain killer treatment versus more dangerous opiate based narcotics.