Long-Term and Short-Term Side Effects of Marijuana

The Wide-Ranging Consequences of Cannabis Use

For many of us who battle with substance abuse, there is a pretty high chance that many of us started off by drinking and smoking marijuana or pot. This is funny because I used to always remember arguing with my mother when I was younger, telling her that I would never do anything but smoke and that it wasn’t actually a gateway drug. I still have very mixed feelings about this subject, I would like to get that out of the way up front, as there have been drastic advancements in the medicinal properties of the chemicals inside marijuana.

Marijuana is a Mood and Mind-Altering Substance

HOWEVER, and let me be clear about this, marijuana is still a mood and mind-altering substance, and those of us who suffer from addiction, can still abuse pot like any other chemical out there. Unlike the chemical breakdown that is purified and researched and then made into a non-psychoactive medicine, we use it, for the complete opposite effect. This is because we suffer from an allergy of craving that drives us to use any and all substances to get outside of ourselves. So for us, marijuana is a drug. Bottom line.

That being said, the reason why SMOKING pot and dabs and oils and tinctures and edible and whatever else we can get our hands on, is enjoyable, is because it will do something to us that makes us feel different. In the short term, there is a multitude of different mental and physical side effects that marijuana can have on us, and this can lead to the need to quit marijuana as well.

For example:

Positive Side Effects of Marijuana

Again, I am not denying the positive side effects of marijuana here, because as I have told you, I have no doubt in my mind that it can be a wonderful form of medication for people who are NOT addicts. Obviously, depending on the pot smoker though (not medical users) there can be a slew of negative side effects that can come along with ingestion, hence, some people, even addicts, simply don’t like smoking pot. Usually, for people who already suffer from panic and anxiety, weed can be either a blessing or a curse.

Friendly Reminder: All Drugs Can be Abused

Okay, I’m getting off track. The long story short of all of this is that those of us who ADDICTIVELY USE SUBSTANCES TO FEEL BETTER, cannot safely use marijuana, regardless of the benefits it has for others. Think about this in the form of other forms of medication such as Xanax, Klonopin, or even Adderall! For those people who actually need and take their meds as prescribed, they can be immensely helpful for them. But for us, who think taking 4 Xanax bars and blacking out sounds like a fun idea, we should probably stay away altogether… make sense?

On another note, for those people who do smoke pot addictively, there has been research showing negative effects, in regards to the possible side effects of marijuana on the body long-term.

Again, the long and short of all of this is that in the end, as addicts, everything we do will have long and short-term consequences for us. The reason for this is that we take everything to the extreme. We cannot control ourselves to have “just one” or drink and smoke pot like normal people, because, well, we aren’t normal!

And that is one fact that took this addict/alcoholic a very long time to figure out. Because here is the deal man, once I got sober from the hard drugs, I tried every which way to maintain my sobriety while thinking that I could still drink or still smoke pot. I tried doing them together, I tried doing them separately, but no matter what, I would turn those into addictive habits, and then eventually, when the pot wasn’t giving me the kind of high I was REALLY looking for, I went out and copped something harder.

So for us, marijuana really CAN be a gateway drug. By that I mean, we will try to just maintain and “only smoke weed” but when we realize that it isn’t getting us to the point we really truly want to be at (which for me, is oblivion) then we will ultimately cave and it will lead us right back to the harder stuff we have been trying to get away from. That being said, addiction to cannabis itself can happen and result in the need to find the best ways to quit cannabis use. 

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