666--
In some ways, pot wrote the book on psychological dependence. Psychological dependence, as a difficulty of marijuana use, only came about after the following anti-drug arguments had failed:
* Reputation--only loose women use marijuana; apparently, using pot gets a woman raped, and it's her own damn fault.
* Race--much like the "Planned Parenthood" eugenics letters, a letter went to the President explaining that marijuana prohibition could significantly reduce the crime problem among racial minorities; the logic here was that they would all be in jail.
* Health--a 1972 report by the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics demonstrated, at the least, that there was no evidence of marijuana being a carcinogen.
* Crime--the last 28 years have demonstrated that the crimes the War Against Drugs hopes to eliminate would largely not exist were certain drugs decriminalized.
In the early 1980's, while schools (in my area, at least) were botching the Drug War as badly as possible, people feared the addictive cocaine. I remember learning about addictive substances like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Were caffeine or nicotine addictive? The answer then was "Yes, but in a different way." And then in 1993 I saw the '72 report, and the only pot-addiction literature I've seen since originates within anti-drug campaigns.
(This does go somewhere. And all of that to support the following....)
It seems to me that psychological dependency on marijuana is symptomatic. We might counsel a user against his/her dependency, but as it is a symptom, the conflicts that motivate drug use/dependency still remain. I'm usually a little sarcastic about it in the following sense: "Great, now he's depressed, pissed off, and sober." And that combination is just as bad as depressed and stoned.
I would assert that the child of an alcoholic parent becoming psychologically dependent on marijuana is less genetic than it is acquired behavior. I would further assert that attempting to treat marijuana dependency before treating the underlying family problem will result in a null sum, at best; they might not be smoking pot, but the symptoms of the greater problem will manifest themselves differently.
Otherwise, I must apologize for butting in here. I'm aware that the bulk of the post I'm responding toward actually focuses elsewhere. But the Drug War, if we must have it at all, calls upon me to speak out whenever I see what I consider those misconceptions.
thanx,
Tiassa
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Take a side you say, it's black and gray. And all the hunters take the hunted merrily out to play. We are one, you say, but who are you? You're all too busy reaping in the things you never sown. And this feast must go on and on and on .... Nobody gives a damn. (Floater; "Beast")
