Cannabis Clichés

Cannabis clichés from people that know nothing about marijuana are annoying but commonplace; people these days will hear anything and believe it without even investigating the subject. You’ve probably heard hundreds of cannabis clichés; it’s addictive, it makes you stupid or crazy, it’s a “gate-way” drug etc. Here at GB, The Green Brand, we like sharing proven, trustworthy information that is definitely not another silly stereotype to be thrown around.

Older generations were most likely educated in a closed-minded, traditional way. People like that tend to be simple, traditional and would never dream of doing something that was politically “incorrect”. These kinds of people grew up hearing all sorts of cannabis clichés thanks to a phenomenon we’ve explained in another article; in the 30s a bunch of companies got together to demonize cannabis due to how useful and cheap hemp was in the textile and paper industries. Religion is also responsible for many people still believing that marijuana is terrible and evil; churches have pushed the view of marijuana being a drug on the world, instead of calling it what it is; a plant. Nowadays, a lot of people are still against using cannabis for different reasons, whether they’re medicinal or recreational.

There are, of course, exceptions; open minded people have always existed, and if it weren’t for these kinds of people we wouldn’t be advancing as fast as we are today.

Of course all of these cannabis clichés are completely lacking any sort of scientific proof; thanks to scientific advances, we now know enough to shut down clichés. One of the most common myths is that marijuana is addictive, and as time goes by many studies are proving that marijuana isn’t even as addictive as coffee or alcohol.

Wayne Hall, an investigator at the University of Queensland, Australia, decided to do a study with the objective of calculating the quantity of people that develop a certain dependency on cannabis and then compare it to other drugs, and the results weren’t good for the other drugs.

The most addictive substance of all is obviously nicotine, due to the fact that this legal but dangerous substance can create a 32% dependence level, but the number of nicotine addicts is much larger than that percentage of world population. The next substance on the list is less addictive but much more lethal; heroine, which can cause up to 23% dependency. Up next we have cocaine, another dangerous substance that can harm your body, although it surprisingly only has the capacity to addict 17% of those who try it. The next substance is alcohol, which has a percentage of 15%, but like nicotine there are many more people addicted to it. At the very end of this list we can find cannabis, which has a percentage of just 10%.

As a personal note on the study done by Mr. Hall, I have to say that I’ve been smoking solely marijuana for years now. Days can go by when I don’t smoke a joint and I’ve never had anxiety, nervous attacks or any other kind of withdrawal symptoms. I also know people that smoke tobacco and they tend to say things like “I really want to smoke a joint; I’m going to smoke a cigarette just to smoke something”. If that person really needed to smoke marijuana, a cigarette wouldn’t be enough, but because they’re addicted to nicotine by simply smoking a cigarette the need is gone.

Many consumers think that they’re addicted to marijuana when in reality, the withdrawal symptoms come from tobacco. If you’re one of those people, try smoking tobacco one day and only marijuana the next and you’ll see how the day in which you only smoke marijuana you’ll have withdrawal symptoms from not smoking cigarettes.

I’m not going to deny the fact that sometimes I’ll think “I’d love a joint right now” but feeling like having a joint doesn’t mean that I need it, I can continue about my daily business without any kind of problem.

The war on cannabis has been raging for many years, meaning that myths and cannabis clichés are all over the place. Little by little we’re picking them apart, so you’ve probably heard quite a few. Go ahead, leave a comment and share it anywhere you can; you might help get people (who might have heard a silly myth and been too scared to try it) informed on all of the medicinal uses that cannabis has.

Translation: Ciara Murphy