Well of course that is an ignorant belief about addiction and I doubt you can find anyone under 80 who would agree with it.
There is however a difference between addiction and drug/alcohol abuse.
When I was college age drinking to excess every weekend was extremely common. Now some of those people were alcoholics but most were doing it for social/recreational/enjoyment purposes.
Eventually real life kicks in and you move beyond that bit many people still want to make their social life, revolving around drinking, their focal point. I’ve seen people get themselves into a lot of trouble because they lacked the maturity to settle down.
With the drinking age at 21 this seems to be less of an issue however weed use increase accordingly and creates the same problems.
Marijuana is not addictive so it’s not an issue of addiction it’s an issue of choice. Unfortunately legalizing it moves in the opposite direction of raising the drinking age and weed use among teenagers is at epidemic levels which is freightening because they are at the age where their brain, and values are still developing and that maturity is at stake.
We can’t chalk up josh Gordon destroying his career by smoking weed to addiction because weed is not addictive, it’s a choice.
Marijuana does not, generally speaking, induce as much physical and mental dependence as other drugs. Unfortunately generalizations don't always represent reality.
The bottom line is that you're altering your biochemistry directly via ingestion of a drug, THC.
I can tell you from personal experience that marijuana can cause the same process and pattern of addiction as any other drug, and after incredibly heavy usage for an extended period of time I suffered from very mild withdrawals following ceasing using it. Didn't have much of an appetite for 3-4 days, had night sweats; after roughly a week of being off it my mood improved dramatically.
No doubt it paled in comparison to other drugs (although I don't have experience with those), but to claim it's merely matter of choice and none of the underlying biochemical/psychological processes that are addiction exist with the use of marijuana is just untrue.
I have underlying depression which no doubt influenced my use (it was more of a self medication situation). If Gordon has mental health issues that could certainly exacerbate the situation.
I could add more to this post and had an additional thought or two but those ideas seem to have escaped me. I did, however, want to clear up this misconception.
I still strongly believe marijuana is a relatively benign drug and should be legalized but like any other biochemical altering substance it comes with its issues, can cause addiction, and can negatively impact the lives of users (depending on variables/circumstances involved, including the individual using it).
Gordon have a Large catch Radius too. Gordon - Gronk - Edelman - Hogan and our RB's yikes
