What is the truth about cannabis and addiction?

We often hear concerns around the usage of cannabis for wellness or medical purposes, because of the perceived addictive risk of the plant. While we will never say that cannabis is for everyone (in fact, there are many who should avoid it), it is important to have a clear understanding of the risk of habit-forming or addiction with the use of cannabis.

To help add colour to this topic, I’ve interviewed Dr. Ife Abiola to help explain some important nuances.

Q: Let’s start with the overarching question, what is the difference between addiction and habit forming?

Dr. Ife: All things that are addictive are habit-forming. But not all things that are habit-forming are addictive. Someone can form a habit for something that will have no long-term impact on the amount of that stimulus they need to satisfy themselves.

So, for instance, someone can form a habit towards exercise, but someone will not have a physical reaction with lack of exercise. Another example is that people can form a habit to waking up. We need to make these distinctions quite clearly.

Q: What is the scientific definition of addiction?

Dr. Ife: The properties of something that is addictive, is it needs increased stimulus to get the same physiological response that you would have otherwise. For instance, if I need one beer to feel a certain way and then I need two beers to feel a certain way, and then I need a certain amount of that substance to feel normal, that is addiction.

Simply put: if you need increased amount of stimulus to get the same response or even to feel at baseline, that is addiction.

Q: With cannabis specifically, what are the facts around the addictive nature of it?

Dr. Ife: We need to be really clear that there is potential for forming habits to cannabis. Around 11% of people who use cannabis end up with some kind of habit-forming behaviour. The difference here, especially when compared to opiates or other classes of drugs, is that you won’t get the same physical reaction.

People can form a withdrawal from THC, like lack of sleep. There can be changes when someone stops using THC, but none of these changes have a life-threatening potential and it’s very rare that someone would form a situation where they need higher and higher stimuli to get the same effects with THC.

It is not possible to be physically dependent on cannabis.

Cannabis will not affect any of the life sustaining functions in the brain. The presence of CB1 receptors and other receptors that cannabis interacts with, are not located in the life-sustaining areas of the brain, like the brain stem.

Q: Can you speak a bit about your professional background and why you’re so passionate about working in cannabis now?

Dr. Ife: [When I was a physician in Chicago] I worked with people who were addicted to opiates, and we used other drugs to get people off the drugs. These were generally people who were given prescription drugs and then turned to street drugs—mainly heroin and fentanyl. We saw a lot of patients die due to misuse, overuse or dangerous product. Typically speaking, what we saw, was a great reduction in use, misuse, death with the proper use of medication under guidance and THC as a treatment for their pain. We noticed that the safety profile was way better with THC. We also noticed that opiates and THC did not interact with each other.

The reason I’m passionate about this is because THC has been overlooked. It’s not appropriate for everyone, but it needs to be an option. Lumping something that kills no one, like THC, under the banner of addiction with something that kills thousands, is irresponsible.

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If you have questions about harm reduction, safe usage or anything else under the banner of cannabis, book a virtual appointment with Dr. Ife Abiola.