Are chronic pot smokers emotionally underdeveloped?

No.

Why would they be?

No I would say not, my uncle has smoked for over 40 years and the only thing wrong with him is a heart condition that he was born with, well and the pot addiction.

I don’t believe pot hurts the development of ones emotional status. Also pot is not addictive.

No, pot is addictive, the reason why they say it’s non-habit forming is because the habit doesn’t develop in 5 hits like it would cocaine or heroine, but rather years. If you smoke pot now, then continue to smoke for the next 10 or 15 years and you will see that THC is addictive.

i don’t think you can make a blanket statement about all pot-smokers like that. but even if it were true, it would still be hard to determine whether chronic emotional underdevelopment led to marijuana use or vice versa.

Uhhh im pretty sure i dont have any emotional issues.

@pork it is not addictive, no more than anything else like chocolate for instance.Your not going to get addicted after eating 5 candy bars. But what if you ate one every day for 10 or 15 years, you will see that its very hard to stop.

@Uber, That is pretty much what I said, you aren’t going to get addicted after 5 hits, but if you smoke for the next 10 or 15 years, you will get addicted. I just added why it is considered non-habit forming.

@pork what im saying is its not a hard addiction to beat. Its just mental, not a physical need.

That goes against what my uncle says, he’s addicted, and he tells me stories of when he tried to quit, he would shake, feel weak, not be very hungry, have drastic mood swings, throw up all over the place, and he still wasn’t good after a week of going cold turkey.

What the.. I don’t think I understand this question. Your asking if pot smokers have emotional issues?

@xxporkxsodaxx – You can still get the physical effects of withdrawal even though a substance isn’t habit-forming. Even if it starts as a mental addiction, the body will adjust to the regular intake and act as if it chemically-dependent when the substance is stopped.

I know, uber said that it isn’t a physical need, but as soon as the body gets involved with the mental need then that makes it physical dependance too.

meh addiction is nothing more than weak mindedness

So your saying that withdrawal has no physical toll on the body?

Im saying that you are weak if you allow yourself to become dependent on a substance.

So your saying you could smoke meth everyday and as long as you keep a strong mind you could quit it in a day after a year or two.

I couldnt tell you for sure, im not stupid enough to smoke meth in the first place though. But i stand by what i said.

Alright, that’s cool, I wouldn’t want to smoke meth at too. I am sure some prominent scientist will uncover this sooner or later.

Scientists have uncovered it.

@uberbatman: I know that you are not as ignorant as you sometimes act, and I hope someday you develop the ability to understand that not everyone’s experiences in life have been exactly like your own.

I would warn against gross generalizations and blanket statements. That said, the small number of people that I have known who chronically smoke pot as mature adults (having made it through the college phase) are not the most impressive of individuals, either emotionally or professionally (I admit to bias since one of those individuals was my ex-husbnad).

I agree with syz

@Pork; who knows what your uncle might have been like had he not smoked for 40 years. It is difficult to do a double-blind study, unless he had a twin who didn’t inhale.

We’re all giving anecdotal examples so here’s mine.
I was married for a long time to someone who smoked nearly all the time. He went to treatment a couple of times but it never took: he would find himself mysteriously sitting in his dealer’s living room without remembering having gone there. It frustrated him, or he said it did, but it always happened.
When we went on trips outside the US, he couldn’t take weed with him and he didn’t know where to score. So he’d get straight. I never grasped this because he was always ostensibly straight in the first place. But we always thought it was utterly amazing how well got along when we were traveling. (BTW, because it was an issue, I gave up smoking as a sort of support behavior. What a waste.)
Anyway, he came down with lung cancer and stopped smoking because his lungs didn’t need the stress. He was straight for about eight months. Everyone who loved him or even knew him thought he’d turned some kind of emotional corner and become the most wonderful person. And he really was. He was funny, brave, decisive, articulate, and adult – a mensch.
But when he was stoned: sorry. He was paranoid, touchy,
unmotivated, illogical, unreasonable and depressed. I loved him dearly – but he was
not his best self.
Just saying.

In follow up, it is my experience that those who are chronic smokers seem to halt or slow their emotional development, which is admittedly a subjective thing to determine from outside observation. From what I’ve seen, many chronic heads have rich intellectual lives while being very adolescent emotionally. I do see a connection when the use moves from medicinal to habitual or escapist… and part of the escaping is often from responsibility. It may not be that there is an actual emotional effect on the person, but it sure seems like a shirking of responsibility is a pattern behaviorally, regardless of the emotional ramifications. Thanks for all the responses!
QH