How Pot is Smoked Affects Addiction Risk: Study

How marijuana is smoked has proved far more influential in whether or not a smoker with develop an addiction, compared to volume or potency of the marijuana, according to a new study.

No drug comes without risks, claims lead author of the study, Peggy van der Pol, of the Trimbos Institute of the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction.

Past studies and sociological observation have indicated that while marijuana use does not lead to a physiological-dependency based addiction -- like seen with nicotine and even caffeine -- regular use of the drug does come with the risk of an emotional dependency -- like seen with food addiction or even alcohol abuse.

According to the study, which was published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal Addiction, researchers have debated for decades whether smokers of more potent and pure varieties of cannabis risk an increased risk of developing an addiction. Researchers from the Netherlands sought to find out if they could prove or disprove this theory once and for all.

To do this, the research team analyzed data on 89 young men and women taking part in a different and ongoing long-term study of marijuana use in the Netherlands, where recreational marijuana use is legal. Each of the participants reported smoking marijuana at least three days a week for a minimum of the last 12 months. The participants were 23 years old on average.

The participants were then asked to bring their own cannabis, roll their own joints, and smoke under observation of the research team.

Interestingly, the observation found that potent pot smothers rolled thicker joints packed with more cannabis, compared to the smokers who smoked marijuana with less THC -- the ingredient in marijuana that determines the intensity of a high. The smokers of potent high-THC marijuana were also found to smoke slower than their peers and inhaled less smoke.

After follow up observations of three years, the team was able to determine some surprising things. Total monthly exposure to THC, determined by potency of marijuana and frequency of use, did indicate dependency but did not seem to affect it. Rather, these factors seems to be consequences of dependency.

Smoking habits however, particularly how many puffs a smoker took in once sitting and how much of a joint they wound up smoking did predict dependence at the three-year follow up, indicating that smoking habits may lead to addiction more than anything else.

The study was published in Addiction on march 16.