[jmdeon]

I'm with you here. I think talking about both is important but its a false dichotomy.

I would classify "psychologically addictive" as something that makes a little voice in my head go "do that thing again" and is mainly driven by the speed at which an action(drug or not) receives a physiological response in my body. If I take a hit of a weed vape I feel it so fast that my psychological addiction gets triggered more easily. Whereas when I eat a weed edible the response takes so long that the little voice in my head doesn't say, "eat another one". Unless I eat one every day then that little voice becomes stronger over time.

I can do either of those things one time and only experience the acute withdrawal.

I would classify "physical addiction" as a habit where cessation causes a lengthy (not acute) withdrawal period, caused by some type of brain changes like receptor degrowth because of over-agonization or whatever. I think we qualify ones that have worse withdrawal as more physically addictive. As some have already pointed out, alcohol withdrawal can make you dead and opiate withdrawal can make you wish you were, so we consider these very physically addictive. THC withdrawals exist, but they are so minor when compared to death or opiate-withdrawal hell that we consider it not very physically addictive.

An extreme example: Someone could spike my coffee with opiates every day for a year without me knowing, slowly increasing the dose so I'm not too messed up. I would be physically addicted but have no psychological addiction.

[omginternets]

That’s fair. I cringe at the linguistic abuse that is “physiological vs psychological”, if that’s how we’re defining things, but I guess that’s “just” semantics. [0]

To reiterate an important point you make: if we’re going with those definitions, then the only difference between the two is one of quantity. In both cases, physiological effects of the drug are driving the addiction, mediated by behaviors that emerge in response to changes in physiology. So again, the qualitative difference is only the one that emerges from a vast difference in quantity.

I’d also insist that we recognize some of the very-physiological withdrawal symptoms experienced by at least some cannabis users, e.g. sleep disruption…

[0] Part of my reason for asking this question initially is because I’m convinced this is not mere semantics, but rather a linguistic game that people play to argue that cannabis has zero meaningful addictive potential. I find that to be disingenuous.

P.S.: I hope it’s obvious to everyone that I’m not bashing cannabis use in general. Hell, I appreciate the occasional joint.