“The science is crystal clear here. We have a large database across the world that shows when you start smoking cannabis there’s roughly a 9 percent chance you’ll get addicted to it. When you drink alcohol, or start smoking cigarettes, or start using cocaine, that chance gets a little higher. But 9 percent is not zero…
The neurobiological data shows it affects the same exact brain regions as a lot of other addictive substances. But there are also the human stories. It’s the people who come into our offices, emergency rooms, and hospitals, and it’s very clear: they have the same condition of addiction as someone has with alcohol or cocaine…
When we look at national surveys, we estimate that maybe 6 to 8 percent of the entire country may have a harmful or addictive relationship with cannabis. That may seem like a low number — and it’s lower than tobacco or alcohol — but it’s certainly a lot higher than cocaine, opiates, or heroin, and I think that’s the real shocking part.”
Feb. 13, 2018
Timothy Fong, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California at Los Angeles, stated the following in a Feb. 13, 2018 interview with Randy Robinson for an article titled "Marijuana under the Microscope: A Conversation with UCLA's Cannabis Research Initiative," available at merryjane.com :