The importance of knowledge If you want to talk about stimulants effectively and sensibly it is important that you have the right basic knowledge about them. Knowledge can take away unfounded fear. Lots of people believe that smoking marijuana automatically leads to dependency on hard drugs. This is absolutely not the case. The word addiction, used in a general sense, often leads to all kinds of misunderstandings.
People can also be addicted to food or work for instance.
Physical dependency means that a person's body adjusts to a substance that the person uses intensively. Without that substance the body no longer functions prperly. When the substance is withheld, different kinds of withdrawal systoms bnegin to surface such as fever or nausea. The use of certain substances has to be progressive in order to achieve the same effect. Physical dependency and tolerance are both determined to a large extent by the stimulant and not the user.